One of the most talented alumni of Singapore's sixties R&B/blues scene, guitarist Jimmy Appudurai-Chua now lives in London, but he sometimes gets wooed back to Singapore for blues festivals or reunions with his old band, The Straydogs -- arguably the first "serious" Singaporean blues band. Much of that seriousness came straight from Jimmy, who derailed the band from any hippie/psychedelic inclinations and stubbornly pushed for more twelve-bars. Relying on Jimmy's heavy fretwork and Ronnie Kriekenbeek's harp, The Straydogs became notorious for sneaking blues numbers into their tea-dance gigs around town.

Jimmy had originally started out with The Meltones, a local pop band, before moving on to the British R&B band The Motif and then (in 1968) The Straydogs. Half the battle was actually finding blues records; import Chess releases weren't available yet on the local market, so Jimmy tapped the next best source: the British military bases in Singapore. At the base camps he found not only the records, but hangouts, future gigs, and musicians who played blues. When it comes to Jimmy's character, I always go back to a story he e-mailed me about how he stumbled into a stack of blues records in a warehouse in Singapore over thirty years ago. His version of the blues has always been more about discovery than bragging rights.

The Straydogs recorded three singles for EMI (which either sold well or tanked, depending on whom you talk to), and the band split shortly after the last single was released in 1971. According to bassist Dennis Lim, had Jimmy stuck around in Singapore, the Straydogs would have kept going through the seventies. But Jimmy decided to give up music cold turkey, and to make his point clear he gave away his collection of guitars and amps to friends and relatives. ("Worth a fortune if I'd kept them all," he told me with a laugh in 1998.)

Jimmy's comeback began in 1985 at a club in Hong Kong, where he was coaxed into picking up the guitar again by none other than Chris Vadham, a fellow veteran of the sixties rock scene. Vadham, who was playing a gig there, spotted his old friend in the crowd and promptly invited him to jam. It was a turning point for Jimmy -- he realized he still had it. Back in England, he nudged himself back into the blues jams, which eventually led to some rewarding encounters with Alexis Korner, John Mayall, Shakey Vick, and Steve Winwood.

Singaporeans got to hear Jimmy play again in the 1990s. Besides a few Straydogs reunion gigs at the the Anywhere Bar & Lounge, there were Jimmy's memorable appearances with Siva Choy & Crossroads at the 1996 and 1997 Singapore Blues Festivals. The Straydogs legacy also got a good dusting off in 1994 with the re-release (on CD) of their recorded A-sides by BigO magazine. Jimmy remains humble about his music, but he's still much too good to let him go quietly.

"Some love to play, while others have to be pampered to do the same. I can't understand why. In my days, blues were loathed at, as well as the few of us who were struggling to spread what we thought was good music, where one can express the inner soul (and frustration) by pretending to be somewhere else, to make a noise that is sweet to us, to boost our own adrenalin to do things, to stand tall, and most of all to have a damn good time. That was our blues . . .

"The first time I knew that I wanted to play this sort of music was when a guy called George Fisher (he was a Corporal in the Royal Air Force Guard Unit) introduced an album called Five Live Yardbirds, and another called Sonny Boy Williamson with the Yardbirds. These were then followed by Cheap Ace of Clubs records featuring Alexis Korner, Graham Bond, Jack Bruce and John Mayall. Before that I was listening to The Ventures, The Shadows, Elvis, and Ricky Nelson. Yes, I was inducted upside down through the British rhythm-and-blues. It was through these records that I started to find out where they got their material from. I had also enjoyed The Rolling Stones and actually met all of them in Singapore, and still have with me all their autographs, including Brian Jones and their old manager Andrew Oldham.

"My first task was to find out who distributed Sonny Boy Williamson. To my surprise, the records were all there in Singapore, at a place called Cosdel and we actually had a friend working in that company. We were told that these records were not going to be distributed and they were not suitable for selling in the region. They were Chess records! Originals from Muddy Waters to Sonny Boy were all there. I bought the whole lot and spent the next few years listening to them. They were my bible in sound, and even though all the vinyls were misplaced years later (my good mother gave them all away since I left Singapore and she was immigrating to the States) I have a good enough collection here to soothe my aches and pains when I need them and still love them."

-- Jimmy Appudurai-Chua (December 6, 1997)