What a cat! – Remembering blues icon Tabby Thomas

Baton Rouge blues lost a legend at the start of 2014. Ernest “Tabby” Thomas died early New Year’s Day. The blues musician was 84 years old.

The longtime musician was perhaps most known for opening Tabby’s Blues Box and Heritage Hall in Baton Rouge in the late 1970s. The venue started on North Boulevard, then moved to Lafayette Street in 2000. The Blues Box closed in 2004 after Thomas suffered a stroke. Under new ownership, the Blues Room was opened last year at the former location of Tabby’s long-standing venue.

For years Tabby’s Blues Box proved to be the stomping grounds for up-and-comers and veterans alike. On any given night, locals could see and hear the likes of Henry Gray, Larry Garner, Gregg Wright or Lil Ray Neal performing up close and personal.

“It was our inner-city blues roadhouse,” Johnny Palazzotto, local music promoter, says. “Tabby’s Blues Box was the real thing, and so was he.”

Tab Benoit, a blues guitarist and songwriter from Houma, says Tabby’s Blues Box and Heritage Hall was the best place to play at the beginning of his career.

“Seems like everybody I know would tell me, That was the blues club,'” Benoit says. “When I was starting, all I heard around here was, You’ve got to go to Tabby’s. That’s where people play and listen to the blues.'”

At the Blues Box, Benoit played guitar for “Tabby” Thomas’ band and eventually landed the weekly Sunday night gig and a slot playing at Jazz Fest alongside Thomas.

“When he got on the stage, everybody looked and listened,” Benoit says. “He was a real bluesman. He had this big character. There were never any dull moments. I never got bored hanging and talking with him.”

Thomas was one of the first to encourage Benoit to get out there and play the blues.

“I wasn’t getting a lot of encouragement at the time,” Benoit says. “He told me to come play at his club. I’m grateful for that. He’s always got a special place in my heart.”

Though the blues club was Thomas’ claim to fame, his style as a musician was second to none.

Reuben Williams, a former manager and longtime friend, says Thomas was one of the most original guitar players and songwriters to come out of Louisiana.

“[Thomas’] sound was so original,” Williams says. “It was this mix of ’50s-style music and a little bit of that swamp pop sound that Baton Rouge has. It was a style that nobody was touching.”

Maxine Crump, a founding member of the Baton Rouge Blues Foundation and CEO/President of Dialogue on Race Louisiana, says that when Thomas played, audiences knew he understood the deeper messages of the blues.

“Tabby treated blues like a gift he could share, and that he did,” Crump says. “They don’t make many like Tabby. He was such a staple of the blues that it was easy to take him for granted. But we have come to recognize that Tabby’s swamp blues is a gift he gave to all of us and for which I am certainly grateful.”

Thomas grew up in Old South Baton Rouge. He went to school and played football at McKinley High. He was married to his wife Jocelyn for more than 50 years. She passed away in 2005.

He is survived by eight children and 20 grandchildren. His son, Chris Thomas King, is a Grammy-winning musician and actor who has appeared in O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Ray.