THE BALLAD OF T. HARVEY

Thomas Harvey came to Alaska to sing his blues.

As a traveling one-man act, toting his guitar and harmonica across the Southern Baptist belt, he had done the southeast Texas thing. He’d crossed over to Louisiana a few times, made somewhat of a mark in the Carolinas and up north in Chicago, but none of his geographics seemed to spell out success for the vagabond blues artist.

“I grew up in Orange, Texas, down by the river in this bayou kind of town,” Harvey said. “It was very redneck.”

Like many ambitious youngsters wanting out of the sticks, Harvey did the college thing in Austin, at the University of Texas, and tried to find his niche. He found journalism, figuring it would spice up his cravings to write.

“Well, I did a bunch of things, actually,” he said. “Eventually I did a lot of work in Beaumont, Texas with advertising. But I’m not much of a suit guy.”

It was music Harvey wanted. With an ear for hard rock, country and blues standards, Harvey said he began to nurture his own musical talents at an early age by copying his favorites.

“It was always there,” he said. “I knew as a little boy I’d be a musician in some sort, some day. My mother was a musician and voice coach who taught kids at our home every day after school. She really raised us all to be musicians.”

Harvey said his interest in playing an instrument prompted him to pick up the baritone, which he played quite well, he said, but soon came to realize not many baritone players were making the covers of Rolling Stone Magazine.

“I was very heavily into brass instruments,” he said. “But, hello, they’re not used in band gigs, so I put down the baritone and picked up the harmonica.”

Harmonica in hand, Harvey realized he needed money like any other young struggling artist with little experience, so he jumped in wherever her could.

His family owned a business, producing degreasers, so Harvey picked up his gloves and began mixing toxic chemicals, which would later cause lasting damage to his health.

“I didn’t wear the masks,” he said. “It was me and my dad dumping all this crud and I’d go home with horrible inflammation, from the mouth to the other end. It was pretty horrible.”

After Harvey’s mother died of cancer in his late 20s, he started thinking about his music more and how he could begin to make something out of his amateur talents.

“I wasn’t much of a practicer,” he said “But I did start playing guitar and harmonica for a guy named Poncho and played some music gigs.”

The result was the birth of Harvey’s first musical endeavor in 1991 called the Sabine River Authority, a group of amateur buddies in Orange, Texas jamming in what he calls a “bad blues country band.”

“What it did was open up my love for playing gigs. We played everywhere in Texas, from Bridge City, Beaumont, Orange, all the way up to Vinton, La. These were real small places, but we ended up playing picnics and late night events like biker rallies. It was crazy stuff. Well, I’m still doing it now that I think about it.”

After just a year, Harvey said playing with Sabine River Authority wasn’t quite right for his tastes. He knew if he was to make it on his own, he needed more talent and a gimmick. Realizing all great American blues and rock artists had stage monikers, Harvey came up with a few of his own, including “Texas Blues Hippy” and “21st Century Bluesman.” They didn’t stick.

“I wanted to be a bluesman,” he said, “so I took on the name ‘T. Harvey,’ in honor of my mother’s maiden name.”

He continued band work in Austin, Greenville, S.C. and Chicago before taking on the blues club circuit in Oklahoma City with some of his ragtime friends as the T. Harvey Combo.

As happy as he should have been, playing his brand of music, Harvey was still lost.

In the winter of 2007, T. Harvey visited Alaska from Oklahoma City, to see a friend and check out the local music scene. Amazed with the frigid climate and warm culture, a light bulb went off for Harvey.

“I knew this would be a really good place to play music,” he said. “I was hooked.”

Harvey packed up his harmonicas and guitars and moved to the Mat-Su Valley where he started doing shows.

Instead of trying to dazzle the locals with his down-South originals, for his playlist he chose music people knew and loved: Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Bob Seger, ZZ Top, Jefferson Airplane, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Garth Brooks and on and on.

He booked gigs at Settlers Bay Lodge in Wasilla and bars around town, learning covers of songs as he went along.

“It’s been a beautiful move,” he said. “Leaving Oklahoma, that’s worth gold right there.”

Full-time marketing of his one-man band has been at the top of Harvey’s priorities since day one. Now living in Palmer, Harvey said he’s never short of ideas of where he can book gigs, play to crowds and pay his rent at the end of the week.

Palmer’s Moosehead Saloon, Klondike Mike’s, Vagabond Blues, the Tonsina River Lodge in Copper River, and Blues Central in Anchorage all have become second homes to Harvey’s talents. He has also been busy working towards playing the Blue Bonnet and Borealis stages at the Alaska State Fair this summer and gigs at Great Bear Brewing Company and Anchorage’s Saturday Market.

Recently, his Karaoke-style talents have become a favorite at Palmer’s Moosehead Saloon, where crowds pour in to see the vagabond bluesman from Texas play classics from his song list, such as “Susie Q,” “Helter Skelter,” “White Rabbit,” and a handful of his own rock, country and blues originals.

Although Harvey hasn’t hit the big time performing his one-man show, he said he is just fine where he is today: Surrounded by the beauty of Alaska’s mountains and playing the music he loves.

“I’m a singer, everything else is props,” Harvey said. “I just like to sing, it blows my mind that people will let me sing for them. I’ll sing just about anything. I’m not one of these guys who will play my list. I always feel that if I can keep bikers and frat boys happy, then I’ve done a good job.”

Harvey said he follows the example of one of his icons, Stevie Ray Vaughn, by playing other people’s classic songs before introducing his own brand of blues-country-rock to the world.

“Stevie covered tunes that made him who he is today,” he said. “You have to earn the right to write your own music. Playing my originals won’t pay the bills. If I can breathe new life into songs like ‘Watchtower,’ people will come out embrace it. I call it time traveling.”

Harvey said today he has 170 to 200 songs he plays that he feels he does justice too. He lets the audience pick them at most of his shows, distributing his song lists at all his gigs like Karaoke.

“I always joke that there are at least two of us in the room that want to hear the song at the beginning. It works better when people pick the music.”

His next plan of action will be releasing a CD of his own material, but is content for now playing in the growing Mat-Su Valley music scene.

After 14 years of living off his one-man show, T. Harvey is ready to build his name �” and will fight to make it happen.

“I haven’t been on the mountain top in the long time,” he said. “Alaska’s been good to me so far. I think I’ll hang around and see what happens.”

Check out T. Harvey’s one-man blues show at 9 p.m. every Friday at the Moosehead Saloon in Palmer. The T. Harvey Combo blues band will take the stage at the Moosehead on June 14, later at the Great Bear Brewing Company on July 1.

Contact J.J. Harrier at valleylife@frontiersman.com.