Cotton Blues Band

George Bryan wrote: COTTON: I don’t remember the year it started, but I moved to Colorado and was followed shortly thereafter by Dave and Cid. We formed Cotton in Ft. Collins, Colorado and after a few false starts with some folks, got a strong 4 piece together with Gary Reeves on bass, Dave Trupp on drums, Jim Cidlik on organ and vocals, George Bryan on lead, slide and vocals. After an iteration with two drummers and a chick singer, and several 2nd guitarists that didn’t work out and a harp player, we decided we would stick with one guitar and add horns, so we got Vaughn Quimby (sax from Oklahoma) and Gene Newman (trumpet). We were saying we needed another singer and Vaughn said “I know a guy”. The result was Doug Duffey came to join the band, and I met someone who became instantly one of my best friends for life. Until he could get his lady Lorna out to Colorado and get a place, I moved him in with me in my purple house in the foothills. We opened in Lincoln, Nebraska for Muddy Waters and played a lot of venues in Colorado and Nebraska for a while, but eventually drugs blew the band apart. Doug talked to me about going to Arkansas. I had never lived in the South………been enamored of it for years…..and was really tired of snow. I decided to go to Little Rock to join Barbara Porter and Little Rock.
Doug Duffey wrote: i was not doing drugs then; i was channeling bessie smith at the time, thinking i had to drink a water glass full of gin before going onstage...and the whole 5th before the night was finished! we were doing some serious blues. opening for Muddy Waters was a real life experience! seeing him/the band backstage later, smoking and drinking whiskey, and playing poker was a 'kodak moment' stamped n my head. i don't remember a lot; maybe Cid and Trupp should chime in. [c]2009 doug duffey