The Goddess of Groove
By Mad Royal
People get into music for different reasons. For some, it’s just a good way to meet members of the opposite sex (or the same sex, for that matter), or to make friends, to find a sense of belonging. For many, music is a healing experience. For others, it’s an all-consuming passion, something the person was born to do. For a few, it’s a way of making money. For some, a combination of some or all of those things.
Most of the musicians I know have been playing music since childhood. Some had music lessons as children, some were privileged to have music programs in school, some were largely self-taught. It is rare that you find someone who picks up his instrument for the first time when he is well into his adulthood.
Such is the case with Rick Munoz, founder of Code Blues. Although he and his longtime band sidekick, Craig Louis Dingman, both grew up in Oxnard (although they didn’t meet until they moved to the Central Coast), their stories diverge there. When Craig was 12 or 13, he went along with a friend to lessons at a guitar store, and decided to learn how to play the guitar. The instruction was very rudimentary; they learned such classics as “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star”, but it was a start. Craig went to high school in Napa at the Christian Brothers novitiate to take religious training. The Beatles invaded the USA in his freshman year, but he was not able to listen to them until the summer. You see, the students were allowed to play rock and roll, but not to listen to it. His band, the Corsas, named after a Chevy, played mostly surf music, such as the Beach Boys and Jan and Dean, show tunes, along the lines of Barbra Streisand (which they were allowed to listen to). Craig taught himself to play the Chuck Berry double-stops.
Craig spent his first year of college in Israel. “I don’t think I really knew where Israel was or what it was, I just saw one of those ads.” There was a party to welcome the American students, and an American had been hired to play bluegrass. He was being heckled by some of the Israelis, and someone said something like “If you can do better, get up here yourself.” Craig stepped up with his guitar for his very first solo performance, with Glen Campbell’s “Gentle on My Mind. “It made me proud to be an American,” he says.
Back in the US, Craig attended Pierce College in Woodland Hills, and played bass in a band that mostly catered to frat parties, with an occasional bar gig after fake IDs were obtained. He classifies the drive to perform as a “lifelong disease with dormant periods”, He loved pop music which you could listen to at high-end clubs like the Troubadour, or lower-end places like Club 88 or Madame Wong’s.
Eventually, Craig got married, and moved to the Central Coast in 1988. During a power outage, he met an older man named Jimmy Collins, who asked him if he knew what “1, 3, 4, 5” meant, and Craig said he knew it had to do with chord progressions. That was his introduction to the blues. He was in a several band which played at the different lodges, “All the animals,” Craig says, “Moose, Elks, Eagles, etc.” They performed mostly country rock and blues. The bands were Ricochet, Brand X Cowboys, and Bay and the Breakers. Rick Munoz joined Bay and the Breakers in the late 90’s, where he met Craig.
Rick Munoz’s father grew up with eleven brothers. They played various instruments, such as guitar, and trumpet, and there was always mariachi music around the house. Although Rick’s older brother and sister learned to play the piano, saxophone, and clarinet, they lost interest. “By the time I came around, my parents decided not to ‘waste’ money on music lessons for me.” It wasn’t until a divorce in his mid-thirties that Rick turned to music, for consolation. When he was 39, Rick was at Boo Boo records. The salesman offered to help him find something. Rick described what was going through in his life, and the man said, “You got the blues!” He gave him a record of Charlie Musselwhite. Rick took it home, and fell in love with the various sounds coming out of the harmonica, and all the passion. It helped him to heal, so he bought himself two harmonicas for his fortieth birthday. He went to see Kay Bohler at one point, and she invited him up on stage.
In 1994, Rick formed the band Code Blues. He was working as an X-ray tech, the guitarist was an ER nurse, and both the bass player and drummer were respiratory therapists, all at French Hospital in San Luis Obispo. “Code Blue is the revival of someone back to life, and that is what the blues is about, all that pain and passion, and it reflected what was going on in my life: a revival.” Rick shelved the band in 1997, until around 2001, when Craig and Rick left Bay and the Breakers to reform Code Blues, taking along with them brothers Wayne and Bruce Stach. Through the years, they have had many great players pass through the ranks, such as Bruce Krupnik, Rick Pittman, Gary Steinmann, Leo “The Glove”, and Geert de Lange. Their current lineup includes John Paul Stinson on drums, who has been with them for two years. Craig says of John that he has a true music education, so he helps keep the group disciplined. Rick adds that John has a beautiful voice, and he encourages him to take the mike for at least a song or two. Latest to join Code Blues is Frank Straub on bass, who recently moved to the Central Coast from France, and was discovered at the Blues Masters Jam by their booking agent. The Blues Masters Jam, incidentally, was created by Craig Dingman, who is also a solo artist in his own right, often performing at Steve Key’s Songwriters at Play showcases. Craig has become the front man for Code Blues, with other vocals by Rick Munoz, and John Paul Stinson.
When you go to a Code Blues concert, Craig hopes that you are entertained, both in an “aural and rhythmic fashion”, i.e., you like what you hear and it moves you to dance, and has a light-hearted approach. Rick would like you to feel the passion and the pain that he expresses with his harmonica, and he feels that people connect with those feelings through the blues tempo. They strive to put on a professional, tight show which is appropriate to the venue. I think they do a mighty fine job.
Code Blues has two shows this week: On Friday, January 23 they will perform a free show at the Shell Café in Pismo Beach from 7 p.m. to 1 p.m. On Saturday, January 24, they will be opening for the Sugaray Rayford Band at the SLO Blues Society Dance at the Vets Hall in San Luis Obispo. The show starts at 8 p.m. Tickets are $20 for Blues Society members and $25 for the general public.