Lady Dottie Sings the Blues

Dorothy Mae Whitsett has been singing the blues for six decades. San Diego just might be her band’s stairstep to stardom.

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THAT IDEA OF TAKING OFF clings to aspiring music acts like a funny smell in the tour van. In an arts-related industry where job security has no direct translation, the hit album and the big contract (golden chance, the mother lode) represent the great promise that underlies so much tiring, constant and underappreciated work. Chance is great, the Diamonds say, just like starving for art . . . when you’re young.

Cantrell and Rey are on the back side of their 30s, and Guevara has now outlived Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendricks and Kurt Cobain by several years. These are no spring chickens. Astute students of the industry, they talk of their window of opportunity, the couple of short years they have to make something happen—to get signed or broaden the fan base—before saturation sets in and the inevitable withering of popularity.

For Rey, the band’s quasi-manager, that means establishing Lady Dottie in other markets. The act’s presence was beefed up in the L.A. area with the gig at the Viper Room; San Francisco has been another main target. The idea is to take pressure (and the risk of overplay) off the local following. For Cantrell and Guevara, the drive is to put out an album of original music. Livin’ It Up, their first studio album, being released in September, adds five original songs to the band’s long list of covers.

“I think they’re selling themselves short,” Halloran says. “They can saturate this market, in San Diego, but they can’t saturate the country. They could tour the whole of the U.S. and people would come out in droves to see them once they realize what they are: the chance for you, average Joe human being, to go back in time and witness something that was happening in American bars and clubs years ago with roving R&B bands and on street corners in places like St. Louis, Chicago and Detroit, back in the day.”

ONE OF THE CHALLENGES in generating original work is finding time to get the band together. Guevara (who’s been clean and sober for more than a year) entertains two side projects, is looking to buy a house and will soon be getting married. Cantrell is involved with Royal Campaign, another popular act, adding to the numerous side gigs he does to pay the bills. Dirty Sweet keeps Beale so busy—including periodic tours in Europe and the States—that he needs a stand-in, Isaiah Mitchell (a local guitar prodigy who is, himself, busy with outside projects) just to keep the Diamonds’ shows fully manned. Rey somehow finds time to make all the band’s gigs in addition to his own projects, single fatherhood, home ownership and a second job tending bar at the Turf Club in Golden Hill.

But lest anyone think the maturing Diamonds run the risk of losing touch with the boisterous roots of their rock ’n’ roll heritage, it should be noted it was only a couple of short years ago that Guevara played matador on the 405. That event, in fact, was the tumultuous climax of a day (and an execrable show) that altered the band’s path. The Diamonds had landed another fat corporate gig at a mansion in Malibu, the kind where the players are expected to wear suits.

Mitchell, the guitar prodigy, was sitting in that day, as well as local drummer Richard “T-Bone” Larson. Guevara, the frenetic stage presence, was still drinking at the time. (One of the most natural front-men in town, he says that for years he felt pressure to live up to the irascible rock ’n’ roll image.) The band had its own tent, behind the main stage, and was warned not to talk to guests, imbibe at the bar or petition the audience for drinks. Within minutes of arriving, Guevara, Mitchell and Larson, clad in jeans and T-shirts, had chatted up half the crowd and were on their way to drinking the bar dry. The band was asked to leave early, and security tossed its equipment in a pile by the curb (it was the last corporate gig the band has done).

Hours later, on the drive home, a roadside rest stop turned into one of the most harrowing post-gig absurdities Lady Dottie has witnessed: Guevara, straddling the center line, facing down 80-mile-an-hour oncoming traffic, while Larson and Mitchell jeered him on.

“Nobody wants to be a whore to corporate jobs,” Rey says, “but you’ve got to be able to play—and hopefully for decent money—while you’re building the band. Those gigs would be nice to have.”

Guevara sees things differently.

“It’s the type of artist you are,” he says. “You’re either gonna think about your wallet and how much ass you’re gonna kiss in order to fill it up, or you’re gonna do what you’re gonna do and be yourself and not let anybody tell you to tuck your shirt in.

“We’re not gonna kiss anybody’s ass. I’m not gonna look down on anybody who has to do that because they have mouths to feed at home, but we’re not into it to . . . We don’t have to do that. And so we’re not going to . . . not right now. Hopefully not ever.”

Whitsett, true to her part, seems oblivious when asked about the mess at the mansion—then says she wishes the boys wouldn’t have spoiled an otherwise lucrative gig. Asked about the fine line separating selling out and a comfortable living, she rolls her eyes, tacitly dismissing the statement as naïve. One man’s sellout is a few ounces of gold in another man’s hands.

For a woman who’s spent the past five decades in an apron, scrub brush in hand, the idea of actually living off her music is a reward in itself. She may not be making a killing, but Whitsett is comfortable—and for an African-American product of the very world that spawned the blues a century ago, comfort’s a hell of a thing.

“Don’t tell no one,” she says with a conspiratorial glance around, “but I’m happy as a pig in shit.”

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