Biography
An inventive trumpeter, bandleader, and composer/arranger, Calvin Owens served for years as musical director across B.B. King’s touring ensembles before forming and fronting his own groups from the late 1990s onward. Born April 23, 1929, he was raised in Houston’s Fifth Ward, the area locals called Sawdust Alley on account of a nearby sawmill. After listening to his mother, who had grown up in New Orleans, recount stories of Louis Armstrong, Owens resolved to master the trumpet and took a job at a neighborhood bowling alley to purchase his first instrument. At age thirteen he began receiving lessons, at twenty-five cents each, from Houston trumpeter Charles “Papa Charlie” Lewis.
During high school a dedicated band director, Sammy Harris, recognized the teenager’s promise and advanced him to student director while encouraging him to consider leading a school ensemble one day. Following graduation from Wheatley High School and several seasons working Houston’s thriving blues-club circuit, Owens boarded B.B. King’s tour bus in 1953. He remained with King’s orchestra for four years, then returned home intending to complete studies at Texas Southern University. Those plans gave way to steady club work and a daytime position at the local Maxwell House Coffee plant that supported his family while leaving evenings free for music. In 1978 he rejoined King’s road organization, logging two hundred nights a year until 1984.
When Owens first turned professional around Houston, trumpet players typically handled the solos; only after entering King’s band in 1953 did he encounter a guitarist who soloed and grasped the instrument’s potential to anchor a group. Beyond Armstrong, he repeatedly named white trumpeter Harry James as a formative influence, drawn to both musicians through their film appearances during his teenage years in the predominantly African-American Fifth Ward. Over the course of his career Owens also performed with T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn, Big Joe Turner, Junior Parker, Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, and Otis Clay, as well as Texas saxophonists Arnett Cobb and David “Fathead” Newman.
During the 1980s he assembled his own band and made his home in Belgium, where his second wife lived. He moved back to Houston in 1997 and issued his debut album under his own name, Another Concept, which blended blues with jazz and rap elements. Subsequent releases on his Sawdust Alley imprint comprised True Blue, That’s Your Booty, Another Concept, The Best of Calvin Owens, and The House Is Burning. Of these, True Blue offers a clear survey of his trumpet vocabulary and features appearances by King, Copeland, and Newman; the title also reflected the nickname Arnett Cobb had bestowed on Owens years earlier in recognition of his unwavering commitment to blues trumpet. Though diagnosed with liver cancer in the mid-2000s, Owens kept performing and recording, joining saxophonist Evelyn Rubio on her album La Mujer que Canta Blues and releasing Houston Is the Place to Be in 2007. He died of kidney failure in Houston on February 21, 2008, at age seventy-eight.
During high school a dedicated band director, Sammy Harris, recognized the teenager’s promise and advanced him to student director while encouraging him to consider leading a school ensemble one day. Following graduation from Wheatley High School and several seasons working Houston’s thriving blues-club circuit, Owens boarded B.B. King’s tour bus in 1953. He remained with King’s orchestra for four years, then returned home intending to complete studies at Texas Southern University. Those plans gave way to steady club work and a daytime position at the local Maxwell House Coffee plant that supported his family while leaving evenings free for music. In 1978 he rejoined King’s road organization, logging two hundred nights a year until 1984.
When Owens first turned professional around Houston, trumpet players typically handled the solos; only after entering King’s band in 1953 did he encounter a guitarist who soloed and grasped the instrument’s potential to anchor a group. Beyond Armstrong, he repeatedly named white trumpeter Harry James as a formative influence, drawn to both musicians through their film appearances during his teenage years in the predominantly African-American Fifth Ward. Over the course of his career Owens also performed with T-Bone Walker, Amos Milburn, Big Joe Turner, Junior Parker, Johnny “Clyde” Copeland, and Otis Clay, as well as Texas saxophonists Arnett Cobb and David “Fathead” Newman.
During the 1980s he assembled his own band and made his home in Belgium, where his second wife lived. He moved back to Houston in 1997 and issued his debut album under his own name, Another Concept, which blended blues with jazz and rap elements. Subsequent releases on his Sawdust Alley imprint comprised True Blue, That’s Your Booty, Another Concept, The Best of Calvin Owens, and The House Is Burning. Of these, True Blue offers a clear survey of his trumpet vocabulary and features appearances by King, Copeland, and Newman; the title also reflected the nickname Arnett Cobb had bestowed on Owens years earlier in recognition of his unwavering commitment to blues trumpet. Though diagnosed with liver cancer in the mid-2000s, Owens kept performing and recording, joining saxophonist Evelyn Rubio on her album La Mujer que Canta Blues and releasing Houston Is the Place to Be in 2007. He died of kidney failure in Houston on February 21, 2008, at age seventy-eight.
Albums
