Willie Dixon and the Blues--One of the Last From the Past

Willie Dixon has walked the Earth for 73 years, been a professional musician for nearly 50 of those and been one of the prime movers of the blues for nearly 40.

Yet it’s 1988-89 that is looking like Willie Dixon’s prime season--at least as far as recognition is concerned.

“I’m getting more attention than I ever got in my life,” a gratified Dixon said this week, sitting in the living room of the Glendale house he’s shared with his extended family since moving from Chicago in 1982.

A sparkling new album, “Hidden Charms”--the first featuring his singing in many years--was recently released by the new Capitol-distributed Bug records label. MCA has just released a boxed set of songs that Dixon performed and/or wrote for the legendary Chess label in the ‘40s, ‘50s and ‘60s. Early next year, Dixon’s autobiography, “I Am the Blues: The Willie Dixon Story,” will be published in England.

He’s even been getting calls to do on-camera television commercial work lately. (You might remember him discussing “ blues -berrys” for the Giant supermarket chain last year, and he’s recently filmed spots for Coke and Nabisco.)

Tonight he will be one of the figures showcased at the National Academy of Songwriters’ annual “Salute to the American Songwriter.” The show also will include appearances by Los Lobos (who will back Dixon, along with the bluesman’s 13-year-old pianist grandson, Alex), Brian Wilson and Jimmy Webb, as well as the first performance in 10 years by Carole King, who will then be given a special lifetime achievement award along with her ex-husband and writing partner Gerry Goffin.

Why all the attention now ?

“Guess they figure, ‘Better do something quick before the history gets away from us and we can’t get it from the horse’s mouth,’ ” he said.

It does seem that those historical horses are leaving the barn with increasing regularity. With the likes of Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters and, most recently, Memphis Slim having passed on, Dixon is one of a few remaining survivors of the fertile Chicago-centered blues scene of the ‘50s and ‘60s. With the resurgence of interest in the blues, many of the newly curious are turning to Dixon.

“They’re really digging up my past,” he said in a scratchy but assured voice. “And luckily it’s a pretty clean past.”

As they dig, they’re quickly discovering that Dixon’s historical value far transcends his simply being one of the last left from that past. Wolf, Waters and Slim--not to mention such still-alive rockers as Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry--may be more familiar names among those who worked for Chess, but many of the most famous recordings with those names on them had Dixon’s writing and/or producing hand behind them.

“Wang Dang Doodle” . . . “Hoochie Coochie Man” . . . “Little Red Rooster”. . . . They’re all Dixon songs.

But he insists he carries no resentment that others got most of the fame for his work.

“All my life I’ve been taught there’s good and bad in everything,” he said, remembering his Vicksburg, Miss., childhood. “Where I came from, I felt I was lucky if I had a chance to get out of town. But since then, I’ve been all over the world, and I don’t think I’d have been able to do some of the things I’ve done if I’d been famous and wealthy. A poor man gets the real McCoy. A rich man gets what he can pay for. It’s like I said in one song: I’ve enjoyed things kings and queens can’t. . . . I’ve done things they don’t believe exist. That’s why I want to get this book out.”

Despite his lack of public recognition over the years, since the mid-’60s he’s been very much a guru for aspiring blues and rock musicians. One young group that made a pilgrimage to his Chicago studio back then was the Rolling Stones, who recorded “Little Red Rooster” and other Dixon songs.

The irony is that Dixon has little recollection of working with Mick and Keith and the boys--though they were already well on their way to stardom at the time.

“There were so many people who came by my house back then,” he said. “If it wasn’t for my kids saying, ‘This is so-and-so,’ I wouldn’t know who they were. I heard some of that music ‘cause my kids played it. But I don’t know who got the big record or the little record.

“When you meet people, you got to meet them all alike. Don’t matter which one’s a star or not.”

LIVE ACTION: Kid Creole and the Coconuts will be at the Palace on Dec. 30 and then the following night as part of a 12-hour New Year’s Eve ball. . . . Also on New Year’s Eve will be Brenda Russell at the Strand. . . . Johnny Winter and John Mayall share a bill at the Palace on Dec. 13. . . . Joe Satriani will play the Wiltern on Dec. 29. . . . Tonio K. and Sam Phillips will be at McCabe’s on Dec. 17.