Papa John Creach (1917 to 1994) was a blues and jazz violinist who spent 35 years in bars, lounges, and dance halls before Jefferson Airplane hired him in 1970. He was 53. Over the next 24 years he played electric fiddle with Jefferson Airplane, Hot Tuna, and Jefferson Starship and cut a string of solo records. He died in Los Angeles at age 76.
Why Creach matters
Creach proved that a fiddle could front a loud rock band and hold its own against electric guitars. He did it with a horn player’s phrasing and a bluesman’s tone, not with fiddle tunes. Bluegrass players will find no breakdowns here, but they will find a lesson in cutting through a full band.
Life and career
Creach was born John Henry Creach on May 28, 1917, in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, one of ten children. He first picked up his uncle’s violin at age ten. The family moved to Chicago when he was about 18. There he studied with members of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and did some symphonic work in his early twenties. He switched to jazz because the money was better. He jammed with Stuff Smith, worked with Eddie South, and played a hotel chain’s cocktail lounges for six years with a trio called the Chocolate Music Bars.
In 1943 he bought a National electric violin and amplifier. He said nobody could drown it out. He moved to Los Angeles in 1945, spent five years playing on the Catalina steamer, and worked rhythm and blues jobs with Roy Milton, Big Joe Turner, and T-Bone Walker. He appeared with Nat King Cole in the Fritz Lang film The Blue Gardenia.
In 1970 drummer Joey Covington brought members of Jefferson Airplane to hear Creach at the Parisian Room in Los Angeles. Covington gave him the nickname Papa. That fall Creach joined both Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna. In 1971 he released Papa John Creach on the band’s Grunt label. His backing band Zulu included a young Keb’ Mo’. He left Hot Tuna in 1973 and stayed on when the Airplane became Jefferson Starship in 1974. He played on Dragon Fly (1974) and the platinum album Red Octopus (1975), then left in August 1975 to work solo.
From 1979 to 1984 he played in the San Francisco All-Stars, and from 1982 to 1989 in Dinosaurs. He was a regular guest at Charlie Daniels’s Volunteer Jams. In 1992 he rejoined the relaunched Jefferson Starship and recorded Papa Blues with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band. The Blues Foundation gave him a W.C. Handy Award in 1993. Creach died of heart failure in Los Angeles on February 22, 1994.
Playing style
Creach played an amplified violin from 1943 on, and the electric tone is the first thing you hear. He told the Los Angeles Times that a violinist coming out of a symphony sounds corny playing jazz, so he changed his bowing to sound like a horn. The result was short bursts of notes in the bebop manner, mixed with long slides up to the top of the fingerboard.
He had to learn German and Polish dance music in Chicago, and he said that range taught him to fit any band. With Jefferson Airplane he studied the records, picked the style that fit, and turned his amp up.
Influences and legacy
Creach came up beside Stuff Smith and Eddie South, the jazz violinists of 1930s Chicago. He heard Joe Venuti and Stéphane Grappelli on record after he had found his own way. He worked with Louis Armstrong, Fats Waller, and Charlie Christian.
Charlie Daniels put him on the early Volunteer Jam bills and on the Volunteer Jam III and IV and Volunteer Jam VI records. Those shows put Creach in front of Southern rock and country crowds who were ready for a fiddle.
Signature tunes and songs
The Janitor Drives a Cadillac Papa John’s Down Home Blues St. Louis Blues Over the Rainbow String Jet Rock Playing My Fiddle for You I’m the Fiddle Man.
Essential recordings
Papa John Creach (Grunt, 1971) Filthy! (Grunt, 1972) Playing My Fiddle for You, with Zulu (Grunt, 1974) I’m the Fiddle Man, with Midnight Sun (1975) Papa Blues, with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band (Bee Bump, 1992)
Awards and honors
W.C. Handy Award, Blues Foundation (1993)
Watch and listen
Creach plays John’s Other on The Midnight Special in the 1970s. Watch how he slides into the high register and lets the amp do the work.
Creach shares a stage with B.B. King and John Lee Hooker on Gettin’ It Together. Listen to how he answers the guitars.
What to learn from Creach
Learn St. Louis Blues from the 1971 Grunt album. It is a twelve-bar form every jam knows, and Creach plays it the way a horn player would. The technique to steal is his phrasing. Play a blues chorus with no fiddle-tune bowing, and put the notes in short groups with rests between them. Then slide into one high note per chorus and hold it. That is the Creach sound, and it works on an acoustic fiddle too.
Sources
Papa John Creach, Wikipedia ‘Papa’ John Creach; Violinist With the Jefferson Airplane, Los Angeles Times In Touch, in Tune: Papa John Creach Continues a Career That’s Ranged from Armstrong to the Airplane, Los Angeles Times Papa John Creach, Papa John Creach, Discogs Papa John Creach and Zulu, Playing My Fiddle for You, Discogs Papa John Creach with the Bernie Pearl Blues Band, Papa Blues, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the bluegrass fiddle guide for more players. Creach came out of the same jazz violin world as Joe Venuti, Stéphane Grappelli, and Claude “Fiddler” Williams. Charlie Daniels put him in front of country crowds at the Volunteer Jams.