The Music Man Revels in Retirement
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Dell Guthrie (center) plays alongside bandmates.
Bert VanderVeen photo
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By Tom Gillispie Mar 23, 2018
“I’m a guitar player and singer, more of a singer,” says Dell Guthrie, who appears with the band Blues Extract at various venues in the Triad and beyond.
“I play a lot of Delbert McClinton, Chicago Blues, some country,” the 65-year-old said. “I play Van Morrison, mostly (songs) from the '70s. I came of musical age in the '70s.”
Guthrie also favors the music of country legend Willie Nelson and rock and roll’s Steve Miller Band. He says that, for years, he had every album Steve Miller put out, starting back when Miller fronted the Steve Miller Blues Band (before the band’s name was shortened).
Nelson’s “Always On My Mind” and Morrison’s “Into the Mystic” are two of his favorite songs to cover.
“I had visions of being a professional, (but) it didn’t work out,” Guthrie says almost wistfully.
He says he recently played at the Old North State Winery in Mount Airy, and the Native Vines Winery in Lexington is another of his favorite places to play. The group’s also played at “a couple of assisted living centers” locally, Guthrie says.
You can find some of his songs with Blues Extract on YouTube. Among the songs performed at the Muddy Creek Cafe and Music Hall in Winston-Salem are Jackson Browne’s “Doctor My Eyes” and two blues standards, B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone” and Robert Johnson’s “Come On In My Kitchen.”
“I’ll play anywhere I can,” Guthrie says. “I have no set place. I wish I did; it’d be easier.”
Guthrie says he was born in Goldsboro but grew up around Winston-Salem. He graduated from Parkland High School and had a career in auto repair until he retired more than three years ago. “If it had an internal combustion engine in it, I’d work on it,” he says of his job.
He says he still works his old job a bit when needed. His Facebook page says that he’s a “Professional repairing automobiles to make ends meet.”
He says he’s been playing music “since puberty.” He wanted to play the saxophone in the school band in fifth grade but was “saddled” with the French horn.
“I hated it,” he said of the horn. “In eighth grade, I switched to the guitar. You couldn’t sing and play the French horn.”
His first guitar, he says, was a “$13 Sears Silvertone guitar that didn’t play too good.” He currently owns Fender and Les Paul electric guitars -- both top models -- but he favors his cherry-red Washburn.
Guthrie says he’s “more of a tenor than anything, but my range has changed over the years. I smoked cigarettes for years, but I quit about 10 years ago. It took a toll on the high notes.”
The band’s music is built around Guthrie’s vocals and the hot licks of the guitar of Ray Allegrezza, originally from Long Island, N.Y.
“He’s an excellent guitar player,” Guthrie said. “He’s as good a guitar player as I am a singer. The two of us together put on a pretty good show.”
Guthrie says he likes to get paid, but he doesn’t play just for money.
“That’s a lost cause,” he said.
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