Mr. Hooper Art Blog

Howdy Friends,

I wanted to take a minute to mention some sad news. Anyone who has lived, or visited  Nashville over the past two decade will likely know Velvet Thunder, though you may not know him by that name. Velvet Thunder was a fixture in downtown Nashville for many years. He often sat out in front of the Spaghetti Factory on 2nd Avenue with his guitar across his lap plucking away and serenading passers-by. On busy weekend nights it was fairly common to see folks having their picture taken with Velvet and joining him on a few bars of “Big Legged Woman” (one of his original compositions). I remember the first time I met Velvet Thunder in 1987. He introduced himself to me as The Half-White Man which is what I called him for many years to follow. I hung around Velvet (The Half-White Man) for maybe an hour on a cool night in November of 1987. I was listening to him play songs – he had a repertoire of about 4 songs which he played over and over. In between each song he would tell some kind of fantastic story that was far too absurd to be true. He was fond of showing photographs of himself posing with Mohamed Ali, Ray Charles and President Reagan (they were actually cardboard cutouts of the people he was posing with, but he liked to pass them off as genuine photographs taken with these famous people). I found the guy to be completely entertaining. In fact, I was so impressed with The Half-White Man that shortly after my first meeting him in 1987, I created a cartoon character based on him. [As many of you may know, I fancied myself a cartoonist in my younger days.] Thus was born a character I called “Dope the Blues Frog.” 22 years later, I don’t really recall where that name came from.

So, years past and I would see Velvet/The Half-White Man out there on the street every weekend. His musical repertoire would grow ever so slightly as the years past. Let’s face it, he wasn’t Robert Johnson on guitar, but then it wasn’t his musical ability that drew me to him in the first place. It was his stories, his street hustler’s charm and the fact that not a lot seemed to bother him. As time wore on, Velvet had a lot of health problems. I understood that he was Diabetic. I have to admit, I sort of forgot about Velvet. Then I heard from a friend of mine who told me he had passed away last week.

So, here’s to you Velvet Thunder, aka The Half-White Man… God Bless you!

Please check this out: http://www.tennessean.com/article/20091123/OBITS/911230314/Iconic+Nashville+street+musician+Velvet+Thunder+dies