Last Call

"It was his band that was playing the weekend after I bought the place," Joe recalls. "I was impressed with the people who came to hear him play--young and old, people from all over the neighborhood, because he was the neighborhood's musician. They told me, 'He is the blues at Ziggie's.'

"Then I heard him play. He was incredible. I was thinking, 'What's a guy like this doing playing here?' But I was damn sure happy that he was. But as good as he is, the thing that has always impressed me the most about Bobby was that he wouldn't have any money and he'd still buy you a beer."

Joe knows the stories about Bobby Hornbuckle the bluesman, and Bobby Hornbuckle the drug addict. But he'd rather talk about Bobby Hornbuckle his friend. "One morning he was sitting in here drinking coffee, and this guy came in and said an elderly gentleman who lives down the block was having a hard time fixing his garage door," Joe remembers. "It was snowing like hell outside. But Bobby jumped up and we went down and helped the old guy in the middle of a snowstorm. It took us quite a while. Bobby didn't have enough money to buy breakfast, but he was the first one out the door to help a neighbor.

"He never looks down on anyone. I've seen him stop to help people most of us wouldn't give the time of day to. Even now, when he's in such pain and it looks like he's gonna die, he's more worried about how his friends and family are coping. He's always telling me, 'Ahh, there's people worse off than me.'"

Even at his lowest, Bobby was always there for his friends or if someone needed help. Sometimes it seemed that he played more benefits than paying gigs, "even when he had no money himself to even pay the rent," Joe says. But recently the tables were turned, and two benefits were held to raise money for Bobby's medical bills and his trip to Mexico. ("I think it's one of those things where having a place to go is what's important," Joe says, "not necessarily gettin' there.") Hundreds of friends and fans showed up to support Bobby and listen to more than a dozen bands.

"When Bobby was going through rough times, he lost some members of his bands because of his problems," Joe says. "But they still like him and come in to jam with him. All of those guys brought their bands to the benefits."

Bobby isn't one to take something for nothing, either. "He and his boys played at his own benefit," Joe points out. "Basically, he just wants to play. He'd play 24 hours a day if he could.

"I can't tell you the number of times I've seen him in here during the day, giving free guitar lessons to some kid who wants to learn to play the blues. How many professional musicians do you know who would do that?"

Joe credits Bobby with creating and sustaining the bar's Sunday night jam session. "It's outlasted every other blues jam in this town," he says. "Sometimes the bands that were playing at the other clubs would show up here to jam."

And none of the musicians, including those from bigger, well-known bands, was better than Bobby Hornbuckle.

B.B. Walker of B.B. Walker and the Roadsters, a band that used to play in Denver and has found success in California, pays tribute to Bobby every time he plays, Joe says. "He always says, 'I stole this song from Bob Hornbuckle, a good friend of mine in Denver. It was not complete until he showed me the guitar licks.' Every time."

A beer distributor walks in the back door with cases of Coors Light for that night's crowd. He and Joe get into a discussion about baseball player Roberto Alomar spitting on an umpire.

"Aaaah, they shoulda kicked his ass out for spittin' on that ump," says the beer guy. "What's the world comin' to?"

"I don't know," Joe says, wagging his head as he looks down at the floor and his cowboy boots. "What bothers me the most is the kind of example it sets for kids. My son won't even watch the games anymore, and he loves baseball. He's lost interest 'cause of that."

The beer guy leaves, and Joe starts talking about Bobby and drugs. From the beginning, the two men--the blues musician and the former drug enforcement agent--knew where they stood. "I told him where I was coming from and that I wouldn't put up with drugs in the bar. He said he wouldn't," Joe recalls.

"Now, I don't know if that meant that he was going back in the alley and doing something. But he never brought it up in my face. Even when I'd go over to his house as a friend, there wouldn't be anything laying around...no needles, no roaches in the ashtray. He respected me too much to make me uncomfortable, even in his own home. And I respected him."