Our people: 'Granny has the Blues'

Jul. 8—Etha Gray wants her own radio show. The 86-year-old would call it "Granny has the Blues."

"I'd play the blues, nothing but the blues. Gutbucket blues: Bobby Bland, Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson, Lightnin' Hopkins," Gray said.

She said she'd play the music, talk about the artists, tell funny stories.

Gray is no stranger to the media. She was on the air in Houston and Brownwood, Texas; she spent part of her career working on television and working on a Texas newspaper.

"I moved around a lot. I always wanted to see what was on the other side of the fence," Gray said.

The News sat down with Gray Thursday at her apartment on Clovis' Echols Street, to have a chat with this artistically inspired Clovis resident.

Q: What's the story about you and your love of blues music?

A: Blues ran deep in my family. I had uncles who played harmonica, one who played the guitar, one who tried to sing. My mother was a blues fanatic. I once had a huge record collection, all blues, but it got to where I couldn't keep hauling it around. Now I have a few dozen cassettes and some reel-to-reel tapes. I grew up in Temple, Texas where we had a street where all the 'juke joints' were, Eighth Street. That was the 1940s.

Q: Who's your favorite performer?

A: Oh don't ask me that. I have a lot of favorites. I can't name just one.

Q: Where were you born?

A: Navasota, Texas, over near Bryan/College Station.

Q: Tell us about your family.

A: I had five children. My daughter Mary lives here in Clovis, I have children in Texas, California and Minnesota. My oldest, a son, passed away.

Q: How did you come to live in Clovis?

A: I was living in Albuquerque and I would take trips back to east Texas and that brought me right through Clovis. There was this really good Black club here with a woman to play pool as good as I could. One night I started playing pool against men in this Clovis club and one after another I beat them. Finally, after a few games I got beat. But as I was leaving people were asking me to come back. And I did. I developed a fondness for Clovis. People were friendly here. So my sister had set me up for a place to live in Rio Rancho a few years ago but it got too expensive, so I moved to Clovis.

Q: Your resume lists many artistic ventures.

A: Don't tell me what I can't do because I'll show you that I can. I was in Albuquerque in the 1970s and I went to try out for a theatre production. The man in charge took me aside and said, 'Quite frankly, we don't have any Blacks in our theatre company because Blacks can't act on stage.' I went home and wrote a musical called 'Club Renaissance.' It received many awards in Monterey, Calif. I wrote a book titled 'Grace, From Above' which was supposed to be a TV series but I couldn't get a producer to I turned it into a book. I wrote a children's book, a book about my grandparents and their struggles to get by in east Texas years ago, and I wrote a book titled 'Sweet Daddy Red,' a true account of the life of a Houston mobster; he was a sweet man but he was still a mobster.

Q: Do you have some favorite sayings that you live by?

A: Not really. But I do say, "It is what it is" and "It's going to be what it's going to be."