The good road
November 26, 2024
Queen City connections run deep for the Blue Dogs, who play at Neighborhood Theatre this month.
by Joe Roddey | photographs by Olly Yung
When guitarist Bobby Houck, upright bassist Hank Futch and the rest of the Blue Dogs take the stage in NoDa’s Neighborhood Theatre on Dec. 13, it will mark the 37th straight year these friends have entertained Queen City fans. With their unique mix of country, rock and Americana-inspired originals and covers, the Blue Dogs have brought friends and families together across the Carolinas and beyond — but Charlotte is where the group blossomed into one of the region’s most enduring and appreciated bands. For the Blue Dogs and their followers, every show feels like a reunion.
Bobby and Hank met in 1973 as 8-year-old Cub Scouts in Florence, South Carolina, but they didn’t see much of each other for nearly a decade. “Hank went on to become an Eagle Scout, while I didn’t even make it to fourth grade Webelos,” Bobby explains in the same down-home storytelling style that’s a unique feature of their performances. The future Blue Dog front men attended different schools but reconnected in high school through mutual friends.
During that time apart, Bobby fell in love with music when his older sister Jackie drove him and his brothers to school. “She was the driver, so she chose the music,” Bobby recalls. “Every morning and every afternoon, I would listen to artists like Neil Young, Jimmy Buffett, James Taylor and the Eagles on the 8-track player in Jackie’s car.” Bobby’s mom, who played piano, was the only musician in the family until he started playing drums in seventh grade and guitar in high school.
Hank, on the other hand, was born into a family of accomplished music-makers and entertainers. His father, known in Lowcountry music circles simply as Poppa Futch, carried his guitar with him wherever he went and often teamed with his lifelong friend, Mag Greenthaler. With visible emotion, Hank recalls his father’s approach to the bluegrass and gospel country songs he loved to play. “Those two would play anywhere, anytime and for anybody because they loved seeing what music did to people. It was much more than playing music to Poppa Futch.”
Guitarist Bobby Houck at Neighborhood Theatre in 2023
Bobby also wells up recalling Poppa Futch, “I remember him teaching me how to string a guitar over the phone. He was my second Daddy.” As soon as Hank and his brother Hal were old enough, they learned to harmonize with Poppa Futch. The Futches eventually began playing together as the Black Creek Boys.
“Playing was just something we always did when people got together,” Hank says. “If there was a gathering of good friends or family, you could count on good food, good stories and good music.”
On Christmas Day 1980, at an annual holiday party in Florence, Poppa Futch invited Bobby to play with them. Forty-four years later, Bobby and Hank are still playing together.
“The first people you need to be able to entertain are your close friends — that’s where it starts,” Bobby says, recalling the early days playing with Hank. “Every party Hank and I went to in Florence would end up with Hank on his stand-up bass, me on the guitar and everyone singing along.”
Upright bassist Hank Futch at Neighborhood Theatre in 2023
For anyone who has attended a Blue Dogs show, this probably sounds familiar. Prior to taking the stage at Neighborhood Theatre, you’ll no doubt find Hank and Bobby mixing with their people right up until they walk on stage and pick up their instruments.
While Bobby now lives in Charleston, The Blue Dogs’ Queen City connections run deep. Bobby attended Davidson College and taught seventh-grade English at Charlotte Latin School from 1989-92. Blue Dogs drummer Greg Walker, who joined the band in 1993, grew up in Charlotte and attended nearly every high school in town. Current lead guitarist Dan Hood lives in the Queen City and has been in the band for over a decade. Hank resides in Rock Hill, but his catering and entertainment business, Hank You Very Futch, serves the greater Charlotte area.
In 1989, the Blue Dogs played their very first gig in the Queen City at the Double Door Inn and were honored to be one of the last acts to take the stage at the legendary music venue before its doors closed in January 2017.
Since that first Charlotte show, the Blue Dogs have released 11 albums and have performed with the likes of Willie Nelson, Hootie & the Blowfish, Widespread Panic and Train. To some old schoolers, they are best known for their early recordings featuring covers of fan favorites “If I Had a Boat,” “Homegrown Tomatoes,” and “Rain King.” Others lean on their albums of all-original songs — For the Record, Letters from Round O, and Halos and Good Buys — made during 1996-2006 when the band played full time.
Drummer Greg Walker at Neighborhood Theatre in 2023
Thanks to the Covid-induced shutdown, the band was able to get back in the studio and released their first album in 16 years, Big Dreamers, in 2022. “This South Carolina band is first class all the way,” wrote John Apice in a review for Americana Highways. “The band has arrangements that are well-thought-out confections in a genre of music that can’t help but get hands clapping, knees pumping and grins spreading.”
When I ask Bobby and Hank the secret to their remarkable decades-long run together, they both offer the same explanation: friendship. “My friendship with Hank always made it easy,” Bobby says. “Both of us really enjoy being around big groups, and on stage or not, we like to be with friends.”
Hank agrees: “We may be more selective in our schedule now, but we still play for the same reason we did for our friends in high school. We met three generations of the same family at a recent gig in Charleston. That’s pretty special.”
With no plans to stop, along with recent work on a new album with founding Blue Dog member and Charlotte resident Buck Bradberry, the Blue Dogs seem poised to make their 40th anniversary and beyond. SP
