Moonchild sings the mail-carrier blues Saturday
By Chalres Cassady
happenings
Published June 21, 2006

Next time you complain about the price of stamps, keep in mind the United States Post Office legacy to the world of music. Classic songs like “Mr. Postman,” “Return to Sender,” “Take a Letter, Maria.”

And then there’s Travis Haddix, of Bedford Heights, now a name-brand blues act on the international stage, after years of scrimping and saving on a mail-carrier’s salary.

“I am retired from the U.S. Postal service, and now I am a full time musician, doing what I truly enjoy,” said Haddix, who goes by the nom-de-blues 'Moonchild’ when he’s on stage. The next time that will be is this Saturday night at 9 p.m., when the Travis Haddix Band makes its special deliveries at the Savannah Bar & Grill, a longtime blues hotspot in Westlake at 30676 Detroit Ave.

“Be ready to dance and have lots of fun, because we play dance music in addition to slow blues,” said Haddix, who will be backed up by an ensemble of Cleveland and Bedford bluesmen, David Ruffin (tenor sax), Gus Hawkins (alto sax), Jeremy Sullivan (percussion) Greg Nicholson (Bass guitar) and Gil Zachary (keyboards). Haddix also played and recorded with iconic Cleveland bluesman Robert Lockwood Jr.

The Travis Haddix Band (formerly known as the Now Sound) has been around since 1988, but Haddix had his beginnings in blues much earlier. He was born in Mississippi 1938 to a multi-instrumentalist Delta-bluesman father. Travis began playing piano at the age of 7 in his hometown of Walnut, 30 miles south of Memphis. It was seeing a Memphis blues-scene eminence, the legendary B.B. King, that made the young Haddix gravitate away from the 88s and toward blues guitar instead.

After living (and performing) in Milwaukee for a time, Haddix and his family came to Cleveland in 1959, working with the D.L. Rocco Band and

the Little Johnnie Taylor group when not making the postal rounds.

When his group takes the Savannah stage they will play a mixture of  half covers, half his originals, said Haddix. The Travis Haddix flavor  of blues songwriting has been covered by Artie `Bluesboy’ White (with  whom he recently did a CD), Dickie Williams, Michael Burks, and Jimmy Dawkins.

Blues history is replete with sad stories of Afro-American blues artists recording for white-owned record companies and getting less than their fair share of earnings. Since 1989, however, Haddix has presided over his own record label, Wann-Sonn.

“I have always liked the idea of having my own label, so when the opportunity came I took advantage of it,” Haddix said. “The name `Wann-Sonn was taken from my two daughters’ names – Wanda and Sonya – thus Wann-Sonn.”

Expect a first-class package of Wann-Sonn CDs for sale at the Savannah – no postage and handling necessary. Titles include his recent “Artie and Travis” (with Artie White), compilations of great Cleveland blues and R&B, and a live CD called “Mud Cakes,” recorded live in Osnabruck, Germany.

Haddix heads abroad routinely, touring Europe every year since 1992. Miss his Savannah gig? You can catch Travis Haddix live later this summer (and pick up collectible foreign stamps) by following his gigs in Switzerland, in Greifensee and Zurich, and in Germany at Viersen. There he stars at festivals devoted to American blues music. “I must agree that my music seems to be more appreciated overseas than here in the states, and I don’t have an explanation for it.”

This was lately illustrated by a cross-cultural German comedy movie, “Schultze Gets the Blues,” about a retired German miner-turned- musician wandering through Cajun and zydeco and blues bayous of the U.S. Haddix himself recently made a screen breakthrough when one of his songs was used in “April’s Fool,” an independently-produced feature shot in Cincinnati and Louisville. (“I never got a chance to see the movie because when it was shown here I was overseas on tour.”) And his autobiography has attracted serious attention from a book publisher in Finland.

Since last year Travis Haddix can be heard on Monday night co-hosting a blues show on college radio station WCSB-FM 89.3 (avidly listened to by the night shift at the Cleveland downtown P.O.).

You can find more about Travis `Moonchild’ Haddix at his official website www.travishaddix.net. And, yes, there’s a link for e-mail.