HARD-KNOCK MANLOCAL LEGEND HANS OLSON IS A MASTER OF THE BLUES--BUT WILL HE EVER GET CONTROL OF HIS DESTINY?

Now happily out of the club business, Olson still gigs almost every night in support of his new CD, Kachina Blues, a gritty romp recorded in a garage with $40 microphones and digitally remixed "in all the computer ways" to sound like a million bucks. "I would smoke some weed, have a couple drinks, and about four in the morning go out to the garage," Olson says of the recording process for Kachina. "I'd hit two switches and be recording."

Olson remains cautious about the recording's prospects. "I've always put out these albums," he says, "and they always get good press, but it means nothing. The gigs don't change. Nothing changes. I'm known all over the world to musicians, but they're the wrong audience. They want free records, they want to get in free. It's the industry I've got to convince.

"I've become this great American hero people don't want to ruin," Olson continues. "They say, 'Man, you're making a living playing music. You don't kiss anybody's ass.' But I've always done what I wanted with no compromises. I'm starting to feel I've lived with my soul fulfilled long enough; now maybe it won't be so hard to do something for money."
Watching Olson spin through a set, it's hard to imagine him worrying about money. When he gets fired up, he seems to approach his music as an impassioned initiate--more concerned with learning than with earning.

"It's your job to master these songs," he says. "If you can't play 'Mannish Boy' and play that right, you can't play the blues. And if you can't play the blues, you're not a very good musician.