On Saturday, March 2, 1991, Lester Butler, Bill Bateman, and Dave Lee and Jonny Ray Bartel entered S.I.R. Rehearsal Room D in Hollywood with plans to produce a demo.

When they’d leave the studio eight hours later, they’d have a song, “Louisiana Blues,” that would represent the finale of this incarnation of The Blue Shadows, and would become the world’s first look at the new Red Devils.

They’d also lock in a permanent lead guitar player, the last step in transforming the scrappy Monday night bar band into a powerful blues gang storming the globe.

Notes from that recording day 35 years ago this month, and provided to NoFightin.com, reveal some of the key moments and details of the band that would become “The Red Devils.”

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The Shadows’ session was actually their second day in that studio. On Friday, March 1, they were there with two men who would be key in how the band would ultimately be heard: Def American label head Rick Rubin and engineer Brendan O’Brien.

The Blue Shadows — whose orbit included heavyweight guitar champs such as Dave Alvin, Kid Ramos, Smokey Hormel and Junior Watson, at various times — had been looking for a full-time lead guitarist at the insistence of Rubin, the self-styled music svengali who had been coming to see the band for months at its Monday residency.

He envisioned a guitarist with energy and swagger who could be a foil for Butler onstage.

When the band convened in the studio at Santa Monica Boulevard at Vine Street at 11 a.m. that Saturday, they did so without O’Brien and Rubin, but with one of Rubin’s top guitar contenders: Tommy Kay.

Tommy Kay was Tommy Klemperer, an East Coast blues/jazz/swing guitarist newly arrived in Los Angeles, and fresh off of a stint with Roomful of Blues. Klemperer (apparently some kind of cousin of actor Werner “Col. Klink” Klemperer) had been in the rotation at The Blue Shadows’ King King shows.

On this day, on an 8-track Tascam Cassette Machine with engineer Bob Emory (brother of Ron Emory, guitarist of Huntington Beach punk legends T.S.O.L.) at the board, and The Blue Shadows self-producing, Kay would take a crack at three songs: “Winehead,” “Cut That Out” and “I’m Ready.”

But the rest of the session would see Kay rotate out in favor of another L.A. transplant: A 19-year-old Texan, in his first-ever recording session, was about to mark his turf.

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Paul Size had been in California for a few months based on a now-famous white lie: The cassette that Size had submitted for Blue Shadows consideration actually featured fellow teen guitarist Johnny Moeller! Word was that the two were so good that it really didn’t matter who was on the tape.

“Basically I just asked around: ‘Who’s the new hotshot blues guitar player?’” Lester Butler said in a Sept. 17, 1992, article in the Dallas Morning News. “Hook Herrera  was in Texas for a while and he told me about this kid up in Denton who could really play the blues. Someone else told me about Paul, so I asked him to send me a tape and a picture.”

Size became a regular Monday night guitarist in early ’91, replacing Dave Alvin.

But this was the recording session that sealed the deal.

Size fired off on several tunes, a Blue Shadows setlist distilled down to five best-of caliber songs: The shuffling “Have A Good Time,” the Chicago groove of “I Wish You Would,” one-chord workout “Boogie Disease,” and the showstopping “Backstroke.”

Buried in the middle of that set was the slow-burn strut of “Louisiana Blues.” If those other songs are bedrocks of primal electric blues, “Louisiana Blues” proves the band could harken back nearly a century, to hazy Sunday mornings in the swamp, bones and guitars creaking and moaning.

The song is faithful to Muddy Waters’ 1950 version for Chess, a raw, sparse side with his recording unit at the time: Little Walter and bassist Big Crawford. Even with the addition of a second guitar and drums, The Red Devils show remarkable restraint on the cut. It’s as though Muddy himself brought Jimmy Rogers and Elga Edmonds into the studio to flesh out the sound, without losing any of the realness.

When the session was done, the band shared the tape with Rubin.

By Tuesday, March 5, everything was in place: Paul “The Kid” Size earned his spot, The Blue Shadows became The Red Devils (again at Rubin’s request), and the band signed its contract with Def American.

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“Louisiana Blues” had been a favorite of Rubin’s for some time.

Of the eight songs put down on March 2, it would be “Louisiana Blues” that Rubin would gravitate toward, earmarking it for release: Once as a “mysterious” promo cassette, and again as The Red Devils’ contribution to a compilation tape, “Def American Recordings Preview 1992.”

The song would play a role in alerting the listening public to the “new” blues band on the block — though, ironically, the song “previewed” no other product. When their debut album was finally released on July 28, 1992, the buzzy and very live “King King” bore little resemblance to the traditional country blues of “Louisiana” that the former Blue Shadows offered.

Though not for trying. “Louisiana Blues” would be one of several songs performed and recorded later that summer for consideration for the “King King” album. (More on that coming soon on NoFightin.com …)

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The Blue Shadows at S.I.R., March 2, 1991

1. Winehead (w/ Tommy Kay)
2. Cut That Out (w/ Tommy Kay)
3. I’m Ready (w/ Tommy Kay)
4. Have A Good Time (w/ Paul Size)
5. I Wish You Would (w/ Paul Size)
6. Louisiana Blues (w/ Paul Size)
7. Boogie Disease (w/ Paul Size)
8. Backstroke (w/ Paul Size)

Lyrics: “Louisiana Blues,” from “Def American Recordings Preview 1992”

Goin’ down in Louisiana, little girl, behind the sun
Goin’ down in Louisiana, little girl behind the sun
You know that I just found out my little girl has done me wrong

Goin’ down to New Orleans and get me a mojo hand
Goin’ down in New Orleans, get me a mojo hand
You know that I just found out my little girl got some other man

(harp solo)

Transcribed by NoFightin.com. More Red Devils and 13 lyrics here.