Soul night at the Pickle Room

By Jeff miller • illuStration By Buffalo BrotherS StudioS

Ask Morganfield Burnett for directions to the heart of Santa Barbara’s soul and he’ll likely point you toward East Perdido Street. That’s where Burnett spent much of his adult life – 20-some years of it living above and cooking downstairs at the Sojourner, the much-loved, now much-missed natural food café.

Nowadays, Burnett does a different kind of cooking a few doors down on East Perdido. Once a month you can hear him singing and playing blues harp at The Pickle Room, which has its own colorful history.

Created by Jimmy Chung in 1947 as Jimmy’s Oriental Garden, the place was at the center of Santa Barbara’s bustling local Chinese and Japanese culture for decades. It closed in 2006 upon Chung’s death, but was reopened, with its Asian style intact, as The Pickle Room by father and son Bob and Clay Lovejoy in 2013. Next door is their Three Pickles Deli.

“He’s so talented,” Bob Lovejoy said. “An amazing guy,” with a back story worthy of a biography.

“The Pickle Room is like home,” Burnett said. And the Lovejoys “are like family to me. They sort of adopted me.”

Walk in on the second Tuesday night of every month and you can feel that home-style comfort. There’s Burnett, sitting in the far-corner booth, letting loose with his whiskey barrel blues voice and his mournful harmonica play, backed by guitarist John Marx and bassist Rob Battle.

It was a long road that led Burnett to The Pickle Room, starting in his native Dallas, Texas, then around the country with his Air Force father and family, eventually landing him in Santa Maria in 1965. After a few more excursions, including some time in Asia, he became a Santa Barbaran for good as of 1968.

And he’s been part of the arts scene here ever since. He found a town full of quirky, soulful nightspots. “Santa Barbara has a legacy of little places like that,” he said. “Like George’s on State. You had to go straight through the middle of the bandstand to get to the bathroom, whether the band was playing or not.”

Then there was the music. “Another reason I stayed here was there’s so much talent,” Burnett said. “It would blow you away.” Among the best of those was and is Marx, who became his mentor. “We met at a jam session in LA, where BB King and everybody played.” Under Marx’s guidance, Burnett eventually turned his focus strictly to blues, and it’s become his musical home.

The response has been warm. Google “Morganfield Burnett and Da Blues” and you’ll find a busy band. They play all over, including a splash at the Ojai Bowlful of Blues. But his hometown is SB, and especially that little stretch across from El Presidio. That’s where you can catch Burnett in his element.

By the way, if you’ve wondered about the name, here’s the story. Muddy Waters’s real name is McKinley Morganfield. Howlin’ Wolf’s is Chester Burnett. “They both embody the kind of spirituality that I like,” Santa Barbara’s own Burnett said.