Erin "Icewater" Jaimes came onto the Austin, Texas blues scene in late 1994, young and clueless, with a passion for the music. "If you play the blues, you're gonna end up living them," warned Erin's first serious musical mentor, drummer Jeff "Li'l Ca [+]Erin "Icewater" Jaimes came onto the Austin, Texas blues scene in late 1994, young and clueless, with a passion for the music. "If you play the blues, you're gonna end up living them," warned Erin's first serious musical mentor, drummer Jeff "Li'l Calvin" Hodges. Drummer "Uncle" John Turner, another major influence, has often stated that "to some, blues is a state of mind. To others, it's a way of life." (Little did she know how true their words were!) Listening to such artists as Koko Taylor, Dinah Washington, Etta James and Irma Thomas gave her an empowering but sobering look into a woman's survival in the blues - "a man's world." Erin didn't shy away. The music had its hold on her.
During her first few years in Austin, she was increasingly invited to sing at Walter Higgs & the Shuffle Pigs' Blues Parties on 6th Street and to sit in with the bands at local blues venues. The patience and support of the seasoned musicians was mind-boggling. Erin learned that a vital, living part of the blues world is passing on the music by bringing up new generations of players. By 1997 she was itching to be a regular part of a working blues band.
Having previously sung "bass" in an award-winning all-women's acapella group at Vassar College and loving the primal power of a solid rhythm section, Erin was drawn to the electric bass. Appa Perry (of Appa's Blues Power and the Alan Haynes band) was the first to tell her "instead of asking me all these questions all the time, why don't you go and get yourself a *#@$%! bass?!" She got her first bass the next day and learned to play over time largely by watching and listening to bassists such as Appa, Larry Fulcher, Danny Galindo, Tommy Shannon, Keith Ferguson, Willie Weeks and Willie Kent. On April Fools Day, 1998, she landed a weekly gig of her own at Joe's Generic Bar.
Since 1998, getting muddy in the trenches of Austin's highly competitive music scene, Erin feels fortunate to have shared the stage with many remarkable musicians and Texas Blues legends, including Double Trouble, Antones' Blue Monday Band, Angela Strehli, Willie "Big Eye" Smith, Sue Foley, Hubert Sumlin, "Uncle" John Turner, John McVey, Alan Haynes, Mike and Cory Keller, Gary Clark Jr., Shawn Pittman, George Rarey, Guy Forsythe, Carolyn Wonderland and Barry "F
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