His nickname is ‘Terrible,’ but bluesman’s life story is anything but ...Middle East

“Terrible” Tom Bowden shows up a few minutes late for an appointment in West Oakland — and, of course, a friend immediately lets him hear about it.

“What are you talking about?” Bowden counters. “I’ve been here since ’38 — 1938.”

And during that time, Bowden, 86, has become nothing short of a legend in the area: a immensely talented bluesman who draws comparisons to Otis Redding and has traveled in the same company as Aretha Franklin, B.B. King and many other iconic performers; an old-school tough guy who duked it out with a heavyweight champion and lived to tell about it; and a rough-and-tumble, larger-than-life character whose story includes stints in prison, drug addiction and, eventually, salvation.

And it’s highly likely that he’s the only person on the planet who can claim to have worked as a minister, a pimp and a bodyguard for one of the greatest stars in music history.

“I was Stevie Wonder’s bodyguard for a minute,” Bowden says.

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Not all of his past deeds. of course, deserve to be celebrated. But, then again, whose can? Yet, it’s hard to imagine that there’s any character in all of West Oakland with a story that’s more colorful and fascinating than the man called “Terrible” Tom. And that’s what’s helped make him such an icon around these parts.

“He’s the unofficial Mayor of West Oakland,” West Coast Blues Society founder Ronnie Stewart remarks of Bowden, a powerful R&B/blues belter who has been performing in local venues for at least seven decades.

Born Dec. 2, 1938, Bowden grew up on Wood Street — where he still lives today — and began singing at an early age, practicing his craft both on street corners and in church. He became a fixture in the nearby 7th entertainment district, collecting nickels from shining shoes, taking in the lay of land and earning quite a reputation with the use of his fists.

“Well, I lived in West Oakland — you had to know how to fight down here,” Bowden reasons.

He says he grew up “singing and fighting” — and both of those things would definitely play sizable roles in his development over the decades. When it comes to the latter, he’ll still drop into a boxing stance at a moment’s notice — bobbing and weaving in ways that should bring terror to most would-be opponents — and recounting many of the men who he vanquished in fights.

“I ain’t never lost,” Bowden recalls. “But I didn’t knock everyone out”

Press him on the subject — in (what we highly recommend to be) a relatively gentle fashion — and he’ll recount the hardest hit he ever took, which came courtesy of boxing great George Foreman.

“I didn’t go down,” Bowden remembers of the punch he took from the heavyweight champ. “But I went to the observatory — because I saw all the stars and Uranus and Jupiter as well.”

Bowden is able to manage a bit of smile, however, as he recalls the size of Foreman’s mighty fists.

“He didn’t have hands — he had hoofs,” Bowden (somewhat) laughs.

Boxing wasn’t his only area of specialty in the physical fitness realm. He was also quite good at baseball.

“That would have been my calling if I had discipline,” says Bowden, who points out that his father once played with the legendary pitcher Satchel Paige. “I hit the ball 480 feet in high school.”

Yet, it wasn’t baseball or even fighting that would turn out to be Bowden’s calling — although, for sure, the latter would remain a cornerstone for much of his life — but rather live entertainment. Things would greatly change for Bowden once he met the the Christy brothers and began booking shows at the siblings’ famed Continental Club on 12th Street in West Oakland. Turns out Bowden had a tremendous ability to spot rising talent and was soon bringing a number of future chart-toppers in to perform at the club.

“I got Aretha Franklin. I got the Temptations. I had Marvin Gaye. We had B.B. King, of course,” remembers Bowden. “(Crowds) knew it was going to be happening at the Continental Club.”

He’d also spend plenty of time on the stage himself, thrilling crowds at the iconic Esther’s Orbit Room and other West Oakland spots. He became known for his uncanny ability to sound just like Otis Redding — and reportedly even filled in at some gigs for the  “(Sittin’ On) The Dock of the Bay” singer after he died in 1967.

By all accounts, Bowden was — and remains — a captivating performer on the live stage.

“He comes with the real old-school, old church preaching type show,” Stewart says. “The kind you don’t see any more. He’s from the ’40s and ’50s when shows were shows. He’s straight church.”

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