[music playing]
MIKE: Today, I'm headed to meet Tim,
whose dad, Blue, lived in an old dance hall
in the middle of nowhere Kansas.
He was a custom bike builder who had a passion
for knuckleheads and music.
[knocking]
Hello!
[chuckles]
Walking into this place, it has a total vibe.
Are you Tim? TIM BLACK: How you doing?
Hey, man, I'm Mike.
Tim Black.
This place is awesome!
Really high ceilings, huge dance floor,
balcony all the way around.
TIM BLACK: Built in 1934.
OK.
Here, let me give you one of these.
Wow.
TIM BLACK: There's a ballroom, they had wrestling matches,
boxing matches, live bands.
MIKE: So do you know of any of the artists that played here?
I think the largest was Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys.
MIKE: No kidding?
They'd have 500-600 people on this dance floor everyone--
Wow.
Big day, yeah.
MIKE: Imagine Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys on stage here.
He's destroying a fiddle, and there's
600 people on the dance floor honky
tonking and tearing it up.
American roots music grew out of places like this.
Danny said Blue lived in here? - Oh yeah.
That was his name? Blue?
Oh yeah.
There's an apartment upstairs.
Actually, my brother-in-law is up there cleaning right now.
Hey, BJ.
BJ BLACK: Yeah?
You doing some digging? BJ BLACK: Yeah.
[laughter]
MIKE: What's going on, man? - Hey, how are you?
- Hey, I'm Mike. - Hey, I'm BJ.
- Nice to meet you. - Yeah, nice to meet you.
How are you?
BJ BLACK: Blue collected all his life.
Anything that he found an interest in,
he grabbed on to it.
Most of the bike parts are over here.
He never got rid of anything.
- Never. - Wait.
Wait. Wait.
Let me look at this. Whoa.
Whoa. Whoa.
Whoa.
Look at the paint job on that.
Blue to the bone.
I like that.
That's cool.
Born to be blue.
OK, so Blue is obviously his nickname.
Yup, that was his biker nickname.
Where did he get that?
TIM BLACK: Dad road two Knuckleheads.
They were his babies.
I don't know why he painted the bikes blue,
but once the bikes were blue, he was Blue.
[chuckling]
That's so cool.
TIM BLACK: Kind of played along with his love for blues music.
And then, later on with his blue drinks that he drank,
he was just Blue to everybody.
No way.
[laughing]
BJ BLACK: Dad would lead the toy run.
A blue Santa?
MIKE: Oh, he was Santa leading the parade?
TIM BLACK: Yeah.
MIKE: Oh, for like a Toys for Tots?
TIM BLACK: Yeah. MIKE: No way.
And we even started calling him Blue.
Right.
[laughter]
What else you got back here?
All right, what's this here?
Well I got here "Easy Rider."
So this is his bike? TIM BLACK: Yeah.
BJ BLACK: Yeah. That's the '39.
MIKE: In 1969, the movie "Easy Rider"
came out, had Jack Nicholson in it.
Dennis Hopper, Peter Fonda.
It was huge.
And two years later in 1971, Lou Kimzey,
Mil Blair, and Joe Teresi created "Easy Rider" magazine.
The movie brought the chopper scene to the masses,
but it was really the magazine that celebrated
the lifestyle and the culture.
TIM BLACK: He was really proud of the "Easy Riders" top 300--
Oh, really?
- Ol' Blue made top 300. - No kidding?
(IN UNISON): Yeah. - Wow.
[music playing]
MIKE: "Easy Rider" magazine was successful because it was real.
It was true to the biker community.
To have your bike on the cover of that,
and then to be on the list of the top 300 custom
bikes that ever graced that magazine, that
was some serious street cred.
Did he build this bike--
did you see this bike together?
Yeah, I think that was one of the early versions of his '39.
Ol' Blue went through so many phases.
Back then, it wasn't about it's got to be dirty and original.
He was all about the show bikes and customization.
And I think all those parts were on Ol' Blue at one point.
Knuckles forever.
[laughter]
So you could actually-- no kidding,
you could build a bike out of these.
These are Knuckle tanks.
If you look at the width there from the petcock
down here into this tab, how close it is,
these are '47 Knuckletanks.
These are hard tanks to find.
Would you sell these tanks and this fender?
BJ BLACK: Yeah.
- Custom paint job. - Yeah, that's right.
I know. [interposing voices]
I love that. I really do love the paint job.
I mean, I'm serious.
They're cool.
This is the beginning of him customizing a bike.
The light blue with a dark blue flame,
"Knuckles Forever," this is, like, his early work.
It's primitive, it's raw, it's full of emotion.
1,200 bucks.
- Yeah. - Yeah.
All right, man.
I appreciate you. - Yeah.
[music playing] - Thank you.
It's like motorcycle folk art from an outside artist.
I mean, this is blue to the bone--
to the marrow.