This transcript was generated with speech recognition software and reviewed by human transcribers. It may still include inaccuracies. Please listen to the episode audio for precise quotes and email any queries to [email protected].

Jamie Anthony: Hi. Welcome back and thanks for joining us here today. I’m Jamie and I am a Blues Disciple. Now please join me for a little while to hear some excellent blues music from some of the masters of the blues. Blues Disciples is a 501c3 nonprofit organization, and please note that earphones or earbuds will definitely enhance your listening pleasure.

And if you’re listening to this podcast through our website, you can click on the playlist to expand its size for easier viewing of the playlist and the featured artist.

• 00:00:34 – Jontavius Willis

Today, our first artist is Mr Jontavius Willis, who was born in West Georgia in 1996, making him 27 years old. Jontavious grew up singing gospel music alongside his grandfather in their Baptist church in Greenville, Georgia. When he was 14 years old, Jontavious saw a YouTube video of blues legend Muddy Waters performing hoochiecoochyman and immediately caught the blues fever. For the most part, Jontavious Willis is self taught with guitar, blues harp and 5 string banjo.

One of his mentors, Taj Mahal, described Jontavious as his wonder boy and a wonder kind. At this point, Jontavious has several albums under his belt and has won numerous Blues Foundation Blues Music Awards for his albums and songs. JonTavious’ latest album, 20 20 four’s West Georgia Blues album, was produced by Jontavious and recorded at Capricorn Studios in Macon, Georgia. This album contains 15 excellent songs written by Jontavious Willis. On one of our earlier interviews with Jontavious podcast number 46, I had asked Jontavious how he got started in music and chose to focus on the blues.

Jontavious Willis: Well, my first experience with with music, as far as I can remember, was playing singing behind my grandfather at church when I was 3 years old. Around the age of 9 or 10, I started to take lessons for piano. And then about 11 or 12, I get trombone, started guitar at 14, and band, harmonica at 17, and banjo a little bit of banjo at 18. I stuck with the latter 3 and let let let go of the first two.

Jamie Anthony: That’s quite a plethora of instruments there. Breaking into the big time, how did you get an invite up to the stage when Taj Mahal was doing his performance in Atlanta?

Jontavious Willis: Well, he had seen a video of me and well, heard about a video and watched it and enjoyed it. So and then though we’re in the young folks from down south and that was from the culture doing the thing. And so he was like I gotta show. I thought that he would just want me to come to the show later on in the 60 that I’d get up and do 2 songs. That’s kinda how it started.

Yeah. My dad and my friend, we went to the concert together and sat right on the side of the chart.

Jamie Anthony: Now here is Jontavious Willis with his Charlie Brown Blues.

• 00:02:49 – [Charles Brown Blues – Jontavious Willis]

• 00:07:05 – John Primer & Bob Corritore

Jamie Anthony: A few months back, we had a joint interview on our podcast number 245 with major blues legend, Mr. John Primer and the great blues harp genius, Mr. Bob Corritore. These two gentlemen have been performing and collaborating on various projects for more than 10 years. And on that podcast, we shared a few of their remarks and the music from their latest album collaboration titled Crawlin’ Kingsnake.

But first, a little about John and Bob. John Primer was born in 1945 and started plucking at a diddly bow on the side of his house when he was 4 years old. And then he would borrow his cousin’s guitar whenever he had a chance and taught himself how to tune it and play it. Mr. Primer didn’t get his own guitar until after he had moved from Mississippi to Chicago when he was 18 years old. Over his career, John had been a principal member and band leader for blues greats Muddy Waters and Magic Slim before focusing on his own solo career.

Self taught blues harp great, Bob Corritore, was born in 1956 in Chicago where he studied and learned blues harp as a a teen by listening to and watching blues harp masters like Junior Wells and Big Walter Horton. Bob moved to Phoenix in the 1980s and has played with and produced recordings with many blues legends and artists. On their Crawlin’ Kingsnake album, John and Bob pulled together a great team of blues artists including John Primer with his excellent vocals and slide guitar, Bob Corritore with his brilliant blues harp, Bob Stroger and his steady electric bass. Jimmy Prime Time Smith with his great guitar work and supporting vocals, Anthony Geraci with his piano and West Star kept it all together with his drums. Here from our interview, John introduces and the band performs their rendition of the title song from their new album, Crawling Kingsnake.

How about John Lee Hooker’s Crawlin’ Kingsnake, your album title?

John Primer: Well, it was my earliest song when I was young. You can hear my walkin I was in Mississippi there. Maybe I heard in the cotton field and stuff singing.

So I got it from them. I didn’t know who made the song. I love that song and it’s a good song and I heard he and Muddy Waters sing it. And so, I got the idea to sing it when I heard Muddy sing it. I like the way Muddy did it cuz John Lee Hookie, he do a great song, but he’s strange the way he do it.

• 00:09:28 – [Crawlin’ Kingsnake – John Primer & Bob Corritore]

• 00:13:00 – Peter Malick

Jamie Anthony: Now we’ll hear from a very talented gentleman born in the Boston area in 1951 and who grew up with the love of the blues and, importantly, he had the talent and capabilities to allow him to perform and work with some of the very greatest blues legends of all time. That gentleman is guitarist, producer, and entrepreneur, Mr Peter Malick. Peter started playing guitar early in life, and by his teens, he proved he was ready for an incredible journey into the heart of the blues. So I’m going to jump ahead a few years here to the spring of 1969 when Peter Malick had his first opportunity to record with blues legends Mr Otis Spann, Mr Johnny Young, Mr Luther “Georgia Boy” “Snake” Johnson, and Mr P Leary in New York for early blues and movie legend Miss Victoria Spivey’s Spivey Records. Here from my interview with Peter Malick on our podcast number 239, Peter tells us how the resulting April 1969 album titled “The Everlasting Blues versus Otis Spann” came about, and I introduced Otis Spann’s great composition, I’m a Bad Boy.

Peter Malick: So this all happened, you know, there’s this one week that I think it was maybe more than we may might might have been a couple weeks that I played with Spann at the Cafe a Gogo in Greenwich Village. And it was a quartet. It was, Spann, SP Larry, Johnny Young, who was quite a fascinating character himself – the world’s only blues mandolinist – and then myself. So when I got there and I went up to maybe went up to Spann’s room, we all stayed at the Albert Hotel, which was kind of like the rock and roll hotel for rock and rollers who couldn’t afford the Chelsea Hotel. And Victoria was sitting in there when I walked in, the first time I went up to the hotel, and she was quite a character.

I liken her to the blues version of Norma Desmond in Sunset Boulevard. It’s exactly what she was. She was living in this world that was like when she was this famous singer, which had been in the thirties, so it had been like 30 something years ago, but she was quite a character. And so she she was like, you know what? You know what, Pete? We’re gonna make a record. We’re gonna make a record. And I was, okay. And I didn’t really know the first time I met her, I really didn’t know the whole thing, but I quickly learned more about her. So some days later, she was like, okay, we’re gonna meet tomorrow at noon, here’s the address, and the address was the NOLA Penthouse Studios which was this midtown skyscraper, maybe not wasn’t a skyscraper, but it was fairly tall building.

And NOLA had an incredible history too. There were a lot of, you know, the early candid label jazz records were were, recorded there, and they did a lot of really cool stuff there. At the time a state of the art recording studio had an 8 track. Nola had a 3 track tape, but she didn’t wanna spend the money on the 3 track tape. So, basically, we recorded that album straight to mono.

It was like, recorded. It’s done. And and so it was just really we kinda winged it, is what it was. And one of the things that happened, which is sort of give you an idea of, what about the times and so forth. So Victoria was walking through the studio and tripped over Luther “Snake” Johnson’s guitar chord and broke the chord.

So she was very upset about that. But, anyway, there wasn’t another guitar chord in the entire studio. So that’s why some of the tracks on the record, Snake isn’t playing guitar because he had no way to play guitar. And then at the end, she gave us all an an envelope with $30 in it. We got $30 for the record, and that was it.

You know, it was like it was super fun, but it it it was totally just like, okay. Let’s do this song. What do you think? Okay. Fine. Let’s do it. And then it was done.

Jamie Anthony: Now from that April 1969 recording session, here is Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann, Johnny Young, Luther Georgia Boy, Snake Johnson, Peter Malick and S. P. Leary with Otis’ “I’m a Bad Boy.”

• 00:17:13 – [I’m a Bad Boy – Otis Spann]

• 00:21:24 – Diunna Greenleaf

Jamie Anthony: Now we have my friend and our queen of the blues and legend in the making, Miss Diunna Greenleaf, who was blessed to be born into a large family rich with love and music in 1957. Diunna and her band “Blue Mercy” first won the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in 2005, and Miss Greenleaf won her 1st Blues Music Awards in 2008.

Now from Miss Diunna Greenleaf’s latest album titled “I Ain’t Playin’”, which was released through the nonprofit Little Village Foundation’s label, this song is a Koko Taylor classic that Diunna really makes her own. On it, Diunna’s great vocals are accompanied by album producer Mr Kid Andersen on guitar, Little Village’s Mr Jim Pugh on keyboard, Mr Jerry Jemmott on bass, Mr Jeff Lewis on trumpet, Mr Arron Lington on tenor sax, Mr Mike Rinta on trombone and Mr Derrick “D’Mar” Martin on drums. I’ll never trust a man.

• 00:22:33 – [I’ll Never Trust a Man – Diunna Greenleaf]

• 00:26:45 – J.P. Soars

Jamie Anthony: Next up, we have a very good contemporary blues artist and master guitarist, Mr J.P. Soars, who is originally from Arkansas, and his love of the blues was initiated through a chance introduction to BB King at one of Mr King’s concerts back in 1988. J.P. Soars and his band, the Red Hots, won the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge in 2009. In addition, at the same challenge, JP took home the foundation’s Albert King Award for best guitarist that year. Since 2009, JP has recorded several albums which demonstrate his enormous talents and creativity. JP Soar’s latest album, 2024’s Brick by Brick album, has 11 original songs by J.P. and the Red Hot Band, anchored by J.P.’s longtime acclaimed drummer, Chris Peete, who also plays bass.

Joining J.P. and Chris on the album is Bob Taylor on Hammond B3, rocking Jake Jacobs on blues harp, Jeremy Staszka on percussion, along with Terry Hank on sax. Anne Harris then adds her beautiful violin throughout the album. Backup vocals are provided by Paul Deslauris and Annika Chambers. Now from our recent conversation, J.P. Soars introduces this spiritual titled, “The good Lord Will Provide.”

J.P. Soars: Yeah. That little thing I came up with, that was the first thing I came up with, you know, when the pandemic happened, after they announced things are gonna be shut down. We don’t till we we don’t know when. And I remember taking my amplifiers out of my van because I always keep my gear in the van, most of it, my amps and everything. They never leave the van unless I’m at a gig.

But, anyway, so, you know, once they announced that, I was like, okay. And all the gigs started canceling and getting canceled and, of course, and and I said, okay. Let me pull my amplifiers out of the van. And I pulled them out of the van, set them in my living room, but I just remembered looking at them and going, man, I don’t know when I’m gonna get to use these again.

And it’s that’s when it really that’s when it really hit me, you know, that that we’re gonna have any gigs. I don’t know how how long this is gonna go on, and the whole world’s shutting down. It’s crazy. But anyway, I keep a dobro sitting on my coffee table at all times, pass by it and noodle around on it every now and again. And and I started playing it that day after I had the amps out of the van, and came up with that song.

The Good Lord Will provide it. So I’m not gonna worry about it. Nothing. I’m not gonna stress and it will it will work out and The Good Lord Will Provide, and and that’s where that would come from.

• 00:29:27 – [The Good Lord Will Provide – J.P. Soars]

• 00:33:38 – Big Lucky Carter

Jamie Anthony: Our next artist is Memphis Bluesman singer and guitarist, Mr Levester Big Lucky Carter, who was born in 1922 in Mississippi and passed away in 2002. Big Lucky served in the army in World War 2 and played local gigs for most of his career. In the early 19 eighties, our friend and ethnomusicologist, Dr David Evans, heard and met big Lucky at a local Memphis nightclub and recorded some of Lucky’s music with other local blues artists on a couple of CDs that were recorded by Dr Evans, and we featured on podcast number 132 and and show 136. From those podcasts here, Dr Evans shares some of his thoughts on Big Lucky Carter.

Dr Evans: Oh, Big Lucky Carter. Pleasure for your treasure. Big Lucky was he he was a genius. He now he was a songwriter. Big Lucky was from down in French Camp, Mississippi, way down on the Natchez Trace, and he was born in 1922.

He left Mississippi in World War 2, joined the army, and in an all black unit, they sent him to New Guinea fighting the Japanese in the jungle there. It was it was awful. That had a major effect on him. It made him into a pretty big drinker, and he survived. And he, came to Memphis. He he was a very intellectual guy.

He he was in politics. He he ran a little printing press. He he did a lot of different things. He was one of the few artists in this scene that had recorded for high records for one of the big companies. Back in, I think, it was 1969, just a little bit before Al Green and Ann Peebles wrote Big on High, they recorded a few blues artists.

Finally, Mike Vernon, the great British producer. I had, produced an album for Mike, back in the sixties, for his Blue Horizon label of Roosevelt Holtz, Mississippi singer. And we kinda kept in touch. He heard about Big Lucky and wrote me, do you wanna coproduce a CD for by Big Lucky for some label that he’d gotten connected with. I said, yeah. Yeah.

I I’d always wanted to. And, so we had a pretty good deal for him, and, we got him into a studio. Big Lucky picked the musicians. They were all old buddies of his, and they’re all kinda up in age.

Jamie Anthony: As Dr Evans mentioned, in 1998, Dr Evans and Mike Vernon coproduced an album of Big Lucky Carter’s music titled “Big Lucky Carter – Lucky 13.” On it, Big Lucky sings and plays guitar and is accompanied by John Willie Perry on blues harp, Lindbergh Nelson on piano, William “Boogie Man” Hubbard on keyboard, Leroy Martin on guitar, Melvin Lee on bass and L.T. Lewis on drums. Now, here is one of my favorites from that album. Here’s Monkey Tom.

• 00:36:50 – [Monkey Tom – Big Lucky Carter]

• 00:40:34 – Theodore Taylor

Jamie Anthony: Now we’ll feature a blues man who did not make it to the very top of the blues world, but had a hell of a journey and created a hell of a party wherever he and his band performed. Mr Theodore Roosevelt Taylor was born in Mississippi in 1915 and passed away at the age of 60 in 1975 of lung cancer. Theodore Taylor started his musical pursuits early in life and moved to Chicago in 1942 to seek a better life. Then in 1957, he picked up on the playing style of rising blues legend, Mr Elmore James, who served as Taylor’s musical role model. Theodore Taylor’s wild personality, taste for whiskey, and the hot pursuit of women earned him the eternal nickname Hound Dog.

After assembling his small band, the House Rockers, featuring his vocals and lead guitar along with Brewer Phillips on 2nd guitar and Ted Harvey on drums, this 3 man band created a 6 man band sound and their great live performances regularly turned into all night 6 and 7 hour show. Fun was had by all. Then in 1969, a 22 year old Bruce Aguilar was working for Delmarc Records founder Bob Coster in Chicago when he saw a performance by Hound Dog Taylor and his House Rockers. Bruce tried to convince Bob Kester to record this incredible group to no avail. So in 1971, he took $2500 of his own money and started Alligator Records, with its first effort being an album titled Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rockers.

The success of this first Alligator Records album sent this little independent record label soaring and kicked off Hound Dog Taylor and His House Rocker’s international career. Hear from a November 22nd 24th 1974 live album recording from the Smiling Dog Saloon in Cleveland, Ohio and released by Alligator in 1976, a year after Hound Dog Taylor’s death entitled Beware the Dog. Is this Hound Dog Taylor salute to Taylor’s mentor, Mr Elmore James? Here’s just my brew.

• 00:42:51 – [Just My Brew – Theodore Taylor]

• 00:45:45 – Otis Spann & Peter Malick

Jamie Anthony: Almost exactly 1 year after our friend Peter Malick recorded “I’m a Bad Boy” with Otis Spann that we heard earlier in this show, in April 1970, under much different conditions, Peter produced and recorded an album with Otis Spann titled “Otis Spann – Last Call Live at the Boston Tea Party.” These would be Otis Spann’s last recordings before his death. From our interview with Peter Malick for our podcast number 239, Peter shares how that recording came about.

Mr Spann’s last album. To me, it’s so it’s incredible. It’s when you put it into perspective and realize that the guy was was sick.

Peter Malick: Yeah. I mean, he was like he was weeks away from when he passed.

Jamie Anthony: So, I mean, it’s incredible that he was still knocking it out and playing as well as he played. That’s phenomenal. How did you guys come together to decide to do that recording, and can you speak a little bit about that?

Peter Malick: Yeah. Sure. So I’ve been in touch with Spann at times where a lot of times he wouldn’t have a telephone. I’d spent the the summer before in Chicago mostly the whole summer with him and living in the apartment he had, which was 4111 Greenwood Ave, South Greenwood Ave, which no longer exists. I think it’s a vacant lot right now.

And and well it should be because it wasn’t exactly a luxurious apartment building. So I spent that summer with him, and the last time I was there was, I think, later in September in Chicago, and I was like, woah. You know, the wind was coming in off the lake. And so anyway, I ended up not exactly going back to balmy Boston, but nevertheless, I came back home and did some other stuff. And sometime in the winter, Lucy Hill had been in touch with me and she said that Spann had been sick, he’d been in the hospital, but he was out of the hospital now and, you know, what was going on and could they come to Boston and do something?

So, the original Boston Tea Party, which was at 53 Berkeley Street, had moved into a bigger club right by Fenway Park. And there was this club called “53 Berkeley Street” that was started up, and they were trying to sort of emulate the early days of the Boston Tea Party. The owner was having trouble getting licensing from the city of Boston and but anyway, I got involved with them and we planned a gig for Spann, and it was those 3 days that became the album. And I hadn’t spoken to him at all. The old Boston Tea Party, there was 2 huge flights of stairs that would go up to where the the old ballroom was.

And so I was there on the the afternoon of the gig and I heard they got into town, and I was at the club trying to get some stuff set up. And and, they climbed up to the top of the stairs, and I saw him. And it was just such a shock. I mean, he was, you know, half of the weight that he’d been before. He had this huge clot on his forehead, which was something unrelated to, you know, he died of liver cancer.

It was just, I mean, of course, it was wonderful to see him, but it was just so shocking to see him. And and so needless to say for all of us, it was just an amazingly emotional gig. And I really wanted to, you know, his his hands will be obviously, he could still play. He could he’s probably, you know, playing today in in some way. I mean, that’s this all he did.

But I wanted to sort of, I guess, craft the set so that it stayed sort of low key so he didn’t get lost. This was definitely about him. And so that was kind of the vibe of the record. We wanted him to have his showcase to have his spotlight because it certainly appeared that it was not gonna be long, you know, that he wasn’t gonna be around for very long. So what happened with the club was the night of the gig like, 3 or 4 hours before the gig, this is after they arrived, The owner came in came to me.

He’s like, Boston won’t give us a a license to do it live. And so we would try to scramble to figure out a way to do it. They finally evidently, the police said, alright. If you don’t charge admission, you can do it. And so that’s what we did.

I think the first night was Thursday. Didn’t charge admission. Friday, they didn’t charge admission. Saturday, they closed him down, and I called Don Law, who was like the manager of the the new Boston Tea Party, and told him what was going on, and he put together a set. He opened up a set so that he could perform and and do the gig, and we did so.

They did that one at the Boston Tea Party. I don’t remember whether the recording if it was actually recorded at the Boston Tea Party, but it may have been.

Jamie Anthony: On this selection, Otis’ wife, Lucille Spann, sang and was accompanied by Otis Spann on piano, album producer Peter Malick on guitar, Ted Parkins on bass, and Richard Ponti on drums with My Man.

• 00:50:40 – [My Man – Otis Spann]

• 00:56:10 – Mud Morganfield

Jamie Anthony: Now as my childhood blues hero, Mr Piano Red, used to say as he signed off his Atlanta radio show with “I hate to Left You, but I got to Win.” So now we’ll leave you with my friend and blues man, Mr Mud Morganfield, who is the eldest son of super blues legend, Mr Muddy Waters. Mudd was born Larry Williams in Chicago in 1954 and was raised by his mother, miss Mildred Williams, and her 7 brothers on the west side of Chicago. Following his father, Muddy’s death in 1983, Mud Morganfield decided to pursue the blues professionally. One of Mud Morganfield’s latest releases from Delmark Records is a great gospel we’ll close out this show with.

On it, Mud Morganfield sings and plays bass and is accompanied by Rick Kreher and Mike Wheeler on guitars, Luca Chiellini on keys, Cameron Lewis on drums and percussion. Backing vocals are provided by Felicia Collins, Shantina Lowe and Demetrius Hall on Mud Morganfields “Praise Him.” And thank you all for listening.

• 00:57:15 – [Praise Him – Mud Morganfield]