Author: Don Wilcock
Don Wilcock
Now into his second half century as the warrior music journalist, Don Wilcock began his career writing “Sounds from The World” in Vietnam, a weekly reader’s digest of pop music news for grunts in the field for the then largest official Army newspaper in the world, The Army Reporter. He’s edited BluesWax, FolkWax, The King Biscuit Times, Elmore Magazine, and also BluesPrint as founder of the Northeast Blues Society. Internationally, he’s written for The Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Awards program, Blues Matters and Blues World. He wrote the definitive Buddy Guy biography 'Damn Right I’ve Got The Blues,' and is currently writing copy for a coffee table book of watercolor paintings of blues artists by Clint Herring.
“Not to say I wouldn’t have been pissed off if Zeppelin made a disco record in 1975. I would have been furious, but they didn’t. They always pushed the envelope.”
“I grew up hearing this gospel music. I know how to sing like this. This is second nature to me. It’s a different way of singing.”
“I still do that. I do that right today. I play with anybody I want to. Get a CD, stick it on that thing, and fire it up. I love playing drums, man.”
Valerie June hears voices. Sometimes it’s a young female voice singing. Other times it’s a child’s voice….
Shaw toured the south in a brand new Cadillac with Muddy Waters in 1959 and ‘60, and was Howlin’ Wolf’s band leader from 1972 until his death in ’76.
“You don’t see any black people playing country, and there’s been only one black rock and roll band in my lifetime, and that’s Living Color.”
“Being a black American is part of the American identity. And nothing says that better than music.”
“I knew what I was doing. I knew what I wanted to do. Then, I got the opportunity to do it.”
Not since the days of Johnny Otis in the early ’50s has there been a rhythm ’n blues band this big or nimble.
“I think really we’re just into older music. We’ve never been too (dependent) on contemporary music. We all kind of formed this band by our similar taste in music. We grew up on oldies stations.”