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WILLY JORDAN - TOFU OR ZYDECO


Club Fox, Redwood City, CA - photo Michael Salvagio

 Willy: “Anthony Paule does one instrumental on every recording that he does, and on this one we were like ‘we need a title’, so we started talking about food. Anthony said ‘well, I like tofu’, and me and Larry Batiste looked at him and said ‘no tofu.’ Anthony asked ‘what do you want?’. I said ‘anything but tofu’, and Larry’s like ‘barbeque’ and I said ‘yes, that will do’, so we came up with this line of ‘bring me some barbeque, don’t want no tofu.’"

 On this funky track logically called No Tofu, there’s a trombone solo by Derek James, but a most amusing detail is that the line above is chanted by Sons of the Soul Revivers – Dwayne, Walter and James Morgan – who are better known for their more soulful, even gospel sound. Willy: “We got the Sons on there, because we had another tune that we were doing and that hasn’t been released yet. On this tune we had everybody singing on the background vocals, because we felt that way. And it’s appropriate for the Sons, because they are big boys and they like to eat and they don’t like tofu either, so they were more than happy to sing it” (laughing).


WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?

 Willy: “I met Anthony Paule in 2022 on The Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise. I was there with Elvin Bishop. We were playing, and Anthony’s band was playing there, too. Terrie Odabi was their vocalist, because Willie Wee Walker had passed away. Everybody up here in northern California knows about Anthony’s band; when he was playing with Frank Bey, and all of that. On this blues cruise I started talking with Christine Vitale. I said ‘that song, After A While, was really cool. Can you write one for me? She was ‘I don’t think I can write another one like that, but you can come over to write songs with me.’ So, she invited me to a songwriting session. That was really cool, because I came to songwriting very late. I’ve always had a lot of ideas, but collaboration seems to bring out the best in me. I got together with Christine and Larry and Anthony, we started writing songs very quickly and the chemistry was really, really good.”

 The collaboration didn’t stop at writing, but proceeded into gigs and finally into recording together. “They looked me up and I said ‘hey, if you guys are looking for a singer, I’m interested’. By this time, many songs for Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra’s (short APSO) (http://www.anthonypaule.com) next album were already written. “I listened to them and said ‘that’s a really good material you have sitting there, but Willie has passed away and Terrie seems to be going in this direction, to do her own thing. If you guys want to, let’s see if we can put it together.’ Then we did a couple of gigs, and we immediately said ‘we have to do our own CD.’” Willy co-wrote four songs for this new CD.

Released on October 25 on Blue Dot Records (http://www.bluedotblues.com), the title of the CD, What Are You Waiting For? (BDR CD 111), is derived from an up-tempo, danceable tune, with a great hook. This lively number was written by the couple of Christine Vitale and Anthony Paule, together with Larry Batiste and Willy. “We wanted an up-tempo tune. I came up with the first two verses and they helped finish the rest of it.” On this track you can enjoy also Tony Lufrano’s organ solo and tight background vocals by Larry Batiste, Nona Brown and Omega Rae. It’s also the next single release off the album.

 Those four writers of the title tune – Christine, Anthony, Larry and Willy - are credited also as the producers of the whole CD. The arrangers are Anthony, Larry and Tony Lufrano, and the music was recorded at 25th Street Recording Studios in Oakland, CA. According to Willy, songwriting took place in March-April, production in April-May, then printing and the product was released in October. Interestingly, during this process also one “ad hoc” musical assembly was created, when in August, Anthony, Willy and Eamonn Flynn met in a bar and decided to form a trio called Organ-ized.

 The release party was held the first of November at the Club Fox in Redwood City, CA. “It went really well. Bob Sarles, who did the documentary Born in Chicago, was there. Anthony played at his wedding a long time ago and he said he wants to do us a favour, so he brought his film crew over and shot the video for our new single to be released soon.” Other musicians on this APSO’s new CD include Tony Lufrano on keyboards, Endre Tarczy on bass, Kevin Hayes on drums, Ethan Pires on trumpet, Charles McNeal on tenor sax, Rob Sudduth on baritone sax and Jon Otis on percussion on two tracks.


Redwood Coast Music Festival, October 2023 - photo Matthew Niesen

ONE WAY

 The set kicks off with a rhythmic big band swing number called You Ain’t Old ‘Til You Cold, which is one of Willy’s personal favourites on this CD. Willy: “That’s the tune that I was talking to Christine on the boat about, when I said that I have some ideas for songs. That’s the first tune that I brought to the table with songwriters. I really like a good kick-ass swing horn band. I auditioned for Tower of Power twice and I didn’t make the cut, but I now have a band with background singers and horns, so I’m okay now” (laughing). This toe-tapper, which was put out as the first single, features also Anthony’s guitar solo.

 The second single, the mid-tempo, relaxed and melodic One Way, from the very first licks brings to mind Clarence Carter and his late-60s hits. “We wanted everybody to think ‘Memphis’ immediately.” Another favourite of Willy’s is a slow blues number titled You’re Somebody Else’s Baby Too, which grows towards the end and which Frank Bey originally sang on the Soul for Your Blues album in 2013. “I like it, because the whole band is involved, and I love background singers and I love blues. I just don’t get a chance to sing with really, really good singers a lot, but with this group I do. It’s an absolute joy to sing with these people, because they know how.”

 Back Up Plan is a funky mid-tempo number with Charles McNeal’s soulful saxophone solo in the middle. “I love this tune so much, because Larry Batiste writes and produces but he rarely gets a chance to do his own tune and be upfront. I said ‘You need to go ahead and be featured on this’, and that’s what he did. I get to be a background singer, and put Larry upfront.”

 Where’s Justice is an easy flowing mid-tempo, which intensifies a lot towards the end and which carries a social message. Anthony recorded this song first with Marcel Smith in 2021 (https://www.soulexpress.net/marcelsmith.htm)

AFTER ANOTHER WHILE

 On a mid-tempo groove titled Bruised, Willy sounds like he’s almost aggressive. “Not almost. I am (laughing). We wanted to tell a story of a love that isn’t necessarily traditional.” Love Out Loud is one of the highlights on the CD. This melodic up-tempo mover is most infectious, and Terrie Odabi has performed this song live earlier, for instance at the Porretta Soul Festival in Italy. “This is once again by Christine, Anthony and Larry. They’ve had it in the can for a long time. I listened to it and said that I like it.” From an easy dancer we move on to a pounding, big-voiced blues on That’s Not How the Story Goes. “Once again, I’m being aggressive” (laughing).

 The concluding song on the CD is Willy’s version of Wee Willie Walker’s latter times signature song, the beautiful After a While (https://www.soulexpress.net/porrettasoul2018_report.htm; please scroll down a bit). Equally mellow and sentimental, Willy however improvises more in the end. “I remember Willie. Every time we went to Minnesota, Willie come sit in with us in this one club. There will never be another like Willie. Whenever I hung out with him, it was always fun. He touched a lot of people around here. I did the song the best that I could, in the spirit of Willie. They told me to ease my mind. ‘You are a stylist. You are your own person and you sing this song in the spirit of someone else, but you sing it in a way that is unique. Please do that for us.’”


Lucerne Blues Fest - photo Aigars Lapsa

WILD CHILD FROM SANTA ROSA

 Willy Jordan Jr. was born on September 30th in 1959, so he recently turned 65. The place of birth was Santa Rosa, in the North Bay, California. “My great-grandfather rented a lot of rooming houses in San Francisco and Oakland. That’s how he made his money to buy the land in Santa Rosa in the 1940s. We were fortunate in that we had an opportunity to have a place, where we could have farm food and things like that. It was like living in the south, but we lived in California actually. At that time Santa Rosa was a very small town, like 30 000 people.” From those days the city has experienced an increase in population up to 175 000 today.

 “I think I’m the only one in our family at this point, who’s engaged in music professionally. I have a couple of younger cousins that have the potential and I hope they pursue it. My father was a very good singer and he was a very creative person. Unfortunately, he didn’t live that long. My mother had a very good voice also, but I was the one that was encouraged to do it.”

 “When I was six years old, my grandmother would ask me to sing a couple of tunes in front of a church choir, and I found out that’s a good way to be able to eat first if you sing in the church” (laughing). “I lived in an all-white town. There were very few black families, maybe a dozen. At the time. On weekends my mother would go to Oakland, where her mother and all my aunts and uncles lived and which wasn’t very far away. In the 1960s there were radio stations broadcasting all kinds of soul music, so that’s where I spent a lot of my time on weekends.” 


Willy and his mother Bernie Jordan

 “We had music in school. I played recorder, clarinet, violin and things like that until about 17 or 18. I would play a lot of drums… just locally, just messing around. My early influences were James Brown, of course, and Joe Tex. I collected music and there were also jazz records around – Jimmy Smith, Wes Montgomery, Ramsey Lewis…- and lots of 45s of old soul.”

 “I was pretty wild, when I was young, so I never really stuck to school that well. I had to get out of there and work a little bit. It took a while for me to settle down. As a teenager I ran a lot. What most kids did at high school back then was try to find out on their own what they could do. For myself, I had a very good cooking background, because in my family a lot of people cooked, so I worked at a lot of restaurants.”

 “I also had a hard time between 18 and 24. My mind battled a lot about living in that home town of mine, because it changed – and so did I. I had a few quarrels with people and I had to learn how to settle that down. I ended up having some time in the house of correction. A couple of things weren’t my fault, and eventually I got that cleared up, but that’s where I met one of my first musical influences, Frank Morgan.” Frank Morgan (1933-2007) is a jazz saxophonist, who grew up in Milwaukee and at an early age was inspired by Charlie Parker. He fell into a serious heroine habit, but after his release from prison in 1985 he recorded many critically acclaimed albums and became a household name in bebop jazz arenas.

 “There was a music room, and I heard Frank play his saxophone over there. He basically taught me how jazz works. I kind of jumped around as a drummer. He taught me how to slow down and really pay attention to what the drums were all about. He taught me how to play ‘tension and release’ with the drums. He taught me how to express myself with the instrument, so when I really started playing music and got into a group, I understood what my role was. I didn’t make any recordings with Frank. He had a reputation and a name. I was just a kid trying to learn, and Frank was very kind to me.”

GATOR BEAT AND MOTORDUDE ZYDECO

 “In 1985 I got married and had some kids. Then Richie Domingue, a guy in Sonoma County was looking for a drummer. I had no idea that he had a Louisiana background. He called our band Gator Beat, and I was one of the original members in 1988. I played with Richie for at least ten or eleven years. He introduced me to Cajun music. He was from the town of Duson, Louisiana. He was about ten years older than me. He had Canadian-French heritage, and he was very interested in making sure that I knew about his heritage, and he also introduced me to zydeco music. While I was with him, he taught himself to play Cajun accordion, and that’s when we made the switch from being a cover band to start playing his original music in French.”

 “We had Linda Hutchinson on bass, and David Scott on the saxophone. We sort of learned zydeco up here along with other groups that were here on the West Coast at the time. We played to a lot of Louisiana people and Catholic folks that were out here in California.”

 “When Richie was around, there were about four or five zydeco groups here on the West Coast. If you knew the music, pretty soon you’ll be subbing and playing in each other’s bands. We all pretty much got to know each other’s music.”

 “My first recording was actually with Gator Beat. Our first CD was called Ain’t Worried ‘Bout Nothin’. When we were recording, that was the day the Berkeley fire at Oakland Hills started. We could see the fire from outside the studio, and when we came back the next day the hills were still burning. We recorded during the fire.” The Oakland firestorm occurred on October 19-20 in 1991, and the 11-track Gator Beat CD, Ain’t Worried ‘Bout Nothin’, was released in 1993.

 A few years after Richie had passed away (1947-2005), Gator Beat changed its name to Gator Nation, with the line-up of Willard Blackwell (vocals, washboard), David Scott, Randy Quan (guitar), Bobby Gaviola (drums), Tim Haggerty (bass) and Dennis Hadley (accordion) they have performed until these days.


MotorDude Zydeco: Billy Wilson, RC Carrier, John Graham, Dennis Calloway, Willy

 Another Oakland, Ca, zydeco band called Motor Dude Zydeco was named after a racehorse, owned by a member of zydeco nobility, Boozoo Chavis (1930-2001). “He was a funny character. He gave the band his blessing to use the name.” The band was founded in 1989 and it exists still today. “Absolutely. I’ve been working with Billy Wilson. Motordude now is Billy (accordion, vocals), myself, Dennis Calloway (bass) and Lloyd Meadows (rubboard, vocals). Original member R.C. Carrier (frottoir) and John Graham passed away. Ian Lamson (guitar) came in, when John Graham passed away and that was about 8 or 9 years ago. We don’t work that much, but we still have some zydeco gigs here every once and awhile. I played on one of their records, and it was called Pass the Good Time in 2011.”

JOHN LEE, CARLOS, JOE LOUIS, ANGELA, EARL…

 “I played a lot with Richie Domingue from 1990 on. I lived in Northern California, and there were a lot of sidemen and there was a lot of good work that was around at the time. I got to know people and I got a pretty good reputation for being a drummer, so I played with a lot of sidemen up here. I got a chance to play with people that were really good – Luther Tucker, James Cotton and Freddie Roulette - they were up here in this area. When Johnny Otis was alive, he had a club up here. So, I played with a lot of good people, and I would get to sub sometimes.”

 “I played one gig, where I was with the bass player, Jim Guyett of John Lee Hooker’s band. It was around ’95. John Lee was looking for a drummer, and I couldn’t get the job then, but in 1997 I went to Alaska with John Lee Hooker’s bass player and he’s like ‘hey, the drum job just opened, let me get you in.’ He talked to John Lee and apparently John asked around, and it was Elvin Bishop, who recommended me. I wasn’t on any of John’s recordings, but I played a lot with him. When you play with John, all kinds of people would show up. That’s when I got to play with Carlos Santana. He would show up at gigs, and Carlos was kind of regular at John Lee Hooker’s house. At the time he was accessible, so I got to play with him a couple of times. The same way I got to play with Elvis Costello.”

 “After John Lee - in ’99 or so - I was playing with Joe Louis Walker’s guitar player, Levi Lloyd, who passed away (died in February 2023 at the age of 70), and Levi got me a gig with Joe, and I ended up playing with him for a couple of years.” Willy plays drums on Joe’s She’s My Money Maker CD in JSP Records in 2002.

 Angela Strehli (b. 1945) is a Texas singer/songwriter/blues historian, who specializes in electric and quite rocky blues, and since 1987 she has eight albums under her belt. On Deja Blue (1998) Willy is on background vocals on the slow Give Me Love. “That’s one of the Marin County people that I met through Elvin. She knew about my singing and asked me to come and do some background vocals on her album. She’s very nice and she would help me. I would go out and play at her husband, Bob Brown’s place, Rancho Nicasio.”


Willy and Earl Thomas

 “At that time, in the late-90s I had a lot of going on. I was playing with John Lee. I started my own group, A Case of the Willys, around 1995. That’s when I met with Elvin Bishop’s bass player, Evan Palmerson, and I got to sub for a couple of Elvin’s gigs playing drums. While I was playing zydeco, while I was doing gigs with the Willys, while I was doing anything I could get my hands on… Also, during that time, I met Earl Thomas, and I did some singing on one of his albums, too.” The album in question is Stronger than the Flame, released on Conton Records in 1995.

ELVIN BISHOP’S BIG FUN TRIO

 “Elvin offered me the drum chair in 1995, but I couldn’t do it, because I was going up to Alaska quite a lot to play in fishing villages. So I had to turn Elvin down, but a few years later it paid off. The first recording I did with Elvin was Ace in the Hole.” The CD was released in 1995 on Alligator and Willie is on conga drums and backing vocals.

 “I didn’t play with Elvin full time at that time, but we liked working together. I had a garden at the time, and he’s a gardener, so we would trade a lot of plants. I like fishing, and so does he. Our relationship was based also on things outside of music for a long time, before we had a chance to go ahead and really work together. I would play with him in between drummers Larry Vann and Bobby Cochran, but I was still not in the band full time. We had this off and on relationship, when I would come in and help him with some recordings and stuff, and I would sing with him. We really didn’t have a chance to work together until 2014 or so, and that’s when it really started.”

 Willy plays congas on Elvin’s She Puts Me in the Mood CD in 2012, but already on Elvin’s 2014 CD, Can’t Even Do Wrong Right, Willy is engaged in vocal harmonies, playing a box-shaped Peruvian percussion instrument called Cajon and is credited as one of the composers. “After Can’t Even Do Wrong Right I subbed with Elvin for a few gigs, like in 2015. This time I came over to his house, and he said ‘I got some ideas I want you to come over and work on.’ I worked with him on tunes with Bob Welch (keyboards, guitar). We found out that we could do a lot as a trio. Elvin was excited, because at the time he had a very large band, and he really wanted just to play guitar. He really got into it – ‘I want to book us as a trio and maybe we can do some old blues songs and stuff.’”

 “When we were doing that, I sang Fooled around and Fell in Love.” The song had first appeared on Elvin’s 1975 album called Struttin’ My Stuff with Mickey Thomas on vocals. “Elvin was surprised that I could do it. Then, on stage Elvin’s large band with the horns would play the whole show and three minutes towards the end Elvin said ‘do you want to hear this guy sitting on the box sing?’” The box was the Cajon. “That’s when I got a chance to sing Fooled Around on stage, and that was the beginning of me being in the show. My first gig was at the jazz festival in New Orleans – no pressure at all” (laughing).

 Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio, which consisted of Elvin, Willy and Bob, released its first eponymous album on Alligator in 2017, and in addition to playing cajon, drums and percussion, Willy is on lead vocals as well. He sings on such covers as Sunnyland Sim’s It’s You, Baby, Bobby Womack’s/the Valentinos’ It’s All Over Now, Fats Domino’s/Dave Bartholomew’s Let the Four Winds Blow and Ted Taylor’s Can’t Take No More, and still shares lead on other songs. This joyful, boogie-woogie blues album was nominated for a Grammy Award in the “Best Traditional Blues Album” category. Their follow-up album, Something Smells Funky ‘Round Here (Alligator in 2018), was nominated again in the same category a year later, but it didn’t win either.

 Two years later Elvin released with Charlie Musselwhite an album titled 100 Years of Blues with two songs co-written by Willy. Help Me is an almost downtempo blues boogie-woogie number, whereas Old School is a mid-tempo blues romp, which actually first appeared on the Can’t Even Do Wrong CD with Elvin in 2014. “He used it on that one as well. I wasn’t on that later recording. That’s another trio that Elvin has with Charlie and Bob.”

JOHN NEMETH, TIA CARROLL, FRANK SWART…

 Willy plays cajon, drum kit and percussion on John Németh’s CD called May Be the Last Time in 2022. Furthermore, Willy’s vocals are piercingly high on the soul classic, I Found a Love, and he’s on background vocals on other tracks as well. “It’s a thing about location again. Here on the West Coast, we have an access to a lot of good musicians, and one of the places I don’t live that far away from is Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios. Over there you run into everybody. I played with Bob Welch for years and I played a lot with John. When John used to live here in the Bay area, I never played with him, but when I was moving around with Elvin we ran into each other. Then John had his health issue with his jaw, and we figured we must do something to help. It was the Big Fun Trio plus Kid Andersen, Alabama Mike and me, and we just went to Greaseland and did some recordings. The record label was very generous. It sold the CDs and gave him most of the profits.” Nola Blue Records is located in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.

 Willy is also on background vocals on Tia Carroll’s CD titled You Got to Have It in 2021 (https://www.soulexpress.net/tiacarroll.htm), at least on a song called Ready to Love Again. “I wanted to borrow some instruments from Kid’s studio. When I went there, he said ‘oh you’re here, sit down and do some background vocals.’ I’m like ‘okay.’”

 Frank Swart is a jazz & funk bassist (electric bass), producer, and composer, and he invited Willy to play on his Funkwrench Blues CD in 2019. “Frank has his own little studio in Santa Cruz. Frank plays bass and I play drums, and we played basic tracks, then he paid me for those and I walked away. Frank invites other people and play over those tracks. He’s been doing that for years. He has quite a collection. He’s got something like 400 of them now.”


Glen Sullivan, Volker Strifler, Willy, Carl Bowers, Rick Clifford

A CASE OF THE WILLYS

 Willy’s own band is called A Case of the Willys, and - besides Willy – the line-up includes Volker Strifler on guitar, Carl Bowers on bass, Glenn Sullivan on trumpet and David Schrader on saxophone. “It started out with Volker and Carl. Glenn and David came later. We’ve all been playing together off and on since the 90s.”

 In summary, you can draw a conclusion that at this point Willy works not only with Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra, but every now and then with Motor Dude Zydeco, A Case of the Willys and Elvin Bishop, as well. “The other bands that I played with were good bands, but they were just little small things.”

 One of those small things was the Christmas Jug Band, and on their album called Christmas on the Moon Plus Live from the West Pole (Globe-1101 in 2021) Willy plays drums on the Moon title track. “That’s a couple of people up here. Once again, they’re really, really good players that have been around for a long time, and Tim Eschliman has a little novelty band. I did a couple of tracks with them.”

 “I’m currently working with Volker on some of his tunes I’d like to revive. My own personal agenda is to get out and get to know some of these new young blues players that are out there – Marcus King, Deshon Washington and Christone – and hang out with them.”


Almost Famous Wine - photo Bob Hakins

PERFORMANCES IN SWITZERLAND

 “I’ve been to Europe with Elvin a couple of times. We went to Thusis, Switzerland, and we went to Japan, and a lot of shows in Canada… and blues cruises, of course. Last year at this time Anthony Paule said that ‘I don’t have any material with you yet, but I want to be able to go over to Europe and try to see if I can market this group. I told Anthony ‘listen, I’ll go with you,’ and so basically we went to Lucerne last year. We crashed the party (laughing). They didn’t know we were coming. Basically, I went over there and I made a pest of myself, and the festival people were like ‘what the hell you guys are doing over here?’ Fortunately, John Németh was there, so he let me sit in with him and fortunately a friend of mine was playing zydeco over there, and Anthony played there too. Apparently, we made enough of a pest of ourselves for them to remember us. Sometimes you have to be what’s called the squeaky wheel.”

 This year the Anthony Paule Soul Orchestra with Willy Jordan returned to the 30th Lucerne Blues Festival and as an invited act played there on November the 14th. “I’m hopeful we can do this also in the United States and get things moving. I hope that the climate and the appetite for live music and entertainment is still out there.”

(Interview conducted on November the 7th. Acknowledgements to Willy Jordan and Anthony Paule).

© Heikki Suosalo


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