Normally, I spend the beginning of an interview making the artist comfortable, a tedious experience where I assure the interviewee that I adore them on every level. More boring are interviews with guitar players which degrade into a description of their amp setup or a plug for their brand of strings. Wheatbread seemed uncomfortable with these subjects preferring to talk about his heroes, his past and his unique perspective on the blues. I was waiting in an empty bar in Chicago. Wheatbread himself gave me directions to the locale over the phone when we arranged the interview. I was practicing my best worshipful gaze when the door to the bar flew open and with no introductions offered Wheatbread let me into his world by telling me about one of his dreams.

Wheatbread Johnson - In my dreams all the amps sound great, warm, mellow, lots of control. They look normal, but on the far right, after the treble, middle and bass knobs there’s an extra one and it’s turned up to ten. I stare at the knob for a long time in the dream and try to read what it says underneath. I have to squint real hard because the paint is old and flaked off, then I figure out that it says SOUL and I know that that’s why it sounds so good. But, at the back of my mind something is bothering me. (He paused for a second and gave a nod to the bartender who sent a drink down the bar.) The thing that disturbs me is this, if we had the technology to control how much soul came out of an amp or a guitar why wouldn’t you just preset it at ten? I mean who would want less than the maximum amount of soul?

Tiny river towns in the Midwest are different. Growing up there is a blessing and curse. They’re safer than a city. Nothing much happens there and you know everybody, but everybody knows everybody else’s business and life goes by so slow that every kid is chomping at the bit to get out of there to experience what they think they’re missing, which is usually just a bunch of dangerous stuff that you can only do in a big city like Chicago.

John Arrows – In which small town did you grow up ?

WJ – I’d rather not name names to protect the innocent.

JA – Why? What did they do to you?

WJ – Nothing. I’m the innocent party here! I just don’t want to offend anybody. Living on the river was wonderful, like something out of Huck Finn. My parents trusted me and supported me when I said I wanted to be a musician. I had to stay out late and travel at all hours to get to and from gigs and they never got upset because they knew I wasn’t doing anything stupid. Well, that’s not exactly true. Once they got pretty steamed when I was fifteen and I convinced a group of older kids that we should drive an hour and a half into Chicago to see Otis Rush play in Kingston Mines. I couldn’t drive yet and I told everybody I’d get them into the club. The drinking age in Illinois is twenty-one, so, needless to say, they didn’t let us in. I was crushed and thought that my friends would all hate me. We were about to go when I spotted Otis coming down the road with his guitar. I was so excited that I almost tackled him. When he got up off the ground, I told him how we drove all the way in to see him and he convinced the manager to let us listen at the door. It was February or something like that and we froze our asses off, but it was one of the greatest nights of my life and I’ll always remember what a gentle cat Otis Rush is.

JA – Were all your friends into blues?

WJ – No, they only got into it when we were in high school. I was buying Howlin’ Wolf records since I was ten and they couldn’t believe I was listening to that stuff. They’d say, ‘Why are you listening to that crap, man?’ and I’d say, ‘Because, that’s what Eric Clapton and Hendrix listened to!’ Then, they’d say, ‘WHO?’ But, it was cool when we were older. They started getting interested in music and liking the more modern stuff like Stevie Ray Vaughan.

JA – Is it true you and Stevie were both born on the third of October?

WJ – Yeah! I didn’t know it for a long time, then I found out in the most spectacular way possible. It was my fifteenth or sixteenth birthday and in those days my best friend Jimmy and I played Hendrix and Stevie tunes day and night, just drums and guitar, you know? We just finished cranking out Change It or something like that and my cheapo tube amp started receiving a radio signal. I was about to kick the thing when Jimmy shouted at me to listen. It was some DJ saying that it was Stevie’s birthday. I almost fell over. The signal faded out as soon as he said it and we just sat there forever before we could say anything. Stevie was still alive in those days, but we were in total awe of his music. For me that moment confirmed my choice to be a blues musician.

JA – You play several of his tunes in your live show and you’ve obviously learned a lot from him. I’ve heard you play many of his solos note for note. Has anybody accused you of just imitating him?

WJ – (slammed his fist on the bar and shouts) NOT TO MY FACE! (a smile returns to his face) Seriously, everybody seems to accept it for what it is, my tribute to one of the great ones. Hendrix was dead for over ten years when Stevie started playing ‘Voodoo Chile’ and ‘Third Stone from the Sun’ in his live set. Sometimes he played Jimi’s solos from beginning to end. Well, Stevie has been gone for almost twelve years and I perform his music with the deepest respect. As for playing it note for note on occasion, how can you improve on perfection?

JA – Who else has been important to the development of your sound?

WJ – Lonnie Mack, Jimmie Vaughan, Otis Rush, Albert King. You name it. I don’t try to pick it apart and figure out what came from where. I like to let it flow, wrap all the things I love together and give it to people. All the great music I’ve heard over the years has played a part in my sound. I listen to everything.

JA – You have a Bachelors of Arts in Music. What did you study?

WJ – JAzz and Classical mostly. Everything ever done has happened in those two realms, so if you want to discover as much as you can about music you have to get into those areas.

JA – A lot of the master blues musicians couldn’t read music. I assume that with a college degree you can. Does it affect the way you look at blues music?

WJ – A lot of great blues musicians CAN read. They’re probably told by their agents to keep it a secret though. (laughs) Reading music is just a tool that allows you to learn as much as you can and play easily with others. It doesn’t help or hinder your musical statement in any way. I still have to go out there and open myself up to get my message out, play for the people, try to let them know how I feel and that I’m not bullshitting them. People know when you’re not being honest.

JA – You’ve been living in Europe for the last six years. Is there a good blues scene over there?

WJ – Small but Mighty! I’ve got to hustle to get enough gigs, but people love blues everywhere I go. When I tell Americans this they’re surprised. I always tell them that with all the wars and conflict in Europe over the last hundred years Europeans have learned what the Blues are about even if they never heard it before. Blues is about trudging through unhappiness and still finding life beautiful and worth living. Taking the bad with the good and seeing them both as a blessing.

JA – Could you give me an example?

WJ – Easily. I was born with low vision. I can see well enough to get around and not knock a bunch of people over, sometimes. (laughs) Growing up being different was hard. I had special needs and sometimes life met them and sometimes not. Most people would view being legally blind as a hindrance or a problem, but I know that it’s my greatest gift. I see the world in a unique way. I pay a lot of attention to what people say and how they say it rather than how they look. I turned to music instead of football or baseball as a pastime. Because I was rejected a lot socially as a child I’ve grown up knowing that everyone’s deepest wish is to be accepted and loved. Absolutely everyone deserves love and I wouldn’t know that to the extent that I do today without my gift. Music and Love are inseparable. Even when you’re playing a song about two people who hate each other, a subject common to a lot of blues songs, just getting out there and playing for an audience is an act of love. Some nights you only distract them from their worries, but there are nights when I know that I’ve connected with someone deeply. The soul knob that appears on amps in my dreams is actually inside of me and if I can get it turned up to ten by playing from my heart I’m not only giving love to people, but getting as much back from them. Once you experience that, you feel like you could go on playing for them forever.

JA – Thanks, Wheatbread.

WJ – My pleasure. (END)