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HippieLady: Welcome to Blues Chat, with our special guest, Kim Wilson!

Hi, Kim, thrilled to have you with us!

Kim Wilson: Thrilled to be here!

HippieLady: Where are you playing tonight?

Kim Wilson: Playing at the House of Blues, Cambridge, Massachusetts

HippieLady: Congratulations on the success of your new label, Blue Collar Music! I love your new CD, "My Blues," Tell the folks a bit about it!

Kim Wilson: Well, it's another labor of love! I decided to take things into my own hands and now I know where everything's going and I never have to look over my shoulder! *grin*

HippieLady: Be sure to visit Kim's website at http://www.BlueCollarMusic.com, where you can hear a sound clip of this great new CD!

Kim Wilson: Cool, thanks for posting that, Bev!

HippieLady: Hey, we've had a link up to it since you launched...and are really looking forward to Fred Kaplan and Al Blake's releases as well!

Kim Wilson: Yeah, they're VERY good records, and both those guys have a lot to say in the genre.

markj: Hey, man, love your stuff....I'm an aspiring harp player, and you're one of my great inspirations. Do you have any plans to make an instructional video? I'd buy it in a New York minute.

Kim Wilson: Well, I don't have plans to do it at this point, no... very busy with the label and the Thunderbirds, playing live with both bands, however my friend Jerry Portnoy has the definitive instructional stuff, and he's got a website. Thank you for the compliment!

BluesBabe: Hi Kim! Caught you at the Rialto Cabaret in Tucson last year with the T-Birds and then again at the Boondocks in Tucson with Pinetop Perkins and Mad Dog Davenport. Both great shows, hope to see you back in these parts soon!

Kim Wilson: Great! Thanks!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: How would someone go about submitting something to your label?

Kim Wilson: All you'd have to do is go to the website, get the address and send it in! It's pretty simple! We listen to everything, but I have to caution you that our standards are VERY high! We're never going to waiver from that.

MrTupelo: Who were your earliest musical influences?

Kim Wilson: My earliest influences would have to be soul artists of the '60s, people like the Impressions and the Four Tops, of that nature. We listened to that a lot when we were kids growing up in Southern California. That kind of led me to the blues people…people like Charlie Musselwhite, George Smith, and then I found out about Little Walter, and my whole life changed! Luckily, I was able to play with a lot of my major influences at that point. About a year after I picked up the instrument I played with Eddie Taylor, Luther Tucker, Albert Collins, George "Harmonica" Smith, Peewee Crayton...the list just goes on and on, I was very fortunate!

TBirdMama: Hey, Kim, I'm a huge fan of yours, and I just have to know...what happened to that pudgy guy in the T-Birds of the 80's, and what motivated you to start working out? You look GREAT!

Kim Wilson: It's not so much working out as getting rid of...well, not being a wino anymore! It was really just the wino bloat, I'm not really too much smaller than I was before! Actually, at one point I was bigger! I do work out, I try, but it's very difficult, as busy as I am!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: Who do you listen to when you're not playing?

Kim Wilson: Well, I listen to everything that's good! hehe...I listen to a lot of blues, people that were stars, people like Muddy Waters and BB King, but I also try to listen to obscure people I've never heard of before. I still love soul music and jazz; the old Blue Note stuff. I also like rock and country, but it's all old. I don't think I listen to anything past about 1968.

HPI-Flatline: How did you hook up with Eddie Taylor and Luther Tucker?

Kim Wilson: A local DJ at the time who didn't like me very much got me on the show because he thought I was gonna show my ass! It turned out that Eddie loved me, and the next time Eddie came around the guy was so mad he didn't hire me, but I went to the show anyway, and Eddie came up to me and said he couldn't do it without me! It's the word of those guys and their stamp of approval that's always kept me going in this business!

Kim Wilson: In the case of Tucker, I was doing a house job at Fergie's in Galita. We backed all the artists that came in there. I asked the owner to get Luther Tucker, and we became great friends! In fact, we even had a band together for a while. It had a lot of names, but whatever we were using at that time was probably embarrassing! We did have a band called "the Rockets," that's not too embarrassing, featuring Galita Slim... now that IS kinda embarrassing...the drummer, between songs, was always screaming for more rocket fuel! hehehe...

HippieLady: Speaking of "band names"…I heard that the T-Birds did something with the Kentucky Headhunters that ended up being informally nicknamed "The Thunderheads!" (laughing!) I love that!! Which reminds me, Greg Martin told me to send you his hellos next time we spoke…so "hello" from Greg!

Kim Wilson: Back at him! Actually, we did do a couple of shows together! We interacted before, they're very nice fellas!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: Do you feel that audiences are changing and if so, how?

Kim Wilson: I think people have changed; in the old days I think that they used to kind of put the artist on a pedestal. I don't know why that is, but these days, the guy looks at his girlfriend and says "I could do that."

Keysman: Hi Kim, love your harp playing. In fact, one night while I was playing keys with Guy Forsyth at Antone's, saw you in the audience and wondered why you didn't come and sit in!

Kim Wilson: Sometimes I just like to hang out, 'specially at Antone's. Usually Clifford and I are on our way to go eat somewhere. And I'm never gonna turn that down! (laughing!) You have to realize that I'm on the road close to 300 days every year. I cherish what free time I have!

WangDangPoodle: You sit in on other artist's records some; are there any coming up that we can look forward to?

Kim Wilson: Yeah! There's a new Jimmy Rogers tribute record on Atlantic that I'm going to be on! I had the pleasure of being in the studio with Keith Richards and Mick Jagger, it was a lot of fun! My last one before that was the Bonnie Raitt Live CD. To be honest with you, there have been quite a few of them, and it's difficult to remember all of them there's so many!

bluesdj: Hey Kim, Roberta Penn here in Seattle. I love the nasty minimalism of your new T-Birds CD, but I'm wondering why it isn't on AAA radio. I host Seattle Blues on the AAA station here, but the label has not serviced the station. Is there anything I can do to facilitate that? I know it would be put in regular rotation if someone at the label was working radio.

Kim Wilson: That's kind of a sore spot. You're talking to the man who does most of his own promotion. The only thing I can tell you is to call them up and bitch like hell that you haven't been serviced! That didn't sound right… (giggling)…I do it all the time! (laughing!)

Kim Wilson: Oops! Hehehehe!

HippieLady: Kim, for those folks that haven't heard your latest release on Blue Collar Music, entitled "My Blues" can you tell the folks a bit about the players performing with you?

HippieLady: (and by the way, folks, you can hear a sound clip from "My Blues" on Kim's website at http://www.bluecollarmusic.com

Kim Wilson: I guess we can start with the rhythm section; Richard Innes, in my opinion, is the greatest living blues drummer. I don't know what I would do without him in my recordings…Larry Taylor, as well, on the bass. They both used to play with the Hollywood Fats band, but have played with EVERYONE! Larry you might know as "The Mole" from Canned Heat. Fred Kaplan is playing piano, and was also a member of the Hollywood Fats band. He played with Joe Turner and T-Bone Walker, Roy Brown, many, many more.

Kim Wilson: The guitarist…everyone knows who Rusty Zinn is, as well as Junior Watson and Kid Ramos. We also have a couple of very good horn players, Tom Fabre on tenor, who's done some very good work for me, and Scott Steen on trumpet…needless to say it's an all-star cast! In my opinion, there are very few, besides these guys, really saying something in this music!

Kim Wilson: I'm really glad that everyone came, I've been planning this chat for a long time, and the show got booked, so I'm really sorry that I'm responsible for rescheduling this, but I'm really glad y'all showed up early!

HPI_DRUMRDAVE: Tell us about your favorite "Gig Nightmare"

Kim Wilson: I think my most MEMORABLE gig nightmare was the first time I actually got something thrown at me!

HippieLady: Uh, Kim…was it a ladies undergarment? hehehe!

Kim Wilson: It was a last-minute opening gig for the Doobie Brothers. It was in Binghamton, NY, and we walked up on the bandstand, and I guess they thought we were the Doobie Brothers at first, and when they figured out we weren't, the first couple of rows flipped us their IQ! (giggling) We refused to leave the stage, I was catching cups before they hit my face! I think people respected us a little more after that. We played Binghamton a few times after that, and they realized we weren't going away, so they started showing us a more favorable response!

HippieLady: I was at your show at the Coach House, San Juan Capistrano, in January last year, and what that woman threw at the stage was NOT a cup...well, come to think of it, it had two cups!

Kim Wilson: (laughing!) It's one of the highest forms of flattery, and it WILL get you everywhere! (laughing!) Unfortunately, my whole family was there, including my 4 year old nephew who got to see his first striptease!

HippieLady: Egad!

TxBluzFan: You seem to have a good rapport musically with Kid Ramos...what is it about him as a guitar player that encourages this?

Kim Wilson: He's a good guy, for one thing! I try to create an atmosphere on stage with anyone I'm up there with. It just so happens if they're a great musician it makes it very easy!

WangDangPoodle: I've read that Muddy Waters helped you out early in your career...can you tell us about that?

Kim Wilson: Muddy was like a second father to me. The things that he did for me, first of all, he gave us a reputation on the East Coast, he spread the word. We already had packed houses, just on word-of-mouth. In fact, it's funny 'cause I'm playing in the same neighborhood, Cambridge, MA, as the first time I went on tour!

Kim Wilson: Muddy really taught me a lot, but even more than music, he taught me how to be a human being. There's no way in the world I can ever repay all the people I've played with, and I've played with everyone! They say you have to give back and I try, but the scale is WAY over balanced in their favor and I couldn't do it in my next 20 lifetimes! Muddy said a lot of great things about me to the press and that was great, but the best thing about it was just being around one of the greatest men in history! And if I turn out to be half the man Muddy Waters was and is, I'll be doin' just fine!

HippieLady: Kim has to be on stage in just a few minutes, so we're gonna have to wrap it up. Kim, any closing comments for your fans?

Kim Wilson: Well, I just want to thank you one more time! The records should be just going to the stores as we speak now. I just want to let you know that our slogan is that we are raising the standard of blues music today! We're doing it through tradition, without imitation. And Thanks A LOT for sticking with us!

HippieLady: It's always such a joy to have you with us in Blues Chat; thanks for making time for us tonight!

Kim Wilson: And GO NEW YORK GIANTS!!! hehe!

HippieLady: Be sure to visit Kim's website for more information about his new release, and upcoming releases by Al Blake and Fred Kaplan, at http://www.BlueCollarMusic.com You can order them from there too!

HippieLady: Be sure to join us next week, at 10 PM Eastern, as Blues Chat proudly presents Coco Montoya!

Kim Wilson: Bye everyone! Dig deep if you wanna hear some blues!

HippieLady: Don't forget Monday night at 10 Eastern, for Blues Trivia with Madeline Denes and Margaret Mackinnon, and Tuesday night at 10 Eastern for Chicago Blues Chat, with your host, Geof Rogers.

HippieLady: Thanks for being such a great audience!

Good Night from HPI Blues Chat!

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