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leads in England actually, and I'm really hoping to get there in November. Good friend of mine
is Ray Gelato. I don't know if you know Ray. We just played together at the Umbria, and he's
getting me a few leads at Ronnie Scott's and Pizza Express and this and that, so I'm going to be
hammering them to see what I can do. I toured England like 40 years ago [chuckles]. I hate to
think it was really that long ago.
BiTS: I was about to say, I think it's been a pretty long time since you were here, but 40 years,
that's an excessively long time.
MW: It's excessive, yeah [laughing]. Maybe it's 30, okay, I don't know. I lose track of time.
BiTS: Well, the two places that you
just mentioned, Pizza Express and
C Charlie Musselwhitelwhite
Ronnie Scott’s, are, of course, two of
the top venues in the country.
MW: Yeah, yeah, I know. I know
about them, and hopefully, I can
make some headway and get in
there because if anybody’s listening,
contact me through my website,
mitchwoods.com and give me a few
leads. I'd love to come back.
BiTS: Now one of my very favourite
musicians, not just because of his
music but because he's an all-round
nice guy, is Charlie Musselwhite. Tell
me about working with him.
MW: Oh yeah. Charlie's great. I've
known him for really many years.
We used to open for him, and as a
matter of fact, his guitarist was the
one who hipped me to Louis Jordan.
He said, oh man, you sound like
Louis Jordan, and I went out and got
all his records and he's just one of
my great inspirations. Wrote so
many great songs. But Charlie, you
know, he's a mellow guy, he's easy
going and soulful as ever, and I had
this one tune, ‘Cryin’ For My Baby’
that we did two songs on there and
I had written ‘Cryin’ For My Baby’
and recorded it before, but I always
wanted to record it with Charlie
because I just thought his harmonica would be perfect for it, and it is. It's just really slow, sad
blues and he did a great job with that.
BiTS: ‘Blues Gave Me A Ride’ – absolutely fabulous piece of music.