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constants in the band. When I opened for Muddy, Bob Margolin and Jerry Portnoy were in the band.
So that week everyone within a hundred miles of Boston came to pay homage to Muddy Waters! It
was also the first time I sat in with him. That was scary! Bob and Jerry were living in the Boston
area and when they weren’t on the road with Muddy, they would do weekly gigs. They invited me
to play with them. Ronnie Earl (Horvath at the time) wanted to start a blues band with Michael

(Mudcat) Ward. He said, “I want a piano player! Who’s around.” I didn’t know it at the time, but
Mudcat was at one of the shows and he suggested me to Ronnie. They got a hold of me somehow
and came to where I was living. I was writing a Sonata for one of my classes when they came to
visit me! Ronnie just said, “you’re going to be my piano player…”. I said okay, and my college days
were over! In the early days of

Sugar Ray and the Bluetones
when Ronnie Earl was the
guitarist in the band, Ronnie
would call up Chicago blues
musicians such as Big Walter
Horton (I did two records with
Big Walter), J.B. Hutto, Hubert

Sumlin and they would come and
stay with us for a few weeks and
play all our gigs with us! Even if
they weren’t mentioned for the
gig. We once had Big Walter

Horton play a prom with us in
Westerly, Rhode Island. Otis Rush
was one of the artists we brought
out. You really had to know his
material; it wasn’t just a shuffle
in “E” so to speak. When he was
“on”, it was probably one of the

most powerful moments on stage in my career. We once were Memphis Slim’s backing band and
we did a few tunes before calling him up. Obviously, I’m going to give the piano chair to Memphis
Slim, he comes onto the stage and puts his huge hands on my shoulder and says to me “you play
piano - I’ll sing one.”

I was also Chuck Berry’s piano player when he came to the northeast. He asked me what I liked to
play. I said “blues.” He looked at me and I could tell he was the thinking “sure!”! He handed me his
guitar and said, “tune it.” It’s not really what I do, so I had the bass player tune it. About halfway

through the show he looks at me and says, “G”. Then he went into one of the deepest blues I ever
heard. This was not his regular repertoire! People wanted to hear his hits! This went on for a long
while. I could sense he was digging what he was playing and how we were backing him up. I think
it woke something in him up that maybe he hadn’t experienced for quite a while. Then just as
suddenly as it started, he gave a long down beat, walked to the microphone and said, “blues makes
me sad”, and he started one of his signature guitar beginnings. I have it on cassette somewhere!

LL: You hold a master’s degree! How has your academic education informed you as a blues
artist?

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