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This band worked a lot and backed up visiting Blues Legends like Luther Tucker, Earl King, Lee Oskar,
Larry “Texas Flood” Davis, Linda Hopkins, and many others. In this same time period, I had the honour
of playing, touring and recording (2 albums) with the late great Floyd Dixon. He would have guests

like Roscoe Gordon, Duke Robillard, and Sugar Ray Norcia. Next up I had the pleasure of putting
together a band for Finis Tasby, who had basically retired. We called ourselves The Rhythm Disciples
(featuring guitar virtuoso Robert Lieberman and South-Central drum legend Johnny Dominguez
[Johnny D]).

Many gigs and festivals followed including hosting a weekly Monday night jam in Hollywood with
regular guests like Lowell Fulson, John Lee Hooker, Johnny Rivers, Slash, Clifford Solomon, Joe Sample,
Teddy Edwards, and Marty Grebb. Unfortunately, when we found a producer and record label, the
band got left out in the cold. So at this point in time I began my bass-for-hire phase, playing, touring

and recording with everyone from Canned Heat to Lester Butler, B.J. Sharp, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins,
Lowell Fulson, Mick Fleetwood’s Blue Whale (with Ron Thompson), Terry Evans, Cash McCall, Barry
“No Relation” Goldberg, Cal Green, Kirk Fletcher, Doug MacLeod, Lynwood Slim, Hook Herrera, Denny
Freeman, and just about anyone else who called me.

Songwriting also became a priority. While I got some cool songs covered; “I Will Serve” (Jack Mack
and the Heart Attack), ‘Down Home Woman’ (Kirk Fletcher sung by Finis Tasby), ‘Victim Of
Circumstance’ (Finis Tasby on an album produced by Lynwood Slim and featuring Kid Ramos on
guitar), and ‘Lie Down’ (Peach Reasoner featuring Paul Barrere from Little Feat on guitar). My first

experience with fronting an all-original Blues band was a trio called Big Buck, followed by Mark
‘Pocket’ Goldberg and the M.P.G. Band, who I’ve been working with for the last twelve plus years.

LL: Let’s talk about your new release
“Off-Balance Blues”. Lyrically it seems
very autobiographical. Could you tells
us about your concept and vision for
this album?

MPG: My new album “Off-Balance
Blues” came about during the Covid
Pandammit. Bill Bates (a local Chicago
Blues aficionado and guitarist) posted on
Facebook (of all places) about spending
too much at a record store. When I
responded “you gotta have what you
gotta have (there’s a song in there
somewhere)” he replied, “Let’s write it”.

I wrote out some lyrics and two days
later we had completed our first song. A
month later we had five songs and knew
that we needed to make a record. On the
first session we tracked the five tunes
that we’d created, plus a rhythm track
for one of my older tunes. The second session featured my long-time partners the M.P.G. Band,

tracking five songs that we had been performing for years and one new collaboration. The final
number (and title track) was recorded at my guitarist’s little overdub studio. I always prefer to write
songs that actually mean something to me, but sometimes I do project my thoughts about other people’s