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you were there. I think I have a picture of you on stage”, and he did, and he said, “I didn’t take too
many pictures of you because you were a white girl”, and I said, “I don’t blame you. I wouldn’t have
either”. But we didn’t meet until a few years later. Bill our friend Rambling Steve Gardiner really
and we all started playing some music together as a group called the Jericho Road Show, so every
summer when Rambling Steve Gardiner would come over from Japan which is where he’s been
living, we would get together with Bill Steber and another
Bill Steber friend of ours called Wes Lee. He’s a killer slash guitar player
and we’d do a little tour for the month of August and so Bill
and I have become really close friends, in fact, we were
supposed to play this coming week at the Hill Country Picnic
as a duo and that all got cancelled.
BiTS: Of course. Are any of the gigs starting to come back
now or are you still waiting?
LRW: Well, things are opening up here, but also the COVID is
rising again, so I don’t understand why they open stuff up.
Everybody just wants to get out and I just don’t think it’s
worth it. I’m not ready to go put myself out there in a big
crowd of people.
BiTS: I don’t blame you. My wife and I haven’t been out
since the middle of March and we don’t intend to go out yet.
LRW: Yeah, I just think it’s foolish and everybody says, “what are you so afraid of?”. “I say I’m not
afraid of anything, I’m being smart”. I’m over 65. I have health issues. I don’t need to be up in there
getting that stuff. They are going to go ahead this coming weekend and have the Bentonia Blues
Festival and I’m just fearful for all that.
BiTS: Tell me something about this record of yours with Bert. ‘She Shimmy’. How did it happen, I
mean did he suggest it to you, or you suggest it to him?
LRW: Well, here’s what happened. I met Bert over the
Internet through Facebook and our love of Sam Chatmon
and the Mississippi Sheiks, and that’s how we met and
we conversed a little bit back and forth and one day he
sent me a message and he said, “hey what do you think
about coming over here to Sweden? I think I can get us a
little tour together and I’ve got this gig at the Amal Blues
Fest”. Okay, so the day I met Bert face-to-face was the
day I got off the bus in Sweden and we had one day to
rehearse, and we played that festival in Amal. I was there
for about 12-14 days and about three or four days in Bert Jack Owens and Bud Spires on Jack’s
said, “you know, why don’t we start recording some of porch in Bentonia MS by Bill Steber
this stuff? I’ve got a little studio up in my bedroom” and
so we did. We sat down and I put down all my guitar and