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know, he used to love it with DADGAD and all that stuff. I think it was immediately influenced by
his time in Morocco.

BiTS: At around about that time, Wizz, there were literally dozens of players of high standard,

including some of the ones that you
Davey Graham mentioned and yourself, is there anybody
who to you was outstanding? Who would you
travel some distance to go and see play?

WJ: In those days? Well, as I say, the
situation I was in I would never be able to go

to a concert or anything like that. I’d watch
and play in the coffee bars of Soho and I
suppose I was into all the black music when
they started getting those blues packages
coming over. I’d try and get to some of those
because I had the early Muddy Waters

records. I think it, first of all, came out on an
EP, the first time. You had those first-ever
recordings from the 40s of Muddy with Little
Walter ‘All Aboard’ and ‘Mannish Boy’ and
all that and that’s really what excited me.
Years later, people like J.J. Cale were really up my street.

BiTS: Absolutely.

WJ: I blew it myself because I kind of wound up on the folk sort of thing. I was influenced by
listening to folk music, the Ewan MacColl stuff on the radio. The Radio Ballads and all that. Apart
from the blues and Ramblin’ Jack Elliott and all the Woody Guthrie stuff. I saw Jack Elliott with
Derroll Adams when they came to London, and I followed them around and got to know them. I was
very impressed with that flatpicking Carter Family sort of style of guitar playing. It was all kind of

happening at once and then, of course, rock and roll. All at the same time [chuckles].

BiTS: By a strange coincidence, I have an acoustic blues show on the radio and I played a Jack
Elliott track in last night’s show. A thing called ‘Arthritis Blues’ - the ‘Talking Blues’.

WJ: Oh great. I got to know Jack in the end quite well and we met up with him in Germany and
travelled with him. We had this package called Folk Range where there were lots of people on this
package and I was doing some of the driving. I got to know Jack, and he said to me [chuckling], “I

want to ride with Wizz, I like the way you drive, boy”. He was my hero.

BiTS: Do you have any idea how many records you’ve made?

WJ: I’ve made about 15, maybe. I don’t know. Something like that. I don’t know. I’ve not really
bothered to count them. None of them were particularly successful or sold anything but that does
make them valuable now because if you make an album and it doesn’t sell, 50 years on, it’s kind of

a collector’s record, isn’t it [chuckles]?

BiTS: That’s true enough, yes. Are you still active? I gather you go out.

WJ: Well, have you looked at my website at all?