Page 13 - BiTS_04_APRIL_2025

JI: When I did that training on the keyboards when I was 15, I had been told by a

friend that he knew a guy from another local school, who was a great guitar player
and played jazz and blues and stuff. He introduced me to him and we just kind of
played together. So that first happened when we were 14, like his mom dropped

him off, and we played together. But then when he was 17, he invited me to join his
band after I’d really learned all this blues stuff. He had a band called Stevie Lizard
And His All Reptile Orchestra.

It was a small band. It was only a few members, but he asked me to join. So right on
the spot, they named me Johnny Iguana because the bass player was supposed to
be named Bobby Iguana, and I was supposed to be his brother. So he called me

Johnny Iguana. That was fun and we played from age 17 to 21 in and around
Philadelphia. That was kind of my Cavern Club years where we would play three,

one-hour sets, and we actually managed to become the house band at a club in the
Philly outskirts. That was really a black run club and the clientele were black, but
we were young white kids, and we had friends with fake IDs, and we became the
Monday house band. As matter of fact, one of the guys in Stevie Lizard himself made

the fake IDs in his basement.

You could pay him some money and he would get you a fake driver’s licence with a
camera and laminating. We would on

Monday nights be heroes because our
18-year-old friends would go there with
Junior Wells
their fake IDs and the club didn't much
care. They were happy to sell you beer
and we would play three sets from eight
to 11 or whatever on a Monday night.

Then high school kids would be
hungover. [Laughing] I remember a

friend throwing up on the floor at
school, but it was so triumphant because
we were the ones that got them their

IDs. I feel kind of vindicated by it
because they were going out to see
music already and I think it's shameful

in America that everything is so divided
as 21 and up and 21 and under, and no
one under 21 can go and see music live unless there's an all-ages situation which

many towns don't have any such thing.

So I just came back from six weeks in France and Czech Republic with this Chicago
Blues Festival tour of France that's been happening for 50 years. I just came back

from playing there, and I was so joyful to see lots of teenagers there, not only wanting
to see blues, which doesn't really happen here, but just out and about and being silly