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KM: Yes, he grew up in Port Arthur, Texas and Bill can tell you himself, but I’ll tell you a little
bit about Bill, with a great harmonica player - a dear friend of ours that passed away a couple
years ago. Are you familiar with Paul Orta and The Kingpins?

BiTS: I certainly am.

KM: Bill founded that band with Paul Orta and it started out like a duo thing, like Sonny Terry
and Brownie McGhee and eventually Bill came to Austin, Texas to go to the University of Texas
and he encouraged Paul to come up and Paul moved here. I believe wasn’t it here that you

formed The Kingpins?

BJ: Yes. I came here to Austin, Texas because of the music and scene and places like the
Armadillo World Headquarters, where I saw the amazing Freddie King on guitar, which turned
my head around. So we started our Chicago blues band in places like Antone’s and we played
Chicago blues and Kathy and I were actually in rival bands. We were vying for the same gigs.

KM: The Kingpins and I had Kathy
and the Kilowatts for about five
years before I met Bill and there
weren't that many gigs and so we
were always competing for gigs
[laughing]. And eventually, one night
I needed a guitar player and I called
Bill and we really clicked musically,
and he started playing in my band.

BiTS: That’s wonderful. Absolutely
wonderful and I know that you write
Steve Scipio a lot of songs - do you write
together? Sit together and think of
ideas and that kind of stuff.

BJ: We’re doing that right now. I’m
sitting out here with the guitar and
we’re just going to go over some
ideas for other songs. We’re just
coming to terms with one of our
songs that we got from a Big Bill
Broonzy tune, ‘Key to the Highway’.

BiTS: That’s one of my favourites.

KM: Me too. ‘Changing Lanes’ on our new record “Fully Charged”, ‘Changing Lanes’ was totally
inspired by Big Bill Broonzy, and we do an electrified version. It’s really cool with the full band.
We also do duo shows and we’re sitting out here this morning realising that an acoustic
treatment of that song for our duo show would be really cool.

BiTS: I’m the hugest Big Bill Broonzy fan. I run a website called broonzy.com, which is a kind
of tribute to Big Bill. Have you ever heard the original of ‘Key to the Highway’?

KM: Have you Bill?

BJ: Yes [playing guitar]. Like that, right.