Page 58 - Blues Festival Guide Magazine 2018

Gumbo Funk: The Low-Down

Cookin with

Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton

At every gig, the Sauce Boss cooks a big pot of gumbo while smoking his slide guitar and creating a shared sense of community. Photo by Ruth Wharton

Bill “Sauce Boss” Wharton is no stranger to swamp funk, gets a bowl. “Gumbo is many different ingredients coming
being born and raised in pre-Disney Orlando. Growing up in together to make a dish for all. We are all different, but if we can
the eye of a storm, he’s accustomed to rattlesnakes, mosquitoes, come together and celebrate our differences, treat each other
sunburns and hurricanes. A sardonic sense of humor, original like neighbors rather than enemies, then maybe we can work
style of songwriting and serious love of food give his work a taste some of this stuff out,” says Wharton.
of the real Florida. As the Sauce Boss sings, “Alligator…you’re So how did he get here from there? It’s all about the food. “If
my favorite dish.” He serves up blues with a "bite!" it hadn’t been for my hot sauce, this crazy gumbo crusade would
Out of the kitchen, Wharton’s writing has been an inspiration have never happened. Liquid Summer Hot Sauce changed my
to many other artists. Wharton’s tune, “Let The Big Dog Eat,” was life. When I first started making it, my friends would come to my
featured in Jonathan Demme’s movie, Something Wild. It was house and eat up all my hot sauce. I’d make a couple gallons
also included on Jimmy Buffett’s album Late Night Menu, and has and it would be gone in a couple of weeks. So I slapped some
been covered numerous times. Most recently, Albert Castiglia labels on some bottles, and I was in business. I began to carry it
released Big Dog, and "Let The Big Dog Eat" became his theme to my gigs. I became the Sauce Boss.”
song, garnering 12 weeks at #1 on the Roots Music Report. While recording The Sauce Boss (Kingsnake Records,
We’ve all been to parties where everyone eventually ends up 1989), and hanging out with label mate Raful Neal, Wharton
in the kitchen. On stage, the Boss brings the kitchen – complete noticed some kinda ruckus in the kitchen. Raful’s wife, Shirley,
with his own Liquid Summer Hot Sauce – and cooks a big pot was making gumbo. The Sauce Boss watched her like a hawk,
of gumbo while smoking his slide guitar, singing in a soulful, and that night he learned to make gumbo…the right way.
gravelly voice and playing a drum kit with his feet. Soon, the Over almost three decades, the Sauce Boss has roamed
barriers between everyone melt away into a community of over a million miles, playing concerts and feeding way over
gumbo. It’s a soul-shouting picnic of rock 'n roll brotherhood. 200,000 people…for free. That’s right. FREE! Although most
Sauce Boss shows are ticketed events, he has never charged a
“You take that 53 Telecaster, pump it through that old penny for the gumbo. It’s a message of sharing. It’s community.
tweed Fender amp, add a bass rig, mix in some drums, He has taken his blues and a huge pot of gumbo all across the
all simmered down over some funky swamp blues and U.S., Canada and Europe.
smothered with gumbo, and you got a recipe for a party!” Wharton has also developed a non-profit foundation called
Planet Gumbo – taking it to the disaster zones of the Mississippi
After a few tunes, the audience is invited to come and literally Delta, to soup kitchens and homeless shelters across America,
stir the gumbo. More often than not, there’s a competition of where he’s fed war veterans, hurricane survivors and plenty of
who’s got the best stirring “chops.” Serious slide guitar work is folks who are down on their luck. Planet Gumbo aims to bring
peppered with tunes like “Okra,” “Chicken in the Gumbo” and joy and sustenance to homeless people through music and
“Cathead Biscuit Gospel.” At the end of the show, everybody gumbo, as well as raise community awareness of the plight

56 Blues Festival Guide 2018