Artist description Who is this blues guy Jimmy Buffett is singing about on his latest album? It's the Sauce Boss--a blues man, who makes his own hot sauce, and cooks gumbo during his shows to feed his audiences. That's who. Nobody plays like Bill Wharton. Rhythmic, swampy, self-styled slide guitar blues from Florida, a true original.

Music Style Blues

Artist History Blues gumbo evangelist Bill Wharton makes Liquid Summer Hot Sauce and the hottest blues around. One morning in the early '70s, Wharton walked out of his house and found a 1933 vintage National Steel guitar in his front yard. This guitar lead him down the blues path. Deep in the woodshed, he penned "Let the Big Dog Eat", a song that was featured in Academy Award winning director Jonathan Demme's "Something Wild".RECORDINGS. . . With his latest release "Gumbo Man" (2001) and 1999 Multimedia (a cookbook/Blues album/culinary travelogue) CD "Recipes" on Burning Disk Records, four records out on the Kingsnake Blues label, frequent tours of the US, Canada, and Europe, national radio appearances (NPR's "Bluestage" and "Morning Edition" and Dan Ackroyd's "House of Blues Radio Show"), Bill Wharton is no longer a best kept secret. The New York Times called Wharton's musical cooking video "The Sauce Boss" "...an engaging and amusing mixture". "Le Monde de la Musique" (the premier French music magazine) gave Wharton's first record ("Sauce Boss") four stars. He has been featured on many compilation albums (most notably with Jimmy Buffett and Diana Bogart on "Margaritaville Café Late Night Menu"). . The tune "She's on Fire", from Wharton's CD "South of the Blues", was the pick of the week on Dan Ackroyd's House of Blues Radio show. PERFORMANCE . . .When the Sauce Boss decided to put cooking and music in the same show, the whole thing took off. Some have called it shtick or a gimmick, but Wharton says "it's two things that I've always loved to do--play music and cook dinner!" Paris correspondent for International Herald Tribune, Mike Zwernin, says "he does both equally well". National Book award winner Bob Shacochis featured Bill Wharton in his "GQ" column "Dining In", which later appeared in Shacochis's book "Domesticity". The Sauce Boss made gumbo in New Orleans and Lafayette, Louisiana. In his first trip to France, he cooked and played to a sold out concert in the prestigious Printemps de Bourges festival, where he had the assistance of not only his band, The Ingredients, but also a master chef and ten apprentices. He cooked for two solid weeks at Le Meridien (a four-star hotel in Paris). Wharton has appeared in national TV and radio shows in Paris, and has toured throughout France. Playing the French "National Festival de Blues" for two consecutive years, he was selected as honorary President of the festival in 1995. In March 1999, Bill Wharton was invited to be the headlining guest chef for the 11th Annual National Fiery Foods Festival in Albuquerque, NM, where he played/cooked for a record-breaking crowd. For the last nine years Wharton has been spreading the gospel according to gumbo, with his slide guitar, his hot sauce, and the secret of the roux–truly a musical/culinary experience. As the Sauce Boss says, "we're concerned with the two basic food groups here--Blues and Food. Come and get it!"Check it out on the award winning Wide Web site--www.sauceboss.com

Group Members Bill (Sauce Boss) Wharton, slide Guitar, rub board, and percussion;Majic John Jones, bass; Shannon Kori, drums

Instruments Slide Guitar

Albums Gumbo Man (2001), Recipes (1999), Standing in the Fire (1996), South of the Blues (1994), Cookin' (1992), Sauce Boss (1989)

Press Reviews WHO'S BEEN TALKIN' ‘BOUT THE SAUCE BOSS?"Talk about a hot show: Bill Wharton brings it-music and gumbo-to a boil and never lets 'em leave hungry...the poet laureate of sauce, the Sauce Boss himself, a gentleman by the name of Bill Wharton, a modern hero of the blues and a visionary...he's a gumbo preacher with a slide guitar...He and his band don't just perform the blues they cook them, literally..." Bob Shacochis Gentleman's Quarterly February 1992"It's an amusing, engaging mixture."NEW YORK TIMES "The best bar band I've seen in a long time . . . You know Bill, everybody wants to be me. But I'd like to open a bait shop and be you." JIMMY BUFFETTAbout Wharton's music, CAREY BELL says " You makin' me homesick...""Wharton is not only a fine slide guitarist...but serious about the blues in an almost evangelical fashion. He respects its origins as a field hand's survival kit, and looks to ease his audience's tensions and relieve their emotional starvation with a communal meal. Music and food is an old elixir, a participatory, not a spectator event." Washington Post Sept. 18, 1992"He stirs up the crowd as well as the roux, giving his audience a demonstration of both cooking and guitar skills they'll never forget." Times Picayune (New Orleans)"Bill Wharton's RECIPES is ". . .one of the most rewarding multimedia experiences I've ever seen. On one level, "RECIPES" is in fact a cookbook, whose 2 dozen recipes include sourdough cornbread, sausage dressing, Mama's Blackberry Surprise, and yes, gumbo. There's much more, including some of Bill's favorite home-cooking barbecue restaurants from his many years on the road, information about Liquid Summer hot sauce, many links to his website, and by golly, the tunes themselves, presented in the sumptious visual metaphor of a tabletop jukebox. But I've seen a lot of multimedia discs, and "RECIPES" absolutely ranks with the best of them. It's beautiful, it's fun, and you can turn the amps up to 11, which you'll definitely want to do. . . Observe and learn, kids, this is the way it's done. KEYS REPORTER 03/99"Bourges, France- Wearing a silk shirt and spats, Bill Wharton resembles the cross between Colonel Sanders, Julia Child, red neck farmer, social reformer and B.B. King that he in fact is."International Herald Tribune May 1992"A very talented slide guitar player, blues hound Bill Wharton has enjoyed a strong word-of-mouth following. Those in the know, including many blues legends, say that Wharton is one of the most dynamic blues men going."The Austin Chronicle

Additional Info Has cooked gumbo for over 85,000 at performances in last twelve years

Location Monticello, FL - USA

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