LW: How did Testament Records get started?
PW: I started a radio program for station WHYY, which was operated
by the Philadelphia Board of Education. I had a jazz show on
WHYY early on, and when folk music got to be big, they asked
me to do a folk show. I said "Sure I'll do it, but I'm not
going to play records by Peter, Paul and Mary, The Clancy
Brothers, or Pete Seeger, as much as I like those people. I'd
rather do a show about the folk music in Philadelphia." They
were cool enough to say , sure give it a try, then I started
recording some of the street singers, spiritual and blues
singers I had met. I used to record them at the
radio station, but quickly discovered that I sometimes got
stilted results. I got much more interesting results when
they were playing in their homes. I bought a tape recorder
and a microphone and tried to record them where they felt
most comfortable. I moved to Chicago in 1962 and got to be
very good friends with Bob Koester at Delmark Records.
LW: Bob Koester was friends with quite a few people who went on
to become huge assets to the blues and the recording of blues.
PW: Oh yeah, absolutely. I wound up doing some work for his Delmark
label. It was Bob who showed me it was actually possible to
start a record company. The first thing I put out was the Bill
Jackson album. He was one of my major discoveries, if you want
to call it that. It just went from there; it was strictly a
one man operation at first. It was nothing more than a hobby.
It was an attempt to put something back into the music that
had given me so much pleasure.
LW: Looking at the artists you recorded, it would have had to have
been a hobby. They weren't big names at the time.
PW: Well, there was another consideration. When I moved to Chicago,
it was like Mohammed going to Mecca. Chicago at the time was,
and my still be, the most blues rich city in the country.
That's when I felt as if I really started to learn something
about the music. I would go to clubs and seek out the
performers. I would interview them and get leads to others.
I didn't want to record guys like, Jr. Wells, Buddy Guy, or
Otis Rush; they already had recording contracts and their
music was already getting out. I was more interested in
recording the musicians who were not being documented, and
that tends to be the older generation of players, whose
music pre-dated the electric styles.
LW: What did the older generation musicians have that seems to
be missing from the preceding generations.
PW: The difference is, if I can offer a possible explanation,
that those early guys were a part of a living tradition and
continuum, that from the early to middle sixties hasn't been
there. The blues, for all practical purposes, started dying
at that time, or at least coming close to dying. Black
listeners were less interested in it, and fewer black
performers were turning their attention to it. Popular
dance, R & B, and soul music were much more lucrative,
or potentially lucrative areas to follow. The rewards
were greater, not only in terms of money, but also in
recognition. I think the blues were kind of thrown out
by black people; it had too many unpleasant connotations
for them. It was never embraced by the civil rights
movement the same way that black religious music was.
LW: Tell me about the Peg Leg Howell recording
PW: That was purely a fluke. My friend, George Mitchell, had
recorded Peg, and originally that album was supposed to come
out on Delmark. I felt that Bob Koester didn't really want
to put it out; he saw that it's commercial potential was
non-existent. He and George were friends and Bob had sort of
committed to it. He had decided at that point that he had to
follow a more commercial route, if he wanted Delmark to
succeed. You've got to remember, along with his retail shop,
Delmark was his source of income. Testament was not the
source of my income. It's a very forbidding recording,
I know that.
LW: How does a person a talented as say, Johnny Young, remain
almost unknown.
PW: It has to do with personality. Johnny was a very self-effacing
person and he didn't push himself forward. He wasn't a very
good songwriter. The music you like by Johnny is traditional
music. In the dog-eat-dog world of commercial blues, in the
early post-war and middle post-war period, that stuff just
didn't cut it. Fortunately, I had the luxury of recording
Johnny over a long period of time. A lot of the stuff we did
was while we were waiting for other players to show up. Then
sometimes we'd actually have Johnny Young recording sessions
where we'd plan to do things. Most of the mandolin stuff was
done that way, and most of the solo guitar or two-guitar stuff
was done informally. I had the opportunity to record him quite
a bit. I just chose what I felt was the best and most
representative of the man. There were two people among the
musicians that I was very friendly with; one was Johnny Young
and the other was Jimmy Walker.
LW: What are your memories of Otis Spann?
PW: Otis Spann was a real sweetheart of a guy. He was a very
trusting man and very outgoing. From the day I met him we were
friends; he just had that manner about him. It was Muddy who
introduced us, and if Muddy introduced you to Otis, you had
Muddy's guarantee.
LW: What was it that made Muddy so special and how did he always wind up with such great musicians in his band.
PW: It was something about his personality-he was a very strong
individualistic performer who had success very early. He was
selected or fate selected him, to be one of the cornerstones
of the Chess roster. Leonard (Chess) invested a lot of time
and money in Muddy, just as he did with Wolf later on. It was
incumbent upon Muddy and Chess to keep the best band together.
After Little Walter left Muddy's band, Leonard would wait
until he could get Little Walter. If it turned out that
Walter was totally unavailable, then he would use one of the
other players. Leonard Chess firmly believed in repeating what
had worked for him in the past. Muddy, because the success of
his records, had a tremendous reputation. He worked steadily,
and when you worked steadily in Chicago, that was a rarity.
So that enabled him to keep a good band together. The same
thing with Wolf; he was able to keep a good band together
because he was always at Sylvio's on the weekend. He rarely
traveled; Sylvio's was his set base. You could go there
Friday, Saturday or Sunday night and you knew you were going
to see one of the best blues bands in Chicago, week after
week. Charlie Musselwhite and I used to go to Sylvio's every
second or third weekend just to see Wolf.
LW: What is the best selling Testament recording?
PW: It was probably The Muddy Plantation Recordings. It was
kind of funny how that came about. Once in the course
of the conversations, I felt that Muddy had never heard
the Library of Congress recordings. I had the album that had
the three tracks, and I played them for him. He asked "Where
is the rest of them" I said "What are you talking about?"
He told me he had done a whole bunch of those for Mr. Lomax
on two separate occasions. Muddy didn't bullshit, so I believed
what he said. We sent to the Library of Congress and requested
a copy. A few weeks later we received them and had a listening
party.
LW: What was Muddy's reaction when he heard them?
PW: He said "We got to get this stuff out." He thought it was
wonderful. The recordings were reassigned to Muddy's estate;
they now appear on MCA. One thing that I find very
interesting is there is no mention as to it's prior existence.
If you look on the MCA package, you will find no mention of the
Testament release, no testament number, and no reference to me.
It's like it never existed, and I find that strange. I
certainly can't fault the way they did it-it's very good.
They did a first rate job and it belongs with the Chess
Masters. That's what we wanted do in the first place, but
Leonard Chess did not want to put it out. He thought the sound
was terrible, it was too old fashioned, and besides, he had
lots of other Muddy recordings that he hadn't released. Muddy
and I thought it was great, but Leonard didn't want to do it.
LW: Do you have a favorite Testament recording, excluding Muddy?
PW: Well aside from Muddy, my favorite testament recordings would
include the Robert Nighthawk. The sound on that recording is
glorious; it sounds like a chamber group with lightly amplified
guitar. Robert plays slide on half the tracks, and Johnny Young
plays acoustic rhythm behind him. Johnny Young is playing a
sweet little Martin guitar, a 1935 0-17 that I used for all
the recordings. John Wrencher is playing amplified harmonica,
and the sound of those three instruments is just beautiful.
That out of all the Testament sessions, is my odds on favorite.
The Johnny Young album would be my second choice. It's Johnny
recorded over a long period of time showing what he could do
best. That's the best way to record a traditional artist, not
with one or two sessions, but try and capture it over a long
period of time. You get to know the artist and his music
better; then you find different ways to present it. That's
the way they used to make albums, not just a session, but a
collection of singles. One special to me just for sentimental
reasons, although it's musically marvelous as well, is my first
album with Bill Jackson.
LW: Is the Otis Spann recording the only one, that wasn't recorded from the master recording?
PW: I think so. I licensed some recordings in the sixties to
Electra for release in the UK and provided them with master
tapes, but that one got lost. They could never find it when
it came time to return it.
LW: Was there someone you wanted to record, but never got the
chance?
PW: I would have to say that anybody I heard, that I thought was
good and worth recording, I managed to record. I tell you
who I would have liked to record doing blues: Roebuck Staples
I knew Roebuck well. He would sit around and do Charlie
Patton songs, but he would never let me record them. He
knew Patton directly and learned how to play guitar from
Charlie. When he did move away from pure religious music,
he never really embraced flat-out blues or secular music.
Roebuck always stayed close to what he started out with;
he is always doing songs with a message of love or what
have you.
LW: Do you think it has anything to so with blues once being
considered devils music?
PW: I knew Roebuck for 35 years, and he is a deeply religious
person. He has remained true to his conviction during the
time I have known him. He felt that if he started recording
his other kind of music, the black gospel audience would turn
their backs on him. I can remember listening to a gospel
station in Chicago, when Roebuck's recording "When There's
Been A Change" had been released. They started to play it
on the air, and you could hear the DJ pick it up off the
turntable and break it in the air. He went in to a big
tirade about how the Staples had sold out and turned
their back on the music.
LW: What artist today, would you like to record if, Testament
was still active?
PW: I would probably like to record Robert Cray, different
than he's being recorded.
LW: I like his early recordings, he seemed hungrier.
PW: I don't think it's that; it's because he has a lot of pressure
put on him to capture a larger market, and the only way to do
that is to expand out from pure blues and embrace other types
of music. I think he's doing a very capable job of doing what
he's doing. I prefer his earlier stuff also, but not because
there is more vitality to it. If you go see Robert live, he
will blow your socks off; it's just not reflected on his
recordings.
LW: They sound too polished over-rehearsed. PW: When you do Memphis soul music, you have to be controlled, and all the elements have to locked in place for it to work well.
LW: How did the Johnny Shines sessions come about?
PW: I was excited to find Johnny. He was one of the people that I
was looking for all the time I was in Chicago. I had been
looking for him and had a number of other people looking for
him also. Johnny Young actually found him-Shines was working
as a photographer in blues clubs at night. He would take a
picture of you and your girlfriend so you would have a
memento of the evening. I started talking to him about
recording, and then Sam Charters came to town to do "Chicago-
The Blues Today". Sam wanted to record him and I thought
exposure on Vanguard would be great. I thought he was a
marvelous player and just a wonderful, soft spoken, scholarly
man. I had the luxury of recording him over a long period of
time. He came up with some pieces that he hadn't played in a
long time. I would interview him and during the course of the
interview, he would start remembering all those old songs he
had played. He'd start reconstructing them, and when we got
together, he would record them. I recorded Fred McDowell in
the same manner.
LW: Why did Testament end, did it have anything to do with the
blues losing popularity?
PW: No, not at all. The blues slowed down, but I always kept it
going. I was even putting stuff out in the seventies. The
reason Testament came to a complete stop was because when I
came to Capitol, I had to sign a conflict-of-interest clause.
Testament was not in competition with this, but if you sign
an agreement, you have to observe it.
LW: What is your position at Capitol?
PW: I am Director of A & R in the Special Markets Division.
LW: Do you miss the old days and Maxwell Street?
PW: Sure, absolutely, but those days don't exist anymore. I sort
of lament their passing, but that is inevitable. I feel sorry
for the younger people, who don't have those options or
opportunities. I would have liked to have been there ten
years earlier, like in '51 instead of '61.
COPYRIGHT 1995 Leonard Watkins