A potent sense of humor infiltrates everything Bill Wharton does. Here\u2019s a white blues guitarist, comfortably past middle age, who titled his autobiography The Life and Times of Blind Boy Billy: Y\u2019all Don\u2019t Know the Half of It.<\/p>\n
The Tallahassee tunesmith, who returns to the Palladium Theater Side Door Cabaret Wednesday, May 20, is known around the world for his unique stage show: Stinging slide guitar and an incendiary vocal growl \u2026 and gumbo. Real, hot, simmering gumbo, right there in the room.<\/p>\n
Indeed, he is the Sauce Boss, and has been for well over 30 years. An aficionado and careful cultivator of hot datil and habanero peppers, Wharton prepares the culinary delight, with chicken, crawfish tails and smoked pork sausage from Bradley\u2019s, a 100-year old country store just outside of Tallahassee. During his show.<\/p>\n
When he\u2019s done playing, everybody gets a bowl.<\/p>\n
In his performance contract, Wharton has a specific request. \u201cInstead of taking all the brown ones out, if you know what I\u2019m saying, it\u2019s like \u2018I need some okra, and some zucchini and some onions and some other stuff\u2019 \u2026 I bring the roux and the hot sauce and the venue generally provides everything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
The hot sauce, Liquid Summer, is his own creation.<\/p>\n
In a 2023 Catalyst interview, Blind Boy Billy explained how he went from being just another really good blues player to the one, the only, Sauce Boss. Liquid Summer was his gateway sauce.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter a while, I started taking it around to the gigs with me,\u201d he said. \u201cI thought if people were going to come over to my house and eat up all my hot sauce, I\u2019ll put a label on it and sell it to them. I would make a couple of gallons and it\u2019d be gone in a couple of weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n
At his shows, Wharton recalled, \u201cI was putting it on chips or something like that, just to show everybody how good it was. And I was looking for a way to really showcase it. Because the sauce is a different animal; it\u2019s got this creeper burn. The datil pepper has this little thing where it kind of creeps up on you.\u201d<\/p>\n
After well over 200,000 bowls of gumbo and millions of road miles, the music remains the main ingredient. Wharton\u2019s just-released latest album, With Extra Sauce, is a full-tilt blues band set.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not motivated by the bling, if you know what I\u2019m saying,\u201d he explained. \u201cI want to have a good quality of life.\u201d As his gumbo-crafting became legendary, \u201cit sort of evolved into this tent revival of rock \u2018n\u2019 roll brotherhood and sharing and all that kind of thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
The idea of music and food, together, is \u201creally health-ful in terms of your psyche,\u201d he offered.<\/p>\n
His show is unique, which is what he likes about it. \u201cIt\u2019s afforded me really a different life,\u201d Wharton said. \u201cBecause I\u2019m not just a musician regurgitating stuff \u2013 no pun intended \u2013 playing the music I rehearsed. There\u2019s a lot of improvisation in what I do, musically, but also, every show it\u2019s different.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a gift, to me as a performer. Because I relax into it, everybody relaxes into it \u2013 come on, stir the gumbo, and everything\u2019s OK. For a couple of hours, we\u2019re all OK. Which is pretty amazing in this day and age.\u201d<\/p>\n