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Bill Wharton and the Ingredients The Sauce Boss
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| Washington Post review | ||||||||||
Wharton specializes in the blues, but also gets plenty of New Orleans R&B in the mix too. In fact, at times he brings to mind the Radiators mixed with the Neville Brothers. His slide playing fits the tunes brilliantly . . . His acoustic playing shines, too....Wharton's vocals are just how you want them--rough and ready. They fit the tunes perfectly. Sauce Boss legend says Wharton walked out of his house one day in the early '70s and found a '33 National Steel Guitar in his front yard, left by a friend who was leaving town. He has put it--and his cooking--to good use. VINTAGE GUITAR MAGAZINE
"Wharton rips into solos in the same class as Billy Gibbons or Ry Cooder. Aficionados and casual blues fans alike should appreciate what the Sauce Boss cooks up." PERFORMING SONGWRITER MAGAZINE
"Try this trick: Stir, play guitar, taste, adjust heat, guitar again, stir again, sing. Wharton's got gumbo down to a science. Or is it a religion? Wharton doesn't really make gumbo; he plays it into existence summoning the spirit of Lightning Hopkins to share pot space with his own Liquid Summer hot sauce. As an artist, he's borrowed from the recipes of the Chicago blues as well as Julia Child. He takes a guitar, a pot and a burner onto stages of blues festivals and juke joints all over the world." BRETT ANDERSON, CITY PAPER (D.C.)
Bill Wharton, a.k.a "The Sauce Boss", is a favorite attraction at blues festivals, state fairs, and clubs all over the country for two reasons: He's a wonderful player and singer, and he cooks up a mind-blowing gumbo right on stage, passing out the tasty results at set's end . . . Wharton's slide guitar is always innovative, and his high baritone matches the tunes perfectly. . . However, it could be the eatin' side of things that will permanently hook you into the Sauce Boss's universe . . ." BLUES REVUE MAGAZINE
"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 BUFFETT
"The Sauce Boss does his cookin' on stage, Stirrin' and a singing for his nightly wage. Sweating and a frettin' from his head to toe, Playin' and swayin with the gumbo Prayin' and buffetin' with the gumbo From "I Will Play for Gumbo" (1999) by JIMMY BUFFETT
"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
"It's an amusing, engaging mixture." NEW YORK TIMES
"Bill is one of those Florida-born silver tongued charmers who can not only play guitar and drums but could talk the armor off an armadillo if he tried." FLORIDA TODAY
SAUCE BOSS QUOTES, P2
"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
"Bill Wharton is an American original, the kind of citizen that makes us proud to live in this country . . . Wharton and his band play a rich flavor of blues ... making better records each time out." CMJ NEW MUSIC REPORT
“If the “Liquid Summer Hot Sauce” Florida Guitarist Bill Wharton markets is as satisfying a distillation of ingredients as this CD (“Standing in the Fire, 1996) it must be the final touch to a great meal...”
LIVING BLUES
"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 bluesmen going." THE AUSTIN CHRONICLE
"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." THE TIMES-PICAYUNE (New Orleans)
"Bill's kind of a crazy guy and a lot of fun with the cooking and everything, but when you hear him play you realize how talented he is"... THE BUFFALO NEWS
"This is no white-boy poseur. Wharton plays it, sings it, and feels it with burning intensity at every show. He lays it all on the line and invites you to meet him up there. The whole show is comic blues church service, with Wharton as the hammy preacher/devil relishing the irony of sanctifying Les bon temps with his sacramental big spoon."
TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT
"...Wharton plays a pretty mean National guitar...and Wharton's music, like his "Liquid Summer" sauce, sho' is hot and good..." THE ILLINOIS ENTERTAINER
" . . .Bill Wharton has heaped this new platter, which he sells with snake-oil charm, with a foot stomping, full-length blues album and a cookbook, and a travelogue of Bill's favorite road food and a gumbo video, not to mention a history of his Liquid Summer Hot Sauces and an instant Internet link to the Sauce Boss' own Web site for concert listings, a new recipe every month, sound clips and MP3 giveaways. "I love the idea of using this state-of-the-art technology to spread our laid-back, down-home and funky philosophy around the world,' he says with an evil laugh. When the gumbo is finally thick and dark as voodoo, Bill dishes it out, and the crowd takes it like communion. Gumbo, Bill says, is the perfect metaphor for mankind because when you throw everything you've got into the pot and just give it time to come together, then it works. So he serves up his Gospel of the Gumbo to show people that when they come together for good food and good music all the differences between them dissolve." WEEKLY PLANET (Tampa, FL)
SAUCE BOSS QUOTES, P 3
Last week, Bill Wharton, a.k.a. "the Sauce boss" and his band, the Ingredients, were on stage in New Orleans at Dan Ackroyd's House of Blues recording for CBS radio's "House of Blues Radio Hour." This week NPR's "Blues stage" will feature a live performance recorded at Miami's Tobacco Road. And, in France, blues fans are already wearing "Bill Wharton for president" T-shirts in anticipation of June's French National Blues Festival (custom has it that the "headliner" is referred to as "president.") But, before heading over to rock the continent he'll be sharpening up his bottleneck blues style for his legions of loyal fans here at Margaritaville. Bill has been a regular visitor to Margaritaville over recent years as his career and reputation have soared... And his recipes for gumbo have been refined to perfection. You see, Bill and the band are "cooking" the blues on stage, he's actually cooking on stage: a great big vat of his own recipe gumbo spiced with his own datil pepper hot sauce marked around the country as "Liquid Summer."
No it's not a gimmick. It's just Bill's way of sharing the two things he loves most: gumbo and blues...It's a great mixture. Wharton is one of those "not to be missed." As a performer, he is all energy and, as a blues master, he is all style... George Murphy, ISLAND LIFE (Key West)
AND FROM FRANCE
(note: Two of Bill Wharton’s CD’s were released in France in the 1990’s, which resulted in many tours and media appearances. “South of the Blues” (1994) was released on Virgin Europe.)
"Bourges, France-Wearing a silk shirt and spats, Bill Wharton fades in and out of focus - though never out of sync - resembling the cross between Colonel Sanders, Julia Child, redneck farmer, social reformer and B.B. King that he in fact is. The odor of gumbo cooking floats over the first two sets of I-mean business blues...Guitar slung over shoulder, he tends to the steaming pot. Your stomach is getting jealous of your ears..."Gumbo" he'll tell you as told the French here, pouring LIQUID Summer into the brew in the middle of a combined cooking lesson and Robert Johnson tune, is "bouillabaisse made in hell." It takes a certain amount of chutzpa to teach the French how to cook..." Mike Zweirin, INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
"Bill Wharton was the man of the hour. The bluesman from Tallahassee, who played Printemps de Bourges 1992, delivered a show which will go down in the annals of Sarreguemines 'Night of Blues' with him the city hall trembled at its foundation." LE REPUBLICAIN LORRAINE Sarreguemines, France
"He belts out a high energy blues and plays the cooking pot simultaneously. More then a simple attraction, his musical gastronomical spectacle becomes a big family soup while the vapors from his cooking tempts your taste buds, the loudspeakers release quite another spice which is no less delectable." GUITAR
“The inventor of gastronomical blues-boogie."ROCK AND FOLK