Cover photo © 2024 Bob Kieser

“I love doing what I do, and I plan to keep on playing for the rest of my life.”

Since 1974, Kim Wilson has traveled the world as the leader of the Fabulous Thunderbirds. His distinctive voice, harmonica style and material choices have led the band and its various members over the years, from the Blues circuit to mainstream stages around the world. I caught up with him as he was leaving for a tour of Europe, just another day at the office in T-Bird land.

Part One – Beginnings

Kim Stanford Wilson came into the world on February 6, 1951. The family lived in the Detroit area, and his dad, who sang on the radio, worked for GM. Mom was a beautician and did some singing. There were two other children, and Kim began mandatory music lessons once a week in third grade. The baritone trombone was his first instrument, although that didn’t last too long.

The family moved to Santa Barbara, California in 1960 and various influences began to manifest.

Kim names one teacher in particular who had a profound and positive influence:

“Bill Shields was my fifth and sixth grade teacher. He instilled a decent work ethic in me. He came to see us play in later years!”

He was a quick study on the harmonica: “I was in a band within months after I started playing. I started playing at 17 and suddenly, I’m in a band. My old football coach was going, “What the Fuck are you doing??? The future author of “Wait on Time” went on to a football scholarship at Sonoma State, that he never really followed up on.

“I wanted to play in bands, the handwriting was on the wall already. I went to Santa Barbara College with my friend but we’d pull in the parking lot and ‘nah!’ We would turn around and go check out the beach.”

He landed a job at a machine shop “I was kind of a gopher and was cutting galvanized steel. That didn’t last long. Then I was a Rain Soft Water man. He had to decide on a career, and as he puts it:

“I was either going to be a wino or a musician and that’s when it all started.”

He continues:

“I broke my collarbone; I played Earl Warren Showgrounds with a broken collarbone. I was on the show with Three Dog Night and Savoy Brown. We were opening for those guys. What really got me into music was I went out and started listening to a bunch of (Blues) people. I heard George Smith, Albert Collins, guys that I ended up being great friends with later.

“When I first met George, it was one of the few times I didn’t have a full band with me, before I even knew about Little Walter, I loved George. I’m at the show with my friend John Phillips who had given me the nickname Goleta Slim, He was opening for George and did three numbers. I was too young to even be in there, but I had a fake ID that said I was 41 (laughs). So, I’m sitting there waiting for my idol. John tells me “I want you to get up and play and I was like ‘Nah, I don’t know!” John was insistent, he said “No, you are doing it.”

“Anyway, I got up there and it’s going well and by the third song George jumps up on stage and he’s making me do all the stuff he was doing. Like laying on his back, kicking his legs up in the air, I’m doing what he’s’ doing and the crowd is going crazy.”

“At the end of the set George goes into “You Don’t’ Love Me” and he lets the band down one at a time and at the end it’s just me and him. The club owner comes up and says, “How about a big hand for George and then hands me a C Note, which was a lot of money back then!!!” I was going to leave, and George would not let me. He says, “I want you to finish out the week and then adds “I’m for real.”

So that was the beginning of a friendship that lasted for many years.

That would also lead to a gig with Eddie Taylor, architect of the Jimmy Reed sound. When Kim went to the Taylor gig there was some confusion but thanks to the old Boy Scout motto “Be Prepared” he was able to play and establish yet another musical and personal relationship with one of the masters.

The seventies music scene in Goleta, Ca. was still sleepy, so he convinced the owner of the club Fergies to bring in national Blues legends like Pee Wee Crayton and Lowell Fulson. Wilson and his company could provide an in-house backup band for them. Kim was now in his early twenties and had been playing harmonica for around two years. Although he might have been young and a quick study, he saw these older artists as teachers and never showed them anything less than total respect.

“They liked me ‘cause they knew I would do anything for them, I would take a fuckin’ bullet for them, and I still would.” He had a $10 a week room and was making maybe $45-60 on a good weekend, but as he puts it:

“I was listening to the real shit and playing with the real guys.”

He got tired of California and hitched a ride to Minnesota.

He says: “I put my red amp (which I still have) and my few records in a jeep with my clothes and headed north. The scene was there in the 70s. There were a lot of bars to play in, lots of little festivals, the west bank was Hoppin’. There was Willie Murphy and the Bumblebees and Lamont Cranston, The Bumblebees were a very great band, Willie Murphy was a great singer.

“There were lots of great clubs, there was the Caboose and then a place called The Joint.

“There was Tony Glover, Spider John Koerner, and David Ray, the infamous trio.

‘I ended up getting hooked up with a couple of guys from Seattle named Phil and Leonard. They talked a good game but It wasn’t’ much of a game.”

“I snuck off to Texas on my first plane ride.”

Austin

“There was a gal down there named Shirley Demming and her boyfriend was Mark Pollock, guitarist from Dallas. She wanted to start a booking agency and a label. I went to Austin for my first time in January in Minnesota!!

“So, I go around and I’m playing with all these people like Stevie Ray. Me and him and Doyle Bramhall Sr. are going all over the place playing’ on people’s breaks. We get to this place called Alexanders.  We get there and Jimmy Vaughn and his band called “Storm” are playing and I didn’t think that much of them. I just wanted to get up and play. I get up there and I’m playing and singing, and I might have been drunk by the time I left, Nothings really happening with Shirley, and I can see the handwriting on the wall, so I go back to Minnesota.” A couple of months later I get a call from Jimmy and I’m ready to leave Minnesota for someplace, So I tell him that I’m ready to split from my thing and he tells me he’s ready to split from his band and so I said, “I’m on the way.” I told my band up north I was going to San Francisco to see my girlfriend and I went to Austin instead.”

Living the Blues

“So, there I am, sleeping on Jimmy’s couch and for eight months, nothing, no work. So, then we play little shit clubs, and we start playing at Antone’s. Clifford Antone, out of the goodness of his heart would just hand me money, nobody was coming to our shows…. We played every week, we played Blue Mondays, we opened for people and sometimes people showed up sometimes not. Then we opened for Muddy Waters.

“We opened for Muddy Waters and he loved us, he loved me especially. That was a wonderful thing, and he told everybody about me and the band. So, on his word, we went up to New England for some gigs and the people were ready for us. We ended up doing a lot of gigs up there.”

Muddy’s’ stamp of approval would carry major career impact and led to the first four-record deal with the Takoma label.

From those earliest days, one important aspect of the band’s early popularity was their choice of material. All Blues bands cover classic and obscure artists, but Mr. Wilson and company led the pack in cool covers.  Many of these remakes were so obscure that 90% of the audience had no idea that they were not originals.

“She’s Tuff” with its trademark evil chuckle came from Alabama artist Jerry McCain.

“Marked Deck” from Atlanta native Billy Wright.

“Fine, Fine, Fine” was first recorded by Rockin’ Sydney.

“The Monkey Speaks” by Dave Bartholomew.

Kim recalls “They started sending us stuff. People would send it once you’ve got going on it, ‘She’s Tuff’ came from a guy named Floyd Moore. He’s not with us anymore. Somebody else sent ‘Marked Deck’ which is also a good one. ‘My Babe’ was a Ron Holden song from out here in LA, the other side of ‘Love You So.’ We would search them out, but people also sent them to us.  Yeah, like ‘The Monkey Speaks’ that kind of thing.  Eventually, what it’s all about is writing your own stuff, I mean, you must do that, and we did.  As you know, writing a song that’s kind of like having a child and not having to clean up afterward. Sometimes it takes a long time for that to happen but like on this new album there are a couple of songs I’ve had for a long time; I mean ‘Payback Time’ I had for a long time.”

Struck Down – Kim’s latest album on Stony Plain Records

Struck Down, the latest album on Stony Plain brings Wilson together with several musical guests and the songwriting chops of Hamilton songwriter Steve Strongman. Along with the touring band there is a VIP list of  all-star talent to join in the fun. Although there’s only one cover tune, the originals make up a collection of obvious influences and subtle tributes.

A few standout tracks include:

“Struck Down by The Blues,” a tough, no-nonsense opener, it has a real Little Milton feel. The groove is great, and all the parts are perfect. Perfect horns, perfect groove, perfect lyrics.

“Payback Time,’ the most accessible choice with the most potential for long-term airplay. Guest star Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.

“Nothing in Ramblin,” welcome to the Lizzie Douglas Invitational. Lizzie Douglas AKA Memphis Minnie, was one of the most talented and criminally overlooked Blues artists in history, a brilliant guitarist and writer. Of any classic Blues artist deserving a decent cover version she would be in the top three. Blues purists will love this take on her song, featuring guests Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal. Keb Mo, and even Mick Fleetwood. They retain the feel of the original while delivering their own scorching rendition. Worth the price of the album alone.

“Whatcha Do To Me,” just a classic Thunderbirds groove. This reminds me of their classic “Wait on Time.” Features Elvin Bishop guesting.

“Sideline,” A whimsical stare in your glass, and think about your ex, look at life. The classic sixties soul ballad, Johnny Adams, comes to mind at once.

These are only a few of the stand outs, there’s not a weak cut on here, no filler at all.

Along with all the guests, all the members of the current Thunderbirds (List) play with the usual devastating perfection, the rhythm section on all the tracks are simply jaw dropping.

All the promo sheets quote Kim as saying that it is the best Thunderbirds album ever and it would indeed be hard to top this one.

Part Two

We talked about the newest album and about a career that has spanned fifty years.

You’ve been doing this since 1974, do you still enjoy it?

“Actually, I’ve been doing it since ‘68! I’ve had a lot of experience and experience means everything in this business. I enjoy it more than ever. I enjoy the interaction with the musicians. If you’ve got the right musicians, which I have now, maybe for the first time ever, back in the days when we first started this thing, we had a thing, ok? I’m not saying I was that good. I wasn’t. I was a pretty good writer, a pretty good singer, I was an OK harmonica player. But the thing about us that was good at that time was that it wasn’t learned out of a book and there are a lot of different influences there that all kinds of got mixed up into one kind of musical direction.  We were really one of the only bands playing Blues in the whole country as far as white guys, and it wasn’t learned out of a book. I’m not saying the other guys learned it that way either. I really loved Roomful of Blues with Duke Robillard. They were very intimidating at that time.  We would do co-bills and we’d switch off opening and I did not like following them, you know. Four pieces versus like eight and it was really a bunch of great musicians. I mean, they were a fantastic bunch of musicians. I was really, I was extremely impressed by them.

“The Nighthawks were great too. We had a lot of fun with those guys. Down there at the Psyche Delly. That’s back when we were sleeping on floors. We have that van that we put 120,000 miles on in one year, oh yeah in one year. Wow. I can’t believe we didn’t get arrested, we were driving it so fucked up half the time.”

 How has the business changed over the years?

“Well, it was a nasty business back then, and now it’s no business, you know what I mean? I mean all you’re doing is people get everything for nothing, $10 a month on Spotify. You get everything you want. That’s where the record execs went, to Spotify. They went to another place to rip off the artist, and that’s just the way it is.  I’ll tell my manager I don’t wanna be on Spotify but you gotta do it, it’s promotion, But if they do buy a download these days, you get 50% of it, which is large compared to what you got on an album. You know I mean, maybe I was making $0.18 off an album or some shit like that.  It was a nasty business back then, there were a few bright spots, of course, Tony Martell was one of them, he was a very generous man. He got us signed a to major label. I think that was back in the day when that was possible to have a real hit record and make some royalties.  Now it’s impossible. No way. I mean, OK, Taylor Swift, she might be selling 30 million records, you know.  and she goes on tour, obviously, and makes money. That’s the only way you are gonna make any money, playin’ live these days. Our new one was number one on the Blues charts. It was number sixty or eighty on the pop charts.  I thought that was the most impressive more than number one on the Blues Charts.

“The new record is just so T-Bird. We decided we were gonna do everything we liked. Not just Blues, but rock ‘n’ roll, Soul, even a little bit of R&B in there ala Albert King on Stax. It is sonically incredible because of the mixing of Shelley Yakus, and the mastering of Greg Calbi at Sterling Sound. It was mixed and mastered beautifully, the material is better than any material we’ve ever had on record”.

Going back a few years, what was the first golden moment for you, when you thought to yourself: “Oh, wow this is cool, I’m really doing this?”

“It was early on, I was listening to James Cotton, and I remember he was playing first position (on the harmonica) and I’m thinking, ‘I don’t have those notes on this harmonica,’ so I figured it out.

“That was important.

“It took me a long long time to get decent at what I do, took me a long time to be able to listen to my recordings. A long time both playing and singing. After all, the whole thing is about singing, singing is the music. If you’re a guy like me, you gotta be able to sing it legitimately. When people like Eddie Taylor and Albert Collins and Pee Wee Crayton, you know George Smith, all these fantastic musicians like you, then you really feel like you are doing something. Like I said before, the reason these guys liked me was they knew I would take a bullet for them. They knew that I would do anything for them, I loved them, and they loved me. That was, more than anything, that was telling me I was doing something.”

What’s left that you haven’t done?

“Well, I don’t really have a bucket list. The bucket list would have something I don’t know about. I’ve worked on hundreds of people’s recordings, hundreds. My discography, I can’t even tell you my discography, there’s so much. Back when I was young, I wanted to play on everything, and I’m not on everything but I am on a lot.

“Here’s the thing about my playing, I don’t really have to change a thing to play a different kind of music. All I must do is harmonize with the other musicians. Most of the time they bring me in because they want me anyway. I’ve had a couple of taskmasters like Paul Simon that ask can I play a certain way, and I’ll do it if I can. But if you take the accompanist mind set and you can harmonize with people like Mark Knopfler or Bonnie Raitt, that’s the key. Keb Mo called me up for the new movie version of ‘The Color Purple.’ I’m in that.

“It’s a mutual respect and love thing. Peter Frampton for instance, who would have thought Peter Frampton…. And he was a great guy. Back in the day I was such a Blues Freak I might have turned a lot of this work down, but I think that if you look at any musician just to get up on the bandstand and play takes some guts. Like I told you about way back at Fergies, I told them they needed to bring in Albert Collins, Margie Evans and Pee Wee Crayton, we could back them up. You can’t be scared, it ain’t like going down the expert ski slope, you’re not going to break a leg, the only thing you might break is your ego if people don’t like you.

“I’ve had nothing but incredible experiences with everyone I have played with, but I will say this:

“If it wasn’t for those originators I played all those times with, like Jimmy Rogers, guys like Muddy Waters, Tucker, Eddie Taylor, Albert Collins, Lowell Fulson, the list goes on and on. Jimmy Reed even, if they didn’t like what I did, I wouldn’t have kept doing it.”

One last question. At the end of the journey, what will you feel is your greatest accomplishment?

“I kept it real. I’m proud of what I am as a musician and a bandleader. I’ve been a bandleader my whole life. When I call people to join this band, they always say yes because they know what they are going to get into. They know it’s going to be a different thing every night. It’s not a cookie cutter thing, there’s no set list, none of that shit. There might be a master list, so I don’t forget anything, but its unique every night. I read the crowd. I love playing for a crowd where you can play two slow blues in a set, that tells me it’s a good crowd. But I don’t care if it’s a slow blues or a medium shuffle, you gotta have some juice in it, that something I’ve learned. I’ve seen people get on stage and put people to sleep. I’m going to represent this music, the people like are the ones that say, “I didn’t think I liked Blues, but I sure love this.” That just always makes me feel good. The music just makes me feel good, but you know there’s not gonna be a back porch with a rocking chair for me.  I’m going to be on that bandstand ‘til I croak, and that’s going to be it!!….

And That’s Tuff  Enuff