Cover photo © 2025 Jim Hartzell

Many musicians have maintained a day job over the years to bolster their finances, but there haven’t been many like boogie woogie piano master Victor Wainwright that have served as an air traffic controller.

“It was stressful. I went to school to be an air traffic controller. My dad and grandpa and mom thought it best that I should have a backup plan or career outside of music because they knew how hard it was being professional musician, so they encouraged me to pick out something. My neighbor at the time was an air traffic controller. He said I could come along to the air traffic control facility to check it out and I thought it was really cool. I went down there (Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach) and started a four-year degree and I already started my first band and was putting out my first record. So, my dad made me promise I would land at least one plane before I gave it up!” Wainright said. “But I went on to graduate school in Oklahoma City and then eventually got a job…in Memphis, Tennessee where I took my job as an air traffic controller. I did that for a couple years and then retired. My fellow controllers turned to me after seeing me on Beale Street many late nights and wondering how I was making it in early mornings. They enjoyed the hell out of the show, but they just turned to me one day and said maybe this air traffic control job is not for you, man. Even in college I was doing a CD release party down in Daytona Beach, my second one. We had a packed house, like 500 people. So, one of our fans that had grown to know me in Daytona Beach, I introduced my dad to the crowd, they knew the story. This older gentleman walked up to my dad, and he goes ‘you’re wastin’ your f…ing money man’ (laughs). My dad said, ‘I should have known way back then that I’m going to have an $80,000 keyboard player’. He still tells that story.”

Even then, Wainwright’s musical talent was undeniable and his first record Piana From Savannah took off. He recognizes the importance of his Daytona family in his development.

“If I hadn’t moved from Savannah to Daytona Beach, I don’t think my career would be the same at all. I met very important people in Daytona Beach, like the Reverend Billy C. Wirtz, who was a big mentor of mine on the piano. Stephen Dees, who became my first producer and writing partner for the first few records I did. And I was able to create my first band outside of my family. Back then the young guy with the PA was the bandleader. You got the van or the PA, it’s your band.”

Now, after 20 years in the business, he’s directing a different kind of transport. His band Victor Wainwright and The Train has put out two excellent albums, a self-titled debut in 2018 and 2020’s Memphis Loud, with more to come.

“The Train is named The Train because of a particular reason, it’s just a huge wall of heavy, steady, chugging sound. It’s a groove engine,” Wainwright explained. “I like to write and create music with a lot of imagery like sparks and smoke rings and jumping the tracks and waving out the windows. That’s all part of the engine that we’ve created around our sound. I like to keep the audience on their toes with this big wave of sound. It’s really exciting to get on stage and share that kind of boogie woogie, church bell, juke joint, it’s all mixed together in this sound that we create. We try to make it very original too. I’m a front man piano player and there’s not many of us out there doing what we’re doing with a big band behind us like that. I really like to embrace the name of the band and the sounds that we create to share with everybody. Then to see everyone’s smiles when we’re playing that boogie woogie and blues is just an enjoyable experience.”

This style of blues is so refreshing because there just aren’t that many practitioners of it anymore. Wainwright, who has won multiple Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year honors at the Blues Music Awards, always acknowledges his roots and the influence of those past and present who are bringin’ the boogie.

“Eden Brent. Marcia Ball is still out there doing it. Jon Cleary is definitely still out there killing it. Guys like Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis were huge influences on my boogie woogie playing. Mac Rebanack ‘Dr. John’, I definitely picked up a bunch from him. I was really young and learning to play, my dad and grandpa and uncle all played music. My grandpa played the piano and they had a band, so I was carrying amps and stuff before anything. I told my dad I wanted to play like grandad, of course grandad was teaching me, but I got into this blues and New Orleans sound. ”

“My dad bought me a VHS videotape that I still own, it’s up on my shelf near my piano. It was Dr. John doing an instructional video. I think I may have learned two licks and didn’t understand a word he said in the entire video (laughs). It was just so foreign and so different and so wild for me. The appeal was there, this bigger than life guy that had conjured up this sort of doctor persona, this voodoo hoodoo, and all these things. It just sent me down the path of really wanting to learn more about blues players. So, from there I went into who influenced Dr. John. Going back to the early days of boogie woogie and it was a quite a journey. I’m still on it. I’m still learning who all these guys are and what they sounded like and what I can learn from them. This last festival I was just at…I played a Dr. John song in the middle of our set and just explained to the crowd, it was a younger crowd that might not be familiar with who he is, where some of my sound comes from. So hopefully they go back and do try to find a Dr. John vinyl in an old record shop. I think we have a responsibility to listeners of our music to people they may not have discovered yet.”

Wainwright likes to talk about his family’s role in his success. The first disc of his 2013 Family Roots double album is entitled Still Smokin’ and it features both his grandfather, Jesse Wainwright, and father, Victor Sr., playing and singing with his band. Wainwright learned a lot about piano by watching his grandfather play boogie woogie, blues, honky tonk, and other styles.

“He was a visual teacher. I learned by sight and by ear, but I can’t read a note and neither could he. He could play in a few keys and I can play in a few keys. About 75% of the way I play is just like grandpa. And he taught me by sitting next to him at the piano. He was very patient. He taught me how to turn down when I didn’t know what the hell I was doing. He taught me how to play with other people and to communicate on-stage…which was extremely important. He was bigger than life. Not only taught me about piano, but also a lot about entertaining, the way come into a room. He used to always say ‘When you walk into a room you’re playing son, you want them to know who the star is.’ I’ll never forget that (laughs).”

Sometimes Jesse would surprise Victor at festival gigs and just walk past the guards with no credentials.

“He would literally just come on stage, it didn’t matter. It always surprised me. He went backstage, he would wear this hat that said ‘Security’ on it (laughs). He had an air about himself where he could just walk back anywhere and next thing you know, he was up on stage nudging me off the piano. It’s some of my favorite memories, I loved it and so did the crowd. I would introduce him as my grandfather and sometimes I would even stop the song I was doing and just let him kick off whatever he wanted to. Usually, it was like a Jerry Lee Lewis or a boogie woogie or Pinetop Perkins song. The crowd would eat it up. It’s important to show where the torch came from. A lot of people still bring up my grandfather who have seen me play live for 20 years.”

Jesse has been gone for several years, but he got to see a lot of Victor’s success. This September, Wainwright and his other noteworthy band, Southern Hospitality, were back in Las Vegas for the Big Blues Bender and he had something special planned.

“I’ve been doing the Big Blues Bender for eight years, I think. Every year we do one more for something. One More for Woodstock, One More for the Allman Brothers, One More for the kings of the blues and queens of the blues, and I’ve always helped with that, emceeing or being the MD (musical director). This year we’re doing One More for the 88s with guests like Jon Cleary, Marcia Ball, Dave Keyes, a lot of piano players. It’s been interesting because as I’ve been helping put together what songs we’re playing and the order and how the journey goes. Pinetop Smith, how that influenced Pinetop Perkins, how boogie woogie became a dance music and became blues and here’s this offset of New Orleans and here’s how we get to rock ‘n roll. I thought I knew a lot already. Putting the show together has really introduced me to even more players and how that timeline exactly worked, from the lumber camps and train yards all the way to Carnegie Hall and then through Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and today. The piano has had such an interesting history in music.”

Southern Hospitality are not currently on tour per se, but whenever they get together, it’s an event. They are fan favorites who have won multiple awards from Blues Blast and other outlets. Wainwright, Damon Fowler (lap steel guitar), and JP Soars (guitar) are the principal performers in the super-group. It’s an infectious down-home mix of blues, rockabilly, soul, southern rock, Muscle Shoals, and 50s piano rock. Their most recent record, Yard Sale from 2024, has a fun, throwback barroom vibe. They have been around for almost 15 years.

“That has stood the test of time and it’s still something really fun for JP, Damon, and I to do because we come together having led our own bands and we almost get to lean on each other and have a lot less responsibility on-stage. It’s like kicking back and drinking an iced tea or something. I don’t have to sing every song. These guys are going to kill it as a front man and I’ll have my turn to kill it as a front man and lead the band. It’s always been a breath of fresh air. We don’t do it very often. We try to keep it real special. Last year did put out a new record for the first time in ten years. It’s been a lot of fun to get back out on the road with those guys and share some new music.”

Beyond his piano playing, Wainwright also wears a producing hat. He recently produced an album by a younger blues artist, Eric Heideman. He also co-produces his own bands with Dave Gross.

“We’re just trying to achieve a sound and pick each other up and help each other get to what might be in our own heads. It’s exciting to have that possibility to be with these tremendous musicians, to be able to accomplish that. You’re like a chef in a kitchen, you’ve got all these great ingredients. It’s your job to season just enough and not to burn the roux.”

Outside of music, Wainwright is the shy sort and likes to spend time with his dogs, family, and a new Koi pond in Savannah. On-stage, he’s a compelling, energetic presence. Most of his musical time these days is spent with The Train. They are booked to play the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise in October. They are playing tracks from the last studio record, Memphis Loud, which came out just as the pandemic hit in 2020.

“To be honest, it was a tremendous challenge to put out a record during that time. I remember having some disagreement with my label at that time over releasing it when social media was, and importantly so, focused on something else as a whole. And there were multiple things going on in the world during that time, not just COVID, more. There was turmoil in the United States. I remember thinking to myself that either we’re going to cut through all of that and offer a lot of people reprieve, which I think we did accomplish, but also it is going to be quite the challenge to get the record out there during this time period. It was very challenging. We had to push really hard on the publicity. I’ve even thought about re-releasing it. Maybe put out some videos from some of that material. I felt bad pushing it. I had to make a conscious decision what was appropriate with everything that was going on in the world, how much should I be talking about something else. It became for me, a hard decision. We got through it. I’m very proud of the work and the decisions that we made.”

Wainwright’s next recording project will be with The Train. He has started the songwriting process and he would like to bring back all of the recent horn players that have contributed to the band.

“I’m just waiting for the right time. When it really comes together, I’ll know and then we’ll push the button and start recording. It’s pretty much right around the corner. I’m not going to rush it. I don’t release a record every year like some people do. I like to really think about the sounds and the approach and breathe new life and make something exciting and do something I haven’t done before.”