LOST BLUES FILES Leroy Washington Louisiana’s Guitar Wizard by Gene Tomko

Quite a few talented but virtually unknown musicians found their way to the studio in Crowley, Louisiana, owned and operated by J.D. Miller, who single-handedly produced practically every swamp blues record released on the Excello label, thereby creating an entire new subgenre of postwar blues. But due to a number of contributing factors—including Miller’s notorious lack of record keeping— some of these artists still remain complete unknowns today. Perhaps the most intriguing and exciting of these mysterious Excello artists was singer and guitarist Leroy Washington. Best known for his 1958 blues-rocker Wild Cherry, Washington was an imaginative songwriter, possessed a commanding but plaintive singing voice and had a fierce, stinging playing style that set him apart from Miller’s other guitarists but yet still evoked the classic swamp blues sound. Throughout the course of his brief but surprisingly prolific recording career, Washing- ton cut close to 30 songs for Miller between 1957 and 1960. But curiously, despite the over- all high quality of his recordings just a handful of these would see the light of day during his lifetime, with only three releases on Excello and one each on Miller’s own Rocko and Zynn Leroy Washington at his mother’s house, labels. Regardless of the limited number of his Opelousas, Louisiana, March, 1960. records which Excello boss Ernie Young decided to issue, Miller was so impressed by Washing- ton that years later he recalled him as perhaps his favorite blues guitarist. Dates for Washington’s birth and death member him—his remaining friends, relatives But more than 50 years after his last emerged several years later from swamp pop and fellow musicians. What we eventually recording and decades after his reported death singer and writer-researcher Johnnie Allan, found revealed that we actually knew even at an early age, information on the influential who spoke with Washington’s elderly mother less about the man than originally thought. guitarist remained murky and uncertain. Bruce for his book Memories: A Pictorial History Early on, Washington’s reported date of Bastin’s liner notes to Flyright’s 1981 LP Wild of South Louisiana. But once again, details death of June 29, 1966 came under question Cherry began with the disconcerting line were sparse. as the date turned out to be a Wednesday, “Unfortunately, very little is known about With the hope of rectifying what contradicting several musicians we spoke with Leroy Washington,” and suggested his death writer John Broven described as “the tragic who distinctly remembered that he died on a occurred in Oakdale, Louisiana, presumably anonymity of Leroy Washington,” LB headed Saturday night. Besides filling in much of his after performing at a club called the Melody to Southwest Louisiana to try to document biographical information, just proving exactly Drive-In. Unfortunately, few other details the musician’s life story before it completely when and where Washington died became a about his life were uncovered. vanished along with those who knew and re- difficult task in itself. Five decades later, no

DECEMBER 2012 • LIVING BLUES • 7 LOST BLUES FILES one initially interviewed was quite sure of the year he died or where he was buried; death notices or obituaries in local newspapers were almost non-existent for African Americans in that time period; he never married and had no children or surviving immediate family; he had no searchable social security record on file; and due to Louisiana privacy laws governing vital statistics, death records are sealed from public view for 50 years, potentially keeping the mystery alive until at least 2017. Then in a cryptic twist worthy of a Dan Brown novel, when his gravesite was finally located after a very lengthy and exhaustive search, the tombstone turned out to be written in the ancient Biblical language of Phoenician Hebrew! But with the help of some key informants along with newly discovered documents and photographs uncovered along the way, we were finally able to piece together the life story of this sadly forgotten bluesman. Leroy Washington was born on March 1, 1932, in Palmetto, Loui- siana, a small farming community just northeast of Opelousas, to John and Evelyn Washington. His parents separated early on and by 1940 Leroy and younger brother Sidney were living with their mother and her common-law husband Milton Bottom. Washington picked up the guitar in his early teens and was entirely self-taught. A few years later when he was old enough to work, he dropped out of school and got a job as a laborer on the railroad to help his mother, who was by this time raising him and his brother by herself. But working for the railroad proved to be only a temporary Leroy Washington at his mother’s house, Opelousas, Louisiana, distraction for the aspiring guitarist. 76-year-old blues and zydeco March, 1960. Note the snow on the ground in southern Louisi- musician Albert Davis, who grew up with Washington and was his ana in March! first cousin, recalls how he made the transition from laborer to full- time musician. “I used to visit my Auntie [Evelyn Washington] and Chenier saw Washington perform regularly in his hometown and fondly Leroy was fooling with [the guitar]. When he got good enough to recalls Opelousas’ musical heyday. “Oh yeah, they had plenty of places to play music he left the railroad. He decided to be a musician. He was play back then. On Monday nights, about two blocks up the street—they with little old bands around Opelousas. He played with the Guidry done tore it down—that was Blues Paradise. On Monday nights, it was a boys—they were brothers from Church Point. They called themselves jam session. On Tuesday night, there was a place called the Hollywood the Honeydrippers. They used to call one Sticks Herman—the drum- Inn—that was another jam session. Wednesday night there was a place mer. And his brother blew tenor saxophone.” [“Sticks” Herman Guidry they called the Blue Goose, another jam session. Thursday night was a later recorded for Goldband]. jam session at Gabriel’s Place. Friday, Saturday and Sunday it was wide- But even before joining up with the Guidry brothers, Washington open everywhere!” [laughs] formed a duo with local drummer Chuck Martin. [Martin would later Davis also fondly remembers the popular Monday night jam ses- switch to accordion and record the regional zydeco hit Make It Hot for sions in Opelousas where Washington would hold court each week Maison de Soul]. Davis explains, “Him and Leroy played together a long and attract throngs of fans and fellow musicians alike, including one time—just a two piece. They would play particular future blues star who would travel all the way from Baton in those white nightclubs and Rouge. “Buddy Guy was a teenager then, you know, and Buddy used they would be just drums and to come Monday nights to Blues Paradise. They called it Blue Monday guitar. They used to call and Leroy and them would play there every Monday night. Buddy didn’t Leroy ‘The Guitar Wiz- have no transportation, but he would hitchhike!” ard.’ My dad would say One striking thing everyone seems to remember about Wash- he never seen a man ington was his superior guitar playing skills, even standing out in a could play lead and region that has consistently produced ace musicians. Chenier recalls, bass at the same “He could play enough guitar that you’d swear it was an orchestra! He time!” [laughs] played so many chords, man—and fast! He could do all that Mexican— Washington that Spanish stuff too. He could play all that stuff. I asked him, I said, spent much of his ‘Leroy, where’d you learn that stuff?’ He said, ‘Right there sittin’ on the life in Opelousas, porch!’ Yeah, he could play man. He could run chords, like big band a hotbed of rhythm orchestra chords. And he was self-taught. Oh, he was good. Leroy was and blues in the a monster.” 1950s where live mu- Excello recording artist Guitar Gable [Perrodin], who was quite sic could be heard seven accomplished himself at the time, concurs. “He was a nice, quiet fellow nights a week in clubs and he was a hell of a guitar player. He could play. Boy, he could play.” throughout town. Blues Davis adds, “I tried to take lessons off Leroy a couple of times but he singer and guitarist Roscoe was just too fast—I couldn’t keep up!” [laughs]

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that lived there. And she had the front room where she did hair. She didn’t have no shop—she did it in her house. Leroy’s mother loved the music too. She was always up for a party.” Guitar Gable befriended Washington in the mid-1950s and was responsible for getting him an opportunity to record. “I brought him to J.D. Miller’s studio to record him for Excello. I was recording for Excello and he knew that. So he called me one day and said, ‘Man, I got a couple of numbers and I want to come up to that studio and let the guy check me out.’ So I brought him in and he did an audition and [Miller] told him to come back the next week. And he came back and he did Wild Cherry and another song for J.D. Miller. And I played guitar on the thing for him, both numbers.” Wild Cherry was Washington’s most successful release and be- came a regional jukebox favorite, but two follow-ups on Excello failed to draw attention, leaving Miller to eventually issue a single each on two of his own labels, Rocko and Zynn, in 1960 and 1961 respectively. During this time Washington was playing regularly with another popular bluesman from Opelousas, singer, bass player and bandleader Good Rockin’ Bob [Ed Thomas]. On the last weekend in June of 1962, the group was booked for a three-night engagement at the Big Casino club in Leesville, Louisiana. Located in the historically black section of town called “The Crossing,” the club was popular with black soldiers from nearby Fort Polk even though it was considered officially off-limits by military brass. Shortly before the end of the performance on Saturday, June 30, omko Leroy Washington’s surprising tombstone in Little 1962, an ailing Washington was rushed back to his motel room across T

ene Zion Baptist Cemetery, Opelousas, Louisiana. the street from the club. As Davis explains, “Leroy had an aneurism. He G was playing and when he was singing a blood vessel burst in his head.” Washington also spent time in Lake Charles and served as an on- According to the coroner’s report, after returning to his hotel room call guitarist for the city’s first black disc jockey, Isaac “Bubba” Lutcher, Washington then suffered a sudden fatal heart attack. who was the brother of jazz and blues singer-pianist Nellie Lutcher and Chenier’s memory of that fateful weekend is still quite vivid when organized area shows featuring many of the top blues artists of the he received a call from a family member the following morning that his time. Guitar Gable explains, “[Lutcher] was a booking agent for bands cousin had died. “I remember when he died—Leesville, Louisiana. Him that came into the city. Leroy used to live in the motel over there. And and Good Rockin’ Bob used to play there all the time. They used to if they needed a guitar player, Leroy would play guitar for any band that play Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. He went over there to play needed a guitar player. He was hired. He was a man like that. He never that Friday and [it happened] that Saturday. He had high blood pressure. did have his own band precisely. Bubba Lutcher had all those bands When he started hemorrhaging from the nose they laid him down on coming in—Bobby Bland, B.B. King, Guitar Slim—all those bands they’d the bed and that’s where they made a mistake. I guess the blood pres- book through that old man.” sure got him.” At Good Rockin’ Bob’s request, Chenier reluctantly took A resident of Lake Charles since 1961, Davis also recalls those early his cousin’s place as the band’s guitarist two weeks later. days. “This place was hot back in the ’60s, man. They had something From all accounts Washington was not only a highly respected every night in the week. Leroy was a good guitar player and he could and admired musician, but also a good-natured and well-loved human play with anybody. Leroy bought this big old Fender amplifier. You being right to the end. Davis remembers, “Leroy lived with two or know, there wasn’t too many guys that had them. Leroy had this big three different women but he wasn’t married to none of them. I tell old Fender amp and when he played them big chords they used to say, you what, man, Leroy had a bunch of women, you know—friends, and “That man’s knockin’ the boards off the walls!” [laughs] That’s how bad I never seen so many women come and visit a casket and bust out Leroy would get ’em! But every time they needed a guitar player—he crying. You could tell that everyone was in love with him. Every one never was out of work.” of them women would bust out crying as they passed the casket. He With his reputation as one of the region’s finest guitar players wasn’t no problem guy.” firmly established, Washington was also occasionally called upon to Although just 30 years old at the time of his death, Leroy Washington back blues acts on tour in the Gulf Coast and traveled with nationally left a strong musical imprint which is still felt throughout renowned recording artists like Jimmy Reed, Roy Brown and Clarence Southwest Louisiana today, more than 50 years later. “Bon Ton” Garlow. Davis continues, “Them guys used to come to Opelousas because Special thanks to Albert Davis, Roscoe Chenier, Guitar Gable, Jockey they had a club there called the Bradford White Eagle. A lot of them Etienne, Johnnie Allan, Howard Coy Jr. and staff at the Vernon Parish guys used to come down there. Yeah, the musicians would come to Library and Bill Stafford of the Louisiana State Archives for their invalu- town and they would stay there at Leroy’s house. Jimmy Reed stayed able help. with them a while. You see, Leroy was a musician and a lot of guys would come travel and they needed a guitar player or bass and Leroy Have a comment, tip or suggestion concerning a blues or soul art- would let them stay there because it wasn’t but him and his mother ist who has fallen off the radar? Email [email protected].

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