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] 8 • LIVING BLUES • DECEMBER 2012 LOST BLUES FILES 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.