Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine vinyl single on sale this Friday, June 12th, get ‘em while they’re HOT!
Read MoreTwo FREE Songs from the Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine
Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine
“Hey Little Girl” b/w “Strike Up the Band”
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“Willie’s skin was the color of baker’s chocolate. He sang like Wilson Pickett, wore his Telecaster upside down like Hendrix, and had Elvis Costello’s gift for cutting a pop gem. He didn’t play second to James Brown when putting on a show. He’s as good as we’ve ever seen. Who else is there? Prince? Springsteen?” – Joe Oestreich, Hitless Wonder
If you Googled the name Willie Phoenix you wouldn’t learn much. Like another “Searching for Sugarman” it seems impossible that a musician with a career spanning thousands of songs, concerts & live gigs could still remain a virtual mystery in this day and age.
This much we know: Willie was born in Marion, Ohio, in 1952 and has done NOTHING but play rock n roll since 1975. He doesn’t drink or smoke. Nobody knows where he lives. Nobody has ever had his phone number. Bandmates would wait by their phones for a pay phone call from Willie for practice and gig information. He plays a show or records a new song every night. Always.
The Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine is an attempt by Columbus, Ohio, musicians to preserve Willie’s legacy and draw attention to his enormous talents, which have inspired and entertained so many people in Central Ohio over the past forty years. Please enjoy these free cover versions drawn from Willie’s back catalog, but more importantly, catch Willie playing live or drop him a line on Facebook and let him feel your love. PLEASE send all Willie Phoenix stories, pictures, or discography info to williepproject@gmail.com.
Click here to visit WilliePhoenix.com and all things Willie
A few words about the tunes, from Ricki C., longtime Phoenix roadie.
(For more on Willie, check out The Ballad of Willie Phoenix, on Ricki’s blog, Growing Old With Rock & Roll.)
“Hey Little Girl” – I can’t remember the first time I heard this song. I know it was from the first incarnation of The Buttons, circa early 1979 when Dee Hunt was still the drummer. (The recorded version, self-released by The Buttons on a 7-inch 45 in 1980, featured Jerry Hanahan on drums.) Willie was just putting so many new songs into the set back then, it would make your head spin. I’m pretty sure this was from a particularly Elvis Costello-inspired period that also brought “Take My Advice” into the repertoire.
“Strike Up The Band” – This was the third song I ever heard Willie play, from when I ventured out a week after The Great Blizzard of 1978 to see Romantic Noise on February 3rd, 1978. I have a heroically garbled tape of that show, made on one of those little dawn-of-time portable Panasonic cassette recorders, that I had brought to the show to interview Willie, for my punk fanzine, Teenage Rampage. (see blog referenced above) On that tape I can be heard saying – in reference to “Strike Up The Band” – “This sounds like the 1910 Fruitgum Company crossed with The Ramones.” I stand by that statement to this day in 2015. It was Willie’s early genius to cross classic pop with punk intensity into one of the greatest mixtures of power-pop I have ever witnessed.
Willie Phoenix Comfest Set-List Wish-List by Colin G. and Ricki C.
Willie Phoenix will play this Saturday, June 27th, at 5:05 pm on the Bozo (Main) Stage at the 2015 edition of Comfest. As summer and warm weather bring out the most presumptuous aspects of Colin's & Ricki's personalities, they have seen fit to choose Willie's set-list for him. They did not confer on their choices and certainly didn't consult Willie.
Colin G. - Having played and attended countless Comfest shows, I will share my personal philosophy on what kind of set-list works best at the Capital City's biggest festival. Comfest is NOT the show to break out a bunch of new songs or take your crowd on a new direction or a jazz odyssey. Comfest is a show where the crowd consists of: A) people who haven't seen you in a long time; and B) people who are seeing you for the first time.
So, in my opinion, a Comfest set should be a good representation of your entire career so people get the proper idea of what your band can do best. It's a career-spanning greatest hits list. I'm not saying you can't mix in some new tunes, but don't forget to trot out that old warhorse that your die-hard fans love hearing. Oh, are you are tired of playing that one? Too bad. Just play the damn song and stop being so selfish. Do you think Cheap Trick loves playing "I Want You to Want Me" every single night for 35 years? They play it because the fans love it. It's a two-way street.
Having said that, this is the set-list I would draw up for Willie Phoenix for his Bozo Stage appearance Saturday, June 27th at 5pm. Ricki is the true Willie expert at Pencilstorm, but here is my two cents.
Fight / My Apartment / Heart Goes Boom / Willie's choice of a new song / She's So Powerful / Hey Little Girl / Willie's choice of a new song / New York Is Burning / Stick with Me / Gasoline
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Take it Ricki......
Ricki C. - Willie Phoenix’s Comfest 2015 set begins with rhythm guitarist Kim Crawford knockin’ out the riff to My Apartment on her trusty Fender Tele. Bassist Myke Rock and drummer Jim Johnson fall flawlessly into the pocket and the band riffs away that way for maybe a full minute before Willie throws in the lead guitar figure while still offstage. Willie saunters onstage from stage left, knockin’ out the riff, gets to the stage-center mic, throws up his left hand, the band stops on a dime, Willie informs us, “This is my apartment, you can’t tell me what to do, love” and the band is off to the races. By three minutes later, when Willie is yellin’ “This is my apartment / This is my ROCK & ROLL” the boys & girl have got the Comfest crowd in the palm of their hands, and Willie has once again laid claim to the legacy of Columbus r&r that is rightfully his.
An unseen roadie tosses Willie a harmonica rack from offstage, Willie drops it over his head in one fluid motion and – holy shit! – the band races into Electric Folk Dreamin’ Man from 1990 or so. They tear through three minutes of prime folk-rock/power-pop, and then – without missin’ a beat – Jim starts poundin’ out a slab of beatdown-boogie and the band snarls into the Z.Z.Top-inspired fever of Heart Goes Boom for ten minutes or so, effortless and rockin’.
Willie gives the somewhat stunned & reeling Comfest crowd a little breather after the opening onslaught with that new tune of his that namechecks The Velvet Underground, knocking out taut little lead breaks on his Strat between the verses. A roadie walks out and switches Willie’s electric for an acoustic and – holy shit, again! – Willie starts singing, “New York is burning, she won’t write / My heart is skipping lunch tonight.” The Soul Underground falls into line and the four of them bash through an absolutely majestic version of New York Is Burning. At some point in the song that unnamed roadie sets Willie’s electric out on the stage, on a stand back by Willie’s amp.
After raving vocally about New York burning, at the end of the tune Willie throws the acoustic to the offstage roadie, picks up his electric and rips into a pyro solo that illustrates & illuminates the title of the tune just like Hendrix did after Dylan’s line “And the wind begins to HOWL” in Jimi’s cover of “All Along The Watchtower.” Willie solos for three or four minutes; Kim, Myke & Jim bash the song to a close and without any break Willie is off into the inescapable, unstoppable riff to Gloria, and even I have to give him his due and that indulgence after the set he’s pulled off to this point.
Willie keeps Gloria to a taut ten minutes, the band waves goodbye and leaves the stage to a raving response from the Comfest crowd, then Willie walks back onstage alone with a beat-to-shit Ovation acoustic I haven’t seen him use since sometime in the 1970’s. He launches solo acoustic into a ten-verse autobiographical tune about the decades of his life he’s devoted to rock & roll. The chorus of the song is “All the places I’ve seen / All the people I’ve been” and it distills all the music Willie has played since the late 1960’s: from The Boppers to Little Eric to Romantic Noise to The Buttons to the A&M Big Band to The Shadowlords to The True Soul Rockers to the unnamed blues bands of the 2000’s right up to and through Blues Hippy & The Soul Underground.
I can’t believe my eyes or ears. The song is killer. It’s like one of those Rick Rubin productions of Johnny Cash in the American Recordings years. Willie punctuates the verses with wild harmonica solos from the rack around his neck, and you can’t even keep up with the words & images spilling off of the stage. There’s no pyrotechnics, no performance, no playin’-behind-his-back, no divin’-into-the-crowd; there’s just a man, his words, his guitar & harp. It’s mesmerizing. Willie finishes with a final harmonica solo and the crowd is almost too stunned to respond. Willie deploys one of his patented grins, flashes a peace sign and walks offstage to rapturous applause. All the places he’s seen. All the people he’s been. I wouldn’t wanna be the act that has to try to follow Willie Phoenix at Comfest. – Ricki C. / June 20th, 2015.
My Apartment / Electric Folk Dreamin' Man / Heart Goes Boom / Out Of Your Mind / New York Is Burning / Gloria / All The People I've Been
Below: Willie performing "Heart Go Boom" from the This One's For Andy DVD.
Willie & the Soul Underground performing “Gloria” @ the LC Pavilion, 10/23/2015 (added to blog a few months after Comfest)
Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine Listening Party and More!
Hey everybody, the Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine is off and rolling. Just a quick update and a reminder that YOU can help us by spreading this music around and telling people about the great Willie Phoenix.
Click here to get the FREE music or here to read the original article
We will be having a Willie Phoenix Tribute Machine listening party at Little Rock Bar (corner of 4th Ave and 2nd St) Thursday March 5th. The event will be 6-8pm and admission is FREE. There will be no live music but a mix of Willie Phoenix tunes will be spinning. All the guys from the Tribute Machine will be hoisting beers and prepared to talk all things Willie.
WE NEED YOUR HELP! In addition to this being a party, we need Willie superfans to bring out your old Willie records, tapes, CDs, articles, pictures and the like. We will be taking pictures of all this stuff so we can begin working on a proper Willie Phoenix Wiki page listing his full discography. This is a huge task and we cannot do this without your help. If you cannot make it, please email your Willie P. info williepproject@gmail.com
Radio Update: Jon Peterson is planning on spinning a cut this week on his fabulous Shakin' It Radio program which airs in Columbus on WCBE 90.5 Saturday night so tune in and check it out. Maggie B has a copy as well so call in and request. Studio Line - 614 821 9223
CD102.5 has been given a copy to spin and is waiting to hear from you. Text: Request Willie P to the # 68683 and let them know you want to hear it on the radio. 0r call 614 221 1025
Last but not least, the actual Willie Phoenix will be playing Eldorado's Bar (Morse and High) Saturday February 28th. Go check it out or click here to visit Williephoenix.com for all things Willie and more dates. This site also has all the latest Willie music. It never stops.
Thanking you in advance for helping us spread the word about Columbus' own Willie Phoenix - Colin G.