Jerry Williams Jr. has a simple reason for deciding to record a bluegrass album: He doesnât know how much more time he has left to do it. At 81 years old, the cult R&B singer, songwriter and producer, best known for his sleazy, wisecracking alter-ego Swamp Dogg, canât take anything for granted.
âI figured at my age, I donât have that much longer to be running around here on Earth, no way,â Williams says over a Zoom call from his home in Porter Ranch. He leans back in his office chair, hands folded in his lap and baseball hat cocked high on his head. The blinds are drawn behind him to block out the afternoon light.
So, Williams says. âIâm gonna really go where I feel.â
âBlackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St,â Williamsâ 26th studio album as Swamp Dogg, continues a renaissance that began in 2018 when he teamed up with producer Ryan Olson for the acclaimed âLove, Loss, and Auto-Tune.â Gone are the vocal effects so cheekily displayed on that and his last album, âI Need a JobâŠSo I Can Buy More Auto-Tune,â replaced here with banjo, fiddle and a more raw, earthy brand of storytelling.
Thereâs the trademark sex and humor that Swamp Dogg is known for on album openers âMess Under That Dressâ and âUgly Manâs Wifeâ and guest spots from Margo Price, Jenny Lewis and Vernon Reid, plus some of todayâs finest bluegrass pickers, including Chris Scruggs and Sierra Hull. Thereâs even the odd love song, in which Williamsâ grizzled voice shades in the heartbreak with wearied affection.
âI wanted to depart from where Iâm usually at musically and to make an album for me,â Williams insists, with his slow, sticky drawl. He points to 1970âs psychedelic funk classic âTotal Destruction to Your Mind,â his first as Swamp Dogg, as the only one âmade for me, by meâ until now. âThatâs what I had in mind,â he says. âAs I was doing this, I said, âWell, donât nobody like it, donât nobody like it.â But it was time.â
That excitement was palpable from the earliest demos, according to collaborator, band member and roommate Larry âMoogstarâ Clemons. âI was just amazed,â says Clemons, whoâs lived and worked with Williams for over 15 years. âIt was like, wow, heâs really fired up. This is something youâve been waiting for. You made it. You did it now.â
Williams has long dreamed of making an album like this one. Ever since he was a kid in Portsmouth, Va., in the 1940s, he was infatuated with country and bluegrass, which he often heard played on Norfolk radio station WLOW by DJ Sheriff Tex Davis or on the records his grandfather brought home. The first song he learned to play was Red Foleyâs version of âPeace in the Valley.â
Swamp Dogg put together his new bluegrass album, âBlackgrass,â the help of his extensive back catalog â reputedly 2,000 songs that heâs written, recorded or produced.
(Sam Muller / For The Times)
âI just loved it. I loved the music, I loved the tempos of the mandolin and … I loved the fiddles, too,â Williams says. âTo me, it was just great music. And it was mixed with the rhythm and blues. Between hearing the rhythm and blues and the bluegrass, I always wanted to put âem together.â
The new album does that with the help of Williamsâ extensive back catalog â reputedly 2,000 songs that heâs written, recorded or produced â including reinterpretations of songs he originally wrote for artists like the Commodores and the Drifters. There are also covers of songs he loved in childhood, like âI Gotta Have My Baby Backâ by Floyd Tillman or âHave a Good Time,â a pop hit for Tony Bennett in 1952.
âIf it was a hit one time, I donât care how long ago, it can be a hit again,â Williams believes.
Williams has had hits in the country sphere before, though he never received the credit he was due. Most notably, he co-wrote âSheâs All I Got,â which reached No. 2 on the country charts with Johnny Paycheck in 1972. But as a Black artist, he was caught between two worlds: When he attended that yearâs Country Music Assn. Awards in Nashville, he was initially mistaken for a member of the kitchen staff.
Margo Price, who duets with Williams on the âBlackgrassâ cut âTo the Other Woman,â which he originally wrote for Doris Duke, was a devoted fan well before she knew of his country background.
âHeâs always thinking about music, always reinventing himself, and just super funny and down to earth. And heâs got great stories,â she says. âJust hearing what he went through as an artist, as a Black artist especially, trying to break into the country music world and his experience at the CMAs â heâs been through a lot, and heâs just really an unsung hero.â
Still, Williams says, country was at the root of many of the songs he wrote over the years, even when they bore the appearance of R&B or soul.
âI was really leaning on country when I wrote âem. Itâs just that once I put all those horns and [other touches] on there, it kicked country back into the corner â which is what I wanted to do,â Williams says. âI liked the country feel, but I knew Black radio wasnât gonna touch it with a 10-foot pole.â
Calling the new album âBlackgrassâ was a conscious attempt to reclaim bluegrassâ heritage and reframe its importance to Black listeners.
âI wanted Blacks to know that when they were making fun of bluegrass, it was the Africans â not white Africans, [but] Black Africans â that brought that [music] to this land,â he says. He scoffs at anyone who would dismiss it as âhillbilly music,â saying, âTo me, thatâs prejudice.â
Throughout his career as Swamp Dogg, Jerry Williams Jr. has addressed racial issues from a provocative, and often controversial, standpoint.
(Sam Muller / For The Times)
Throughout his career as Swamp Dogg, Williams has made a habit of addressing racial issues from a provocative, and often controversial, standpoint. Some of his best-known songs bear titles like âIâve Never Been to Africa and Itâs Your Faultâ and âCall Me [Nâ],â which he says featured a Ku Klux Klan member on banjo.
âIt really pisses people off, because I guess thatâs what kept my career at a certain level,â he says with a chuckle. âThey tell me, âYou say [the N-word] too much.â Look, didnât but five Blacks come to my show. I had 300 whites. So, hey, Iâm going with what they like,â he adds, jokingly.
Price believes Williamsâ messaging was visionary, even though it got him kicked off Elektra Records in the 1970s. âHe was saying some incredible things â you know, socially, politically â and they dropped him,â she says. âAnd he never changed or compromised his artistic integrity. He kept it all the way, and he has always been fully himself. I strive to be like him.â
The social commentary on âBlackgrassâ is of a softer variety, highlighted by âSongs to Sing,â a track originally written for protĂ©gĂ© Charlie Whitehead. Itâs transformed here into a shimmering epic with echoes of Sam Cooke and the civil rights movement. Thereâs also the newly penned âMurder Ballad,â a chilling reimagining of an old folk song trope thatâs dripping with racial tension and class violence. âWe werenât thinking about killing anybody in particular. I donât think thereâs but a couple people that Iâd like to kill,â Williams muses, before promptly rattling off the name of one of his former label bosses.
Indeed, Williams has a lingering fixation with hits, money and status, a legacy perhaps of opportunities missed and others that were denied him. He boasts about owning nine cars at one point (âAll of âem luxury except one,â he says) and a mansion on Long Island. Those things, he concedes, are just secondary. âSuccess, to me, is people listening and liking it. I made [the music] for me but where other people could enjoy it,â he says.
Itâs telling, then, that for the first time in his career, Williams decided to relinquish creative control on âBlackgrassâ to his producer, Ryan Olson. Itâs their third album together and the first since 2020âs country-soul collection âSorry You Couldnât Make It.â
Jerry Williams Jr. sees âBlackgrassâ as the beginning of a new phase for Swamp Dogg. âThis is me getting the door cracked open,â he says. âNow I want one with no doors.â
(Sam Muller / For The Times)
âItâs pretty great,â Olson says of working with Williams. âHeâs really trusting. Itâs like, thereâs no ego going on about it. Heâs just happy to get fresh ideas into the mix. Heâs been doing it so long. If all relationships were like that, everything about music would be a lot funner.â
Olson also produced, directed and scored the film documentary âSwamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted,â which premiered at South by Southwest in March.
âHeâs family,â Olson says. âItâs hard to shake family, you know?â
Olson and Price agree that Williamsâ close entourage, including Clemons, help keep him motivated, but Clemons emphasizes his fierce inner drive as well.
âI think the thing that keeps him fresh is he believes in himself,â Clemons says. The particular purpose of this album enhanced that motivation. âThis is something that he really wants to push and spread, you know? He wants to leave things to help people. And music is a healer.â
Beyond the personal history, âBlackgrassâ is poignant for Williams because itâs being released by Oh Boy Records, the label founded by his longtime friend, singer-songwriter John Prine, who died in 2020 from COVID-19 complications. The two had been close ever since working together at Elektra, with Prineâs âSam Stoneâ a staple of Williamsâ live performances. Prine made some of his final recordings for âSorry You Couldnât Make It.â
âThatâs another reason I feel successful: What record company is signing up an 81-year-old …?â Williams says, breaking into laughter.
But he sees âBlackgrassâ as just the beginning of a new phase for Swamp Dogg.
âI want to do a straight country album,â Williams says. âThis is me getting the door cracked open. Now I want one with no doors.â
He spreads his hands out in front of him, as though parting the seas.
âIâm hoping to get out at least five or six more albums before I depart,â he adds. âI already got the songs . Gotta put melodies to some of âem. And I got some thoughts I want to want to write about.â