We are now booking 2024
For the past 30 years, we have done our own booking. I play all kinds of venues: festivals, club dates, special events, and house concerts. We are now starting to zero in on a mid-summer tour to Montreal and back. If you'd like to bring Sauce Boss to your place, get in touch HERE.
Here's the skinny on the tour schedule
Miami Beach. Early 1980's. Photo by Jeff Weil
You can hear this guitar on my upcoming album. It was made 90 years ago. Here’s the story of my 1933 O Model National Steel Guitar from my memoir/songbook/cookbook, The Life and Times of Blind Boy Billy. (Get the book here)
“One morning in the ‘70s, I walked out in my front yard, and leaning up against my daughter’s bicycle was a National Steel Guitar. I saw it there, and I looked around. There was nobody. Then I took a good look at it and realized how old it was. Hawaiian scene with volcanos and palm trees and the moon and stars, and a little man in a boat is etched on the back. Whoa! Turns out it was made in 1933. Was this the guitar from God? Did the devil put it there so I could play his blues? What's goin on? Well any guitar player worth his salt, will tell you that a guitar will speak to you; whisper musical stories in your ear. Some will scream bloody murder or sooth your soul. I listened to that guitar for a decade or more. Then one day, Herb Williams dropped by the house. Herb was a conceptual artist, a pilot, and an adventurer. He invented screen windows for his old Chevrolet for travel in bug ridden areas. He had traveled to South America to get in on the gold rush. He had adventures that I can not repeat. He got around. Well, after a long conversation, he asked, “Did you ever figure out who left that guitar in your yard?” It was him. He was leaving town and had to lighten his load. “I bet Bill could use this.” I had long since resigned myself to the fact that the National was a loaner. When I leave this world, I’ll lend it to someone else to play for a while.”
The album has some of the trademark high energy blues that the Sauce Boss is famous for, but it also has a good bit of a more laid back approach to some of the tunes. My studio has given me a deep appreciation for the sonorous, and I can already tell from the response to this music when I'm out and about, that this is gonna be a good one. A standing ovation at the Ottawa Blues Fest, and plenty of love at all the gigs has got me buzzing for a rousing 2024. Thanks to all who came and saw, and listened, and gave me the time of day.
Y'all Cold?
Try some of this. The hot sauce for the new millennium. The road to culinary Nirvana. LIQUID SUMMER DATIL PEPPER HOT SAUCE.
Also available in habanero flavor. My hot sauce biz took a leap in 2023. Let's keep it rolling. Buy yours HERE!
Lena's Pierogi House
20 N. Main St. Hubbard, OH 234-254-9532
Here's another way to warm yourself up from the inside out. If you live anywhere close to Hubbard and you've never eaten at Lena's, you are missing out!. I'm talkin to you, Max. Or if yer passin through on I-80, do NOT miss this opportunity. Lena serves Hungarian and Polish food, cooked the “real deal” way. Comfort food to the Max! (obtuse pun intended). She has a few tables, and an abbreviated menu with take out available to load your freezer full of pierogi for a right now dinner at a later date. Here's a photo of stuffed cabbage dinner for $15. Also a bunch of pierogie. (Potato, mushroom and dill, and onion) with haluski, caramelized onions, and Cole slaw on the side. I believe the pierogi are $6 a serving. So what's up Max?!?!?!?!?!?!?
The kitchen in the Little House
Actually, I repurposed a lumber shed with salvaged materials to make this charming little shack. The screened in kitchen was an add on. Ruthie made the floor with bricks I pulled from a motel in Tallahassee. she laid em on the ground, poured dry concrete between em, and hosed em down.The wall siding in the kitchen was flooring from said motel. The framing and tin roof were from a tobacco barn. I'm talkin bout full 2x4 inch rough cut boards. For the door, I used the slats for hanging the tobacco for drying, to make the sunburst and reinforcement on the bottom. In the winter, we covered the screen with plastic. We cooked some dynamite meals on that cook stove. The convection made them biscuits gorgeous, and the smoke flavored everything to perfection. My favorite way to cook. We also had an Ashley wood stove for heat inside the cabin that got that little shack so hot, we'd be opening the windows on a freezing night. One winter in the 70s, my main job was cutting wood to keep us warm and providing fuel for this little stove. The sink emptied into a home made 55 gallon drum greywater tank. The bathtub emptied into the yard, and we had a privy. I had $1800 total in this little house, including electric and pluming. Plus the blood, sweat, and tears from my “salvation” business. I look back at this time with warm fondness. A simpler time. A beautiful time when we foraged for rabbit eye blueberries in the yard and made everything ourselves.
