Age Ain’t Nothin’ But A Number For Swamp Dogg (INTERVIEW)

Photo Credit: Robert Matheu

For half a century Jerry Williams Jr. has been forging his own path through the music industry. His early R&B recordings as Little Jerry Williams and his work producing and writing songs for other artists is impressive in and of itself, but Williams is perhaps best known for his work under the pseudonym Swamp Dogg. Though he had already spent two decades working in the industry, the wild times affected Williams and after discovering LSD and Frank Zappa he became Swamp Dogg. Blending his love of soul, R&B and blues with a shamelessly blunt and often dirty sense of humor, Swamp Dogg poked fun at politics, race issues, and just about the whole damn world, having one hell of a good time in the process. His first album, 1970’s Total Destruction To Your Mind, was filled with soulful tunes that struck a balance between humor and serious commentary on issues of the times with titles such as “Synthetic World” and “Mama’s Baby, Daddy’s Maybe.”

As is often the case with artists who make music designed to really make you think – and in Swamp’s case make you laugh – commercial success eluded Jerry Williams and his rabble rousing persona. Despite at least twenty albums as Swamp Dogg since 1970, he has lingered below the mainstream, more content to make the kind of art he wants than to sell millions of records. It is perhaps this underdog status, along with his supremely strange music, that has turned Swamp Dogg into a cult favorite among record collectors and music nerds, and has allowed him to continue making music even at the age of 72. And don’t think age has dimmed Jerry Williams one bit, because this year he’s releasing one of his strongest records yet, The White Man Made Me Do It, and is approaching it with the same spunk and energy that he did back in 1970. Blues, soul, hip-hop and even reggae are all represented on songs with bold titles like “Your Cash Ain’t Nothing But Trash” and “Prejudice Is Alive And Well,” and in a time when race issues seem to be at a new boiling point and politicians are more crooked than ever before, Swamp Dogg has never felt so relevant. Above all else, Jerry Williams Jr. can still crank out some down and dirty funk and he’s not planning on stopping anytime soon. Layout 1

The album title and first track are called “The White Man Made Me Do It”. When you listen to the song there are a lot of interesting points you’re addressing, but is there a clear message or statement you are actually making?

Yeah, that black people mainly can be somebody if they apply themselves and that black people pick the wrong people as role models. My connotation of a role model is basically somebody who is dead, [because] then you have a chance to explore their entire life and see if you would like to be like them. You pick a basketball or football player and tell them they’re a role model – I don’t want that. [They] don’t want to be no fuckin’ role model, [they] just want to play basketball and do what they do. You may hold someone in high esteem as a role model and on the last day of their life they go into a theater and kill everybody, you know? So I think you gotta wait until they pass on in order to have them [as a] role model. That’s basically what I’m trying to say, is that you can’t pick people because of what they’re doing right now. There’s the guy who everybody thinks is the greatest guy in the world and he goes home every day at six and beats the shit out of his wife, and he’s the greatest guy in the world but his wife just can’t come out of the bedroom because she’s got two black eyes. [The song] is about knowing that the white man didn’t invent everything, didn’t create everything, and as a black man you’re not as stupid as you have been made to think you are. You can accomplish things also and everything we have done, we have risen to the top to be number one. I used to be on a soapbox, but I got rid of the soapbox and I just tell people in passing – you are somebody and you don’t need to get overnight success as a drug dealer and breaking into people’s houses killing your own. Take some of that knowledge you have and put it towards something positive and you’ll still wind up great and maybe rich if money is one of your goals. Most of these role models that we have like George Washington Carver, money was not their goal, they just wanted to help make things better and see how much they could get out of the situation.

Your new album seems to strike an interesting balance between strong statements and humor. How do you approach that without letting one overwhelm the other?

You just do it. I mean, people know when you are serious and people know when you are just having fun. If they don’t understand that than the entire message is lost on them anyways. I don’t make albums like Gil Scott-Heron, which starts you in the depths of Hell and drags you down further. He was a preacher in his own way – he had a couple of subjects that he wanted to preach on and that’s what he did. In my case, first of all I love humor, and I guess if I was going to take a choice I would lean more towards humor than I would the political statements because I do believe that laughter is the best medicine. I don’t believe that just talking down to people or trying to lift them out of the depths of despair and shit, I don’t think there’s no fun in that for them or me. Nevertheless, since I do have this particular [thing] I can use, I say things. Everything I say might not be true but it’s what I feel, but a lot of it is true and I fact check a lot before I start talking shit. The music also changes. I’ve done different types of music, like I did a reggae thing called “Hey Renae”. I’ve got so much music in me and so much I want to say that I try to get it out through Swamp Dogg.

You have a whole song about Sly Stone called “Where’s Sly” on the album. What is it about his story that made you want to offer thoughts on it?

I think that he and James Brown are the only artists that have brought anything new to music – new in the fact that it stuck and it stays. You can hear James Brown and Sly Stone in a majority of records that come out. Sly gave me inspiration with the things he did, like “Don’t call me nigger whitey, don’t call me whitey nigger” and that kind of shit. And while he was getting messages to you, you’re out there dancing your ass off. Later it hit you what was being said. I think Sly Stone is a genius, yeah he fucked up as far as drugs is concerned, but we’ve all known some people like that where it’s like, damn if we could just get him sober he’d do some of the greatest work you ever seen. Same thing with Sly, but I think Sly done burned his shit up medulla-wise and I don’t think he’s ever going to have any coherency in his thoughts and writings. I don’t think he even knows what the fuck he’s doing. But I appreciate 90% of all the music he’s done and his approach. Nobody did it like Sly and he gave other artists something to work from. He gave us all a new blueprint to get out of the room we were locked in and let other shit in.

 Swamp_Rat On!

Will you be touring behind this album?

I’m gonna do everything I have to do behind this album; if I have to suck pussy on HBO I’ll do it. I’m gonna sell this album because I believe in it. It’s one of my best works since Total Destruction To Your Mind. The only problem is when I went in the studio I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I didn’t go in there cutting Swamp Dogg, I went in there cutting Jerry Williams. All of that Swamp Dogg shit came later. I had a lot of material and I went through it in the studio and that’s what we came up with. It’s taken me all these years to really hit on what I did [on Total Destruction], so I’m back 1970, I’m back. But this shit is palatable for this year and this century.

Someone wrote that despite your body of work you remain misunderstood. Do you agree and if so why do you think that is?

I’m gonna give them a little credit on that. Misunderstood because people would wonder like, we know he knows where the mainstream is, he’s been in the mainstream, he knows how to get in the mainstream, but he won’t do it! If I happen to be in the mainstream sometimes than [that’s] good, but I’m not shooting for the mainstream. When I’m trying to write for the mainstream I may hit on something and say, damn, that’s good Swamp Dogg! When I get ready to do the next Swamp Dogg album I go through all those notes to see if they still make sense and all that kind of shit. People don’t understand why I don’t shoot for the mainstream. If I was white I would shoot for mainstream, like Rod Stewart, but being black, it’s difficult. Like, who can out sing Eddie Levert [of The O’Jays]? No-fuckin-buddy! But he can’t get a record deal. If you’re black and over thirty you’re fucked unless you can come up with something like Swamp Dogg does. The disc jockeys – they’re sixteen years old and they’ve never heard of no Swamp Dogg, but they’ve heard of Snoop Dogg, who took my fuckin’ name! He wasn’t even born when I became Swamp Dogg, but that’s life. I’m still very happy with my life. I struggle, but that’s because I didn’t write no commercial shit. In my case I’ve got my own studio and engineer, so I don’t have to pay anyone except my musicians. I can afford to take chances. I just finished an album on my mother called Turn Back the Hands of Time. A lot of people who like Swamp Dogg actually think I’m dead, like embalming kind of dead, just because I’ve been around so long and I love making records. One of my big thrills is the smell that comes out of the jacket when you take the shrink-wrap off. Them motherfucker’s almost like LSD to me, it just makes me high.

So you’re not dead and people can expect a lot more from Swamp Dogg in the future?

In the last three years I’ve had a heart operation, a spinal operation where my nerves had gotten tied up in a knot, and just about five or six months ago I had just had colon cancer and they cut out twenty-five inches of my colon, so I’m fine. I am close to being one of the luckiest motherfuckers in the world – blessed and lucky – and nothing ever knocks me off my feet.

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Swamp Dogg’s ‘The White Man Made Me Do It’ is out now on Alive Naturalsound Records.

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2 Responses

  1. jerry Williams is a crook a compulsive lie a get over an its sad to see but his music will never become anything all these different write ups he has online he is the one writing an printing all this stuff about his on self as far as him being a artist it dint work back then an it dam sure not going to work now come on man your career is over your best shot was to take care your artist but instead you tied good people up in contracts an screwed them all over with those horrible contracts you did nothing but take advantage of peoples talent an lives now your trying to make a come back at 80 years old really nobody is talking about your tired music you made in the 60s an 70s but you online nobody even samples your music because its not worth sampling the best thing you need to do is sit down give it up god don’t like ugly an karma is what it is your not an a&r agent your not a good vocal singer at all your not a songwriter people can tell that by all the horrible retarded titles of your music you not coming back its over for you nobody cares about sdeg this company that your trying to keep repping for online that’s a none factor an every artist you took advantage of in your life time is the reason your done an over with your not a real music inclined musician your whole scheme is fake you cant take care of an artist because your a selfish person an until you make it write with the artist you lied to an scammed all these years in those 100 page contacks lol especially the younger artist game over homie an this message about jerry Williams is 100% truth an his fake ass record label with all these old as pitchers of him in the 60s raw spit really enough said

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