January 16, 2008
THE NEWS-PRESS

Spicy blues
The Sauce Boss blends music, gumbo on stage
Charles Runnells

Bluesman Bill Wharton really cooks on stage, and not just with his electric guitar.
Wharton -- better known as The Sauce Boss -- wails on songs such as "Great Big Fanny" and "Let the Big Dog Eat." And then he brandishes a spoon and adds shrimp, okra, zucchini, chicken stock and other ingredients to a 12-gallon pot onstage. Wharton plays his spicy blues in the key of G -- for "gumbo."
And at the end of each concert, everyone gets a steaming bowl.
The way Wharton sees it, his concerts are more than just entertainment. They're a way for people of all kinds to get together and get along. For one night, anyway.

"It's a metaphor," the Tallahassee man says in his laid-back voice - a stark contrast to his bubbling stage personae. "Gumbo is many things coming together to make something good.
"It's a soul-shouting picnic of rock and roll brotherhood."

Audiences can get a taste of Wharton's peace, love and gumbo next Friday and Saturday, Jan. 25-26, at The Phil in Naples. It's a fun, one-of-a-kind experience, says Bruce Spangler, head of the Knoxville Volunteer Ministry in Knoxville, Tenn. Wharton recently played there for an audience of 100-125 homeless people - one of many shelters he plays across the country with his charitable organization, Planet Gumbo.

"It was heart-racing and inspiring," Spangler says. "He's really engaging. Bill has a passion that you just can't Xerox."
After the free concert, Wharton passed out bowls of gumbo. "It was quite delicious," Spangler says. "The aroma filled the whole room."

Wharton stumbled across his tasty gimmick in 1990, after years of marketing his own brand of hot sauce at shows. Then it hit him - why not combine the show and the sauce? So Wharton and his band, The Ingredients, started cooking gumbo on stage for a New Year's Eve show. And people literally ate it up.

Since then, he says, he's made blues and gumbo for about 150,000 people at his concerts and charity performances.
Of course, it took some time to get everything flowing smoothly in his onstage kitchen. At first, oysters and okra were flying everywhere. "It was a big mess," Wharton says and chuckles. "I had stains all over the floor."
Wharton says he's never been a professional cook. But he has been playing in rock and blues bands since the '70s.
He's released nine albums and has been featured by CNN, NPR's "All Things Considered," "GQ" magazine and more.

Perhaps his biggest boost came from parrot king Jimmy Buffett, who caught one of Wharton's shows in Key West - and then wrote a song about him. "I Will Play for Gumbo" appeared on the 1999 album, "Beach House on the Moon."
Suddenly, Wharton had a whole new audience. "People started showing up in loud shirts," he says. "It was great."

As for the gumbo recipe, Wharton got his signature dish from Shirley Neal, the Baton Rouge wife of late blues singer Raful Neal. He says he watched her closely as she made the gumbo, and then started making it for his own friends and family - along with a dash of his own hot sauce, Liquid Summer, for a little more kick.But people with delicate stomachs shouldn't worry. His concert gumbo is on the mild side. "I'm not interested in hurting anybody," he says and chuckles. "I'd much rather we all enjoy our time together."

That's what it's all about. Wharton loves spreading the gospel of blues and gumbo - one bowl at a time.
"We're all listening to music and eating together," Wharton says. "If we can all sit down and have a little food together and treat each other like neighbors, then maybe we can work out some of this other stuff."
The world is like gumbo, he says. If you blend all the ingredients just right, you get something new and wonderful.
"That's kind of become my message," he says.

Bill Wharton's gumbo
- 2 cups flour - 11/2 cups oil - 1 chicken, cooked and de-boned - 1 gallon of chicken stock - 2 large onions - 2 large green peppers - 1/2 cup Liquid Summer Hot Sauce (you can substitute your own hot sauce) - 1 pound smoked sausage - 2 medium zucchini - 1 pound okra - 1 pound of shrimp - 1 pint of oysters - 1 pound of crawdads
Make a roux by mixing the flour into the hot oil. Cook on high, stirring constantly until brown. Add the chicken, chicken stock, onions and green peppers. Bring to a boil, then simmer down. Add salt to taste and 1/2 cup of hot sauce. Then slice and add the sausage, zucchini and okra. When the okra is done, bring the gumbo to a rolling boil and add shrimp, oysters, and crawdads. Cook for 3 minutes, or until the shrimp are just barely cooked. Serve over rice and splash with more hot sauce. This recipe feeds 8-12 people.
Bill Wharton's gumbo

What: The Sauce Boss
When: 6 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday, Jan. 25-26
Where: Philharmonic Center for the Arts, 5833 Pelican Bay Blvd., Naples
Tickets: $39
Information: Call 597-1900 or go to thephil.org. For more about Bill Wharton, go to sauceboss.com


EXCERPT
Excerpt from "I Will Play for Gumbo" by Jimmy Buffett (from the 1999 album, "Beach House on the Moon"):
A piece of French bread
With which to wipe my bowl,
Good for the body,
Good for the soul.
It's a little like religion
And a lot like sex.
You should never know
When you're gonna get it next.
At midnight in the quarter or noon in Thibadeaux,
I will play for gumbo.
Yes, I will play for gumbo.
Maybe it's the sausage or those pretty pink shrimp,
Or that popcorn rice that makes me blow up like a blimp.
Maybe it's that voodoo from Marie
Leveaux,
But I will play for gumbo.
Yeah, I will play for gumbo.
The Sauce Boss does his cookin' on the stage,
Stirrin' and a singing for his nightly wage.
Sweating and frettin' from his head to his toe,
Playin' and swayin' with the gumbo,
Prayin' and buffetin' with the gumbo.