Tell me about Swamp Dogg

http://swampdogg.safeshopper.com/images/b20f42ar.jpg

Swamp Dogg (Born Jerry Williams) also wrote a couple of songs for Z.Z. Hill's classic "Down Home Blues," including "Giving It Up For Your Love," later somewhat successfully covered by Delbert McClinton.

Been on a huge Swamp Dogg kick lately.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BHTbprAa68

Playing in NYC in may at City Winery. Who's in?

that show is gonna smoke, I'd bet

hi so i just saw this dude play in a fucking THAI RESTAURANT

god he burned the place down in slo-mo on some motherfucking instant replay shit

it was amazing

halfway through the set (right around the arrival of my pad thai (im sayin)) he had some dude sit in who was "on his way to the international blues competition in memphis" who did this amazing electric fingerstyle stuff with an f-holed natural wood strat

it was heaven

Where was this?

Hooos, Swamp Dog Clark is not the same person as SWAMP DOGG.

Harmonica player, songwriter, and singer Anthony Clark also known as Swamp Dog was born in York, PA, and now resides in and around the Washington DC area, where he is counted among the best blues harmonica players in the area.

http://www.reverbnation.com/anthonyswampdogclark

Swamp Dogg was born Jerry Williams.
http://www.allmusic.com/artist/swamp-dogg-p71488

You must have been at Bangkok Blues in Falls Church, Virginia

guy that took me out lied to me :(

wait a hoos is in VA? get that ass on the 85 S and come raid the liquor cabinet yo

The real Swamp Dogg (and not Swamp Dog Clark) is going to be doing a free evening concert Saturday July 2 in Washington D.C. outdoors on the national mall as part of the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. He will also be doing some gigs during the day throughout the fest. What a great way to celebrate this country

http://www.festival.si.edu/2011/schedule_07_02.aspx

AHHHHHHHHHHH WHY DONT I LIVE IN DC ANYMORE

He was playing at noon and 2 pm today for those who didn't have to work. More free gigs through the weekend including Saturday evening the 2nd at 6.

Wearing a lime green suit and hat in his evening gig in DC, Swamp dragged out his Bee Gees cover "Got to Get a Message to You" for 20 some minutes while he wandered among the crowd shaking hands and posing for photos. A bit much. The set started out a little tighter. He also had his Mom as his opening act--she did 3 songs.

His headset mic didn't work that well-- his voice wasn't loud enough and was ocassionally garbled. He made jokes about his recent heart surgery and having gout. He also did his cover of John Prine's "Sam Stone" and his own "The World Beyond."

his own "The World Beyond."

Believe it or not, that's actually a Bobby Goldsboro composition - same guy who did "Honey" and "Watching Scotty Grow."

oops

https://sphotos-b.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/557882_537531966290952_1755230317_n.jpg

The last editionof the Wire had a review of one or 2 of his lps, so looks like they've been reissued recently. I have Rat On & Total Destruction of Your Mind together on one disc called the Excellent Sides of Swamp Dogg vol 1. Just listened to it earlier and think Imust have stuck a bit of it on my walkman & have since thought it was Geeneral Johnson of Chairman of The Board every time it came on.

Actually looks like those individual cds are due on the 11th of March

I only have his first four records. What are some highlights from later in his career?

great: http://www.discogs.com/Swamp-Dogg-Have-You-Heard-This-Story/release/1525713
even greater (and not in any way an actual greatest hits): http://www.discogs.com/Swamp-Dogg--Greatest-Hits-/release/3695251

beyond that, gotta be a real head to love more than a couple tracks probly. that said, theyre all cheap (especially after the first couple) -- buy everything he ever did!

Has anyone else noticed that he sounds really like Levon Helm at times?

Ive been listening to his "Have you heard this story?" all day. So good

I just watched an episode of The People’s Court in which Swamp Dogg was a defendant(!) – he never paid guitarist “Lucky” Lloyd Wright (the plaintiff) for playing on his album The White Man Made Me Do It..

Judge Milian’s ruling: Swamp Dogg must pay!

The new Swamp Dogg is great particularly "family pain" and "please le me go round again". A true American Legend.

Indeed. This thread seems to omit the salient fact of his co-writing “She’s All I Got.”

With Gary U.S. Bonds!

Hey, hmm...

Ooh, need to listen to that song, plus new album

Just heard him interviewed on NPR last night. He’s a character

props to this revive/C.Grisso upping this guy's discography over on Horrible 70s album titles like I've Got My Own Album To Do . i'm most of the way through Total Destruction of the Mind and I love it - great playing, great voice. kinda reminds me of Funkadelic's Osmium in the musical variety and some of the humor. gonna have to start collecting his wonderfully titled LPs.

oh, there is a thread for him! great. looks like a bunch of his stuff has popped up for streaming on youtube recently and i'm planning to check more of it out!

Total Destruction is def the one to start with, but these are pretty consistent too:
Gag a Maggott, Have You Heard This Story?, Best of (the one on War Bride), I Called for a Rope and They Threw Me a Rock , Best of 25 Years: F*** the Bomb, Stop the Drugs
---but Surfin' in Harlem and several others, prob all of 'em, are worth some cherrypicking time. And, usually(?) as Jerry Williams, he's produced several other artists.

He has a really inneresting way with covers too!

NPR asked him what his early 70s albums like Total Destruction to Your Mind were about and he said he didn't know, he was taking a lot of LSD.

"Have You Heard This Story?" is my favourite

Synthetic World when it speeds up is awesome.

The Swamp Dogg productions on other artists that I know of, this done from the top of my head :

Doris Duke: 2 LPs - I'm a Loser and A Legend In Her Time. The first one's an absolute classic. the second nearly as good IMO. (Incidentally I assume either Lee Perry or Susan Cadogan was listening to I'm A Loser when preparing for Susan's solo LP, a few songs turn up there).
Freddie North: 2 LPs - Cuss The Wind and Friend. The latter is a long-time favourite of mine, the former I've never heard but good old Edd Hurt (of the famously impeccable taste) said nice things about it on here a while back.
Raw Spitt / Charlie Whitehead: the Raw Spitt LP is a solid companion piece to the early Swamp Dogg LPs I think, it really depends whose voice you like more.
Irma Thomas: In Between Tears - the best of all, IMO, though I have it in my head that several versions with different mixes have emerged over the years, with competing claims to authenticity and or to be the preferred version of someone or other. The version I grew up with was the version Charly reissued in the 80s. I once owned a lovely clean copy of the original version but then I needed a birthday present for a good fried in a time of no cash and I mourn that loss from time to time.
Solomon Burke: Sidewalks, Fences and Walls - bit of a mixed bag IIRC, I love the title track as much as anything in the Dogg catalogue. think some of the other songs are a bit on the ordinary side, don't recall liking the version of "Hold On, I'm Coming" much. Charly seem to have have reissued this countless times over the years under various titles and sleeves.
Wolfmoon: S/T - I picked up a copy of this a few years ago and never warmed to it,. perhaps I should give it another spin., I seem to recall my copy was really badly / quietly mastered.
Z Z Hill: The Brand New Z Z Hill - I've never heard this but I bet it's good.

Any recommendations for any that I've missed, forgotten or never knew about?

Thanks Tim! Was thinking he produced an album for a P-Funk-associated female singer, first name might start with J---?

Not sure!

I did forget “Brown Sugar” by Ruth Brown (the actual proper r&b Ruth Brown, but in the mid 70s). I haven’t played this in years but remember it being brilliant and unusual, RB was middle aged at the time of recording and the music sounds like it’s by and for grown-ups.

not sure where to put this but somewhere in my brain i heard swamp dogg covering "Here we go again on our own" and now i really need that to happen

Whitesnake, meet Swamp Dogg!

Anyone listened to the Alive Records reissues of his catalog from 2013? I'm generally wary of recent vinyl, but original pressings of his classic stuff in decent shape go for big $$$.

I'm curious as well. Folks on Steve Hoffman seemed to like it

From my Nashville Scene ballot comments re 2019 picks:

Swamp Dogg's Sorry You Couldn't Make It is a slightly, yet appropriately weirder return of Memphis-Muscle Shoals country soul, like some of the Stax Country collection. I wasn't expecting his proto-alt.r&b milestoneds like Total Destruction To Your Mind, but at first this seemed like mainly for digging the formal pleasures of vintage style, incl. this version of "Don't Take Her (She's All I Got)," which he co-wrote with Gary US Bonds; it was a Johnny Paycheck hit in the early 70s---main prob on these first tracks is mild-mannered vocals, settling down into the ballads for a snooze (although got some lines, like "Good, Better, Best" keeps sounding like "good, better in bed,"which fits the context better, and might grow on me)---then he picks up the tempo with "Family Pain" ( houseful staying together, "smokin' crack and doin' cocaine"), and when he slow it back down for "I Lie Awake," his voice is still awake and then some: this is true country soul, Doggedly climbing Insomnia Mountain in compulsive country self-torture---Otis Redding and George Jones could sing the shit out of it, but Dogg does it fine.

"Memories," featuring John Prine, is where the appropriate weirdness first appears (I think), with Doggtronics swirling around Prine's jaunty heels (as he repeats the chorus again and again, like old folks sometimes do), even distorting his voice towards the end, like memories sometimes do.

"Billy" I'd seen referred to as a tearjerker, but differently interesting than expected: he's got nice musical flowers, but "The neighbors think I'm crazy," so apparently not a normie gravesite? "You should see Billy, he looks just like you, he doesn't remember you, but I guess that's just as well." Like with Opie's Mom? Memories can be too paniful, I reckon--anyway it leaves a few more little such gaps to fill in, not overselling.

Rude retinue of soundz around the edges of "I'd Rather Be Your Used To Be," which is otherwise vintage Willie-style graceful indignation, but maybe louder.

"A Good Song" ("has universal appeal"), then back to riding the swirl with Prine, for "Please Let Me Go Round Again," where they agree that, "I could build a better mousetrap, from a far mo'better plan." "Hey John, could you build a better mousetrap?" "I gotta better mousetrap right here in my mind!" Also wonders if Somebody might put them on a 2-for-1 plan.

That album, and a bunch more, incl. classicks, are on his Bandcamp. Likewise an advance track from his Feb. 25 full-length:

Hey there!
Wanted to give you a heads up that Don Giovanni will be releasing a new single from Soul / R+B legend SWAMP DOGG this Tuesday, Feb 15th. The song is called "I Need A Job." It is the partially-titular second single to be released ahead of his new album titled I Need A Job... So I Can Buy More Auto-Tune which is out Feb 25th.
“I need a job worse than a dead man needs a coffin,” belts a desperate, auto-tune drenched Swamp Dogg. Swamp details his battle with unemployment over a deep funk. Saxophone licks cascade over stomping drums, and slapped bass fills poke through in between Swamp’s financial woes. Despite the virtuosity of his backing band, Swamp Dogg remains the show stealer, especially as his performance spins off into a talk-sung resume, explaining that he is a singer and a musician but clarifying “I can do things other than that, I have done things other than that, before I was a singer and a musician,” all filtered through his iconic auto-tune.

Would be great if you'd consider coverage with a dedicated news post to the release of the single. Also, please reach out if you're interested in feature and/or review coverage around the album's release on Feb 25! thanks so much.
Mike Campbell / Don Giovanni Records
https://www.dongiovannirecords.com/

A live show by Swamp Dogg is one of my indelible memories.

Information please!

Scored a copy (Charly Records '81 issue, which doesn't have the amazing cover of the original, unfortunately) of Irma Thomas's In Between Tears yesterday. Fantastic album

I saw him at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival one summer outdoors on the National Mall. The concert ended with him endlessly vamping the last chorus of I can’t remember the name of the song (except each chorus ended with “How long, how long”), while he went into the audience and shook hands with every person in the audience, maybe a couple hundred. Also he was wearing an amazing red suit.

I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune
by Swamp Dogg is now here (along with many previous):
https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com/

_I Need A Job​.​.​.​So I Can Buy More Auto​-​Tune
by Swamp Dogg_ is now here (along with many previous):
https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com🕸/🕸

dude is the patron saint of every "Worst Album Covers" group I'm in. no one does it better

hadnt heard about the new one but spotted it in the store the other day and grabbed it without a second thought, loving it this week.

poking around that bandcamp page, i just grabbed the Sorry You Couldn't Make It Demos - i hadn't realized that most of those songs seem to have been written in the 70s and 80s!

https://swampdogg.bandcamp.com/album/pre-order-blackgrass-from-west-virginia-to-125th-st

Bluegrass album coming. First single "Mess Under that Dress" is out now

Automatic pre-order for me. The man is a national treasure and a master of all genres and a Virginian!

disappointed in the album cover, I expect much worse from this man

Ha ha

Ha ha

I'm Not Selling Out, I'm Buying In

Swamp Dogg is one of the interviewees in the episode on Johnny Paycheck in Mike Judge’s Tales from the Tourbus.

Definitely worth checking out.

he also randomly appears on a Mouse on Mars album

New Swamp Dogg film doc at s x SW gets a good review here

https://www.austinchronicle.com/daily/screens/2024-03-09/sxsw-film-review-swamp-dogg-gets-his-pool-painted/?

Hopefully it will get distributed and shown elsewhere