AN INTERVIEW WITH SWAMP DOGG

Jerry Williams, a.k.a. Swamp Dogg, is a legendary soul and R&B musician, songwriter and record producer. His most recent release, Sorry You Couldn’t Make it Demos, dropped on February 2nd on Bandcamp, and features a collection of six Swamp Dogg demo tracks, recorded between the early 1970s to the early 1980s. Each of the songs was considered for inclusion on Swamp Dogg’s critically acclaimed 2020 album, Sorry You Couldn’t Make It. Swamp Dogg talks to Sam and Teresa about maintaining a career that spans decades, constantly reinventing himself, and his most recent collaborations.

Sam: Kind of on that note of New York. The way that I found out about your music is—I do a lot of programming for WKCR. You know, the New York station?

Swamp Dogg: Yeah.

Sam: And I do a lot of soul programming for them. And so, I got really into your album, Love, Loss, and Auto Tune, and that was kind of my introduction to your work.

Swamp Dogg: No kidding!

Sam: And I used to play it all the time on-air. And I would get the wildest calls, because people would call in, and I would get like, ‘oh, like this is so crazy and experimental.’ And I would tell them it was your music, and they would go crazy. And I heard so many old stories about you, and people would call in about you all the time.

Swamp Dogg: No kidding. How come they don’t call me?

Sam: *Laughs* I actually heard one guy—I was playing “God Bless America For What” at 4 a.m. And I got a call from the guy who told me that he hadn't heard that song since he was in Vietnam because it was banned when he came back to the States. And he said he used to listen to that radio every single day. And that that was like the first song that brought him back all these memory because he couldn't hear it because it was never on the radio here, because it got banned.

Swamp Dogg: Yeah, I know. But that's—the title killed it. It wasn't the song itself. Once you got in, yeah. Yeah, the song made people angry also. And then I got involved with the protest marches with Jane Fonda. And it was just something that the record company didn't like. So he told me to get my ass out of there. So I did.

Sam: But my question was what does it feel like having new audiences and younger people become acquainted with your music in this whole new way?

Swamp Dogg: Feels great! It's like your doctor telling you you got six months to live. And you found out later, there's another drug that gives you 60 more years to live, you know? And I thought my music would wear out. Apparently it hasn't worn out.

Sam: And then I guess we can dive right into the new album too. So we heard the demos, which were great, but I wanted to talk to you about Sorry You Couldn't Make It and I wanted to just start with the album cover. And I know, compared to some of your past album covers, this cover is pretty tame. But I was also wondering—there's a lot going on in the photo—could you tell us a little bit about the photo shoot and what you were trying to convey with the cover?

Swamp Dogg: I can't take credit for the entire thing. I can only take credit for the suit, for the outfit. Which I picked up at a country store that sells nothing but country gear and a tie and all that. But I did not realize that those guys was paying so much for those clothes and so forth. They got fuckin’ hats man for that like 2,400 dollars. Said damn! I know a suit must come with this motherfucker. 

You know, I actually wasn't all that enthusiastic about doing this album with Joyful Noise, and I don't think Joyful Noise was all that thrilled—I know they weren’t—to deal with me. And there's a lot of stories out there, about 15% of them are true. People just add shit to it, take shit from it, and say this is what Swamp Dogg did, this is what Swamp Dogg said. 

But the way I feel comes out in my song. This album was my—I'm gonna call it my first shot at country western, but I've tried a few things. I've tried country songs that were written by some real good country writers like Mickey Newberry and Joe South. I just fell in love with Joe South when I got introduced to him. Not on a face to face thing, but over the phone. We spoke [with] his manager and his publishing firm. Lowery Music was down in Atlanta. And as a result of dealing with them, I think I cut three of his songs. “Don't Throw Your Love To The Wind”… *hums* I can’t think of the other but it’ll come to me. 

And what's your name?

Sam: I'm Sam and that's Teresa. 

Teresa: I’m Teresa.

Swamp Dogg: Sam and Teresa… Sam, your hair gettin’ ready to leave you.

Teresa: It used to be way worse. This is the tamer version of his hair.

Swamp Dogg: Oh yeah. Mine flew away. I’m waiting, I believe.

Teresa: *Laughs* Well, with Sam’s hair, he doesn't have to spend money on hats. Kind of going off, we heard you made seven songs this week. How do you keep on finding inspiration during quarantine? And how do you make seven songs in one week?

Swamp Dogg: Well, if I got somewhere for the songs to go, such as, you know, a producer or a show personality or somebody wants… Like last night I did, was it John Fogerty? With Creedence Clearwater. I did Keep a Light in the Wonder, something like that. And for this production company that's getting ready to have a new weekly show, they didn't want to get involved with all that ‘pay for this, pay for that, every week, all of that.’ So they got me ‘you pay one time and it’s over.’ 

And a lot of people have compared me to John Fogerty. I can hear a little bit of John Fogerty in my voice. But I've had other people compare me to Van Morrison. I don’t hear that at all, and I hope that Van Morrison ain’t pissed because somebody told him that. But John Fogerty, I heard it. I've always heard it. Because it's something about my voice. I don't care how smooth and cool I take off, I always end up with this little rattle that shows up in my throat. And from there, you got a son-a-bitch singing with a rattle in his throat. But people like it, and I'm happy they like it.

Sam: Yeah, that's definitely something I heard on this album. And that's something I thought was kind of unique about it. And I was wondering, since you gave up a lot of control over the production on Sorry, You Couldn't Make It, did that allow you to focus a bit more on your vocals and really show off some of your vocal chops.

Swamp Dogg: No, my chops are the same as they were when I was 25, I guess. Up until then, I didn't know what my chops were supposed to sound like, you know? So I didn't really go any direction, any particular direction. I would just sing—and that was the other thing. 

Up until then I really didn't have control of my voice. I just opened my mouth and let shit come out, you know? But as you go along you do learn. And it took me 20-25 years to listen to myself good and see what I was doing wrong. And I like the new me. I keep adding to it, doing things. I'll been glad when this pandemic is over because then I get a chance to go out and sing some more and try some more things with people.

I'm steadily working on new albums for Swamp Dogg, and I got a bunch of rap artists—they crazy motherfuckers. But anyway, they do their own thing. We got two studios here, and we use them.

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Sam: It seems like you've always been so willing to adapt to change your sound. And I know a lot of artists will be jealous of how long your career has been. So I was wondering, what is the secret for you to being able to constantly adapt and change?

Swamp Dogg: Because I love music. And if you got some new music you want me to hear, you want me to get involved in, I'm open. And it doesn’t take how, or maybe, if that much to listen to somebody’s material, listen to them sing of whatever. Plus I've got a bleeding heart for artists. 

Example, I go to a Al Green concert. And I cry, I mean, great big ‘ol tears when Al starts singing, I cry. When his band comes on, I start crying, because he has them decked out in these great suits, everything is uniform. And then he comes out and sings, and it’s like nothing else in the world. I’d rather sit down and listen to Al Green than a lot of other artists. I got other artists that I like, I guess as well as Al Green, but they don't stir that thing up in me that Al Green does. You know, he's, he's super bad. I think he's fantastic. 

Teresa: I saw in an interview you did, you said that you liked working with younger artists? And so like, how does, I guess, working with these younger artists—what do you notice about this new generation of musicians that's different from like other older artists that you admire, like Al Green?

Swamp Dogg: Well, first of all, the new artists that I've worked with have been rappers, mostly. And I listen to them, I learn a lot, I learned new phrases, and I end up introducing them to some new phrases, some crap that I used to say with my friends when we were in junior high and all that. They pick up things from me, I just had to figure out where they were coming from, musically.

To me, I look at them just as poets, you know, just great poets, most of them. And they don’t no shit about music, other than they like it, they love it. But they can't create it. I mean, it's getting better now for them with all the electronic equipment and everything they can come up with beats and so forth. You know, I walk around for a couple years, and they would ask me, like, do you do beats? I’m like, what the hell is he talking about?

So finally, you know, I found out it was synonymous with just laying tracks, you know, but not the old way, which you bring your drummer, guitar player, bass player, keyboard man. Y'all sit down and maybe look at a lead sheet or something and get into it. They got the equipment which the companies have made for them where they already got beats. In equipment, they've got all kinds of sounds, they got thousands and thousands of sounds, so they can put that stuff together but they're not really learning a lot about what they're doing. 

But I guess it's all right. Because they makin’ money, which is the bottom line. I got two records coming out. Big K.R.I.T. You heard of them?

Sam: Yeah, I love Big K.R.I.T.

Swamp Dogg. Big K.R.I.T. got something of mine called “Dreamin’.” And they use not just a little piece here, a little piece there. They just put the racket on and just let it play. It's a good, good racket. And it'll be out in April. “Dreamin’” by Big K.R.I.T. 

I wrote so many songs. And I still write a hell of a lot of songs. And because really, deep down, I'm a songwriter. That's what I went to New York to be. A songwriter. But at first, I didn't do that great because people would listen to my music, to my song. In those days, every studio you went into, every office, they had a piano. And I would go in, and I would play my piano and sing with all sorts of enthusiasm, and it was real. And the people, “yes, we'll sign him, we want him blah, blah, blah.” And then later on, they changed their mind, because they didn't know what they wanted. What they bought was a performance. 

Where I'm going right this moment is that album, Sorry You Couldn't Make It. Most of the songs—I was looking through my folders a couple days ago—about four of those songs were written in the 60s. Like “Sleeping Without You is a Drag”. Yeah, they run 1966-67. But it was always supposed to be a country song.

Sam: Yeah, that demos project that you put on Bandcamp that was like some of the original recordings from like the 70s. Right? 60s, 70s.

Swamp Dogg: No, not the recordings. The songs were, but not the recordings. But they did put out a promotional 45—did you see that? It's got three songs on it. “Sleeping Without You is a Drag” and two others that I can't think of right this minute. Are you familiar with this?

Sam: I'm just familiar with the cassette of the demos. I didn't see the 45 yet.

Swamp Dogg: Okay. I got the demo, but I haven't seen the cassette. Yeah, there's three songs on there. At the time that I wrote it, to say things like “Sleeping Without You is a Drag” would have been taken as something that was kinda off-color. You know, you had a bed in there and you sleeping together. I’ve had people come at me from all sides, man. And I just stuck with what I knew. 

Now, if you tell me to go in the studio and take a white artist and just make him black, I could do a lot of that. Like with, back in the day, with Gene Pitney, around 1967-66, some time—Are you familiar with Gene Pitney? 

Sam: No.

Swamp Dogg: Okay well, he put out about 20, 25 albums. And he had a classical voice. Nevertheless, he sung a lot of pop stuff. And that's where he got big. And I did his last smash hit, thing called “She's a Heartbreaker.” And they had on the other side, what they really wanted to push was a song called “Conquistador.” And it was like, come on, like, conquistadooooor! Oh, you know, that bullshit. And they wouldn't let me have both sides cause I was black. And they wouldn’t let me have the entire album because I was black. They had a bunch of white boys that was used to getting their way like Bob Crewe, the guys that was producing the four seasons. 

And I went to this company, and they signed me as an artist and as a songwriter. It was called Musicor. And they had so many hits by Gene Pitney, and I never had met Pitney. And I had a little cubicle there where I worked. And they came back one day and told me, ‘So look, Gene is coming in tomorrow. And we don’t want you to be fucking with him. You know? Don't try to sell him nothing.’ I said, ‘Okay.’ 

As a matter of fact, he was cold as ice then the only thing. I mean, he could still sing and draw auditorium crowds. But he was cold. Cold as hell. And I wanted my job, so I’d say nothing to him. But then he heard me in my little cubicle playing piano and singing, right. He walked in and stood, his hands in his pocket. And he said, ‘Damn, I wish I could sing like you.’ I said, ‘Oh God, you gonna make me lose my job.’ 

And he wanted to go into the studio, so nobody above my bosses and so forth. They found out that he was going in the studio with me and they came to me and said, ‘Didn't we tell you not to be fucking with Pitney?’ I said, ‘Man, the motherfucker came in my office and started talking about singing like me and shit.’ So they didn't say no more. I went in the studio, and I recorded him. Now he wanted to sing like me so much that he would put his earphones on and have one side open and the other side closed so that he could hear. He could hear me sing and in other words, I would lay a track vocally. And then he would actually learn it my way, using my inflections and all the same thing. 

They fired me too for that. They was so sure that I was wrong, they fired me and put the record out under the initials, ‘P period, G period,’ which was just flipped around of Gene Pitney. So they put new labels and everything on this stuff. Then they wanted me to come back. But I had found me another gig at Atlantic Records.