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“My mother was the first female police officer in Aiken, South Carolina, and she would save money on babysitters by bringing me to work with her and leaving me with the jail inmates. The jail was segregated by race by ten, and I would trot into the Black cell block and listen to them playing the radio because James Brown had a radio station then. She would also bring me into these wicked redneck bars because I was the little entertainer, dancing to the jukebox, and it would lighten up the situation if she had to go there to remove someone from the bar.” “We moved to Washington DC when I was eight years old and I started out playing the guitar, but then picked up the organ. Then my mother took me to see Muddy Waters at the Smithsonian when I was twelve, and that was right before Otis Spann died, so I got to see him play piano, and it was like somebody threw a switch. It was like a portal to another world. Muddy Waters walked out on stage with his hair processed eight inches off his head in a blue sharkskin suit and razor toe blue shoes. Up until then I had wanted to be a park ranger, but I looked at them and said, ‘I want to be like that’. I started buying blues records at the age of twelve. The album that opened the door to me was the first Paul Butterfield album, Born in Chicago. It was just so much cooler than the Crosby, Stills & Nash or Simon & Garfunkel records that came out around the same time. I started buying blues records, but you had to order them because they didn’t have many in the stores. My addiction to music was so bad that I ended up talking myself into a job at Waxy Maxy’s Record Store. It was the weekend of Woodstock and a clerk had gone to Woodstock, so they were short. I knew every album in the store, so they put me to work. I amassed a huge collection before I was 18 and started playing piano professionally at 22. I was working in Winchester, Virginia at a camp for the intellectually disabled. There was this little country bar, and I had a few drinks there and asked the country band playing if they wanted a piano player and they said, ‘hell yeah!’. I ended up moving to Harrisonburg, VA and somehow got a bachelor’s degree in special education, but was playing regularly with country bands, including with a few of the guys from Patsy Cline’s original band.” In 1974 Wirtz met Mark Wenner, founding leader of the Nighthawks, and they developed a friendship which led to several professional collaborations. “The blues lovers were like a secret club. If you went into a music store, the blues was all the way in the back by the spoken word and polka records. I was in a record store once and this guy came in with tattoos all over his arms and a nice-looking girl with him. He asked for the blues records, and we started talking. He said he had a band called the Nighthawks, and I went to see them. They weren’t playing straight blues—they also played rockabilly, and Jimmy Thackery was with them at the time with a flying V guitar. I got to sit in with them a few times through the years, and now I play with them pretty often. I have nothing but admiration for Mark Wenner. People don’t give Wenner the credit he is due. The Nighthawks blazed the trail. Mark Wenner should be in the Blues Hall of Fame. “ In 1978, Wirtz saw Sunnyland Slim play, and was surprised to learn that the band hosting him was planning on putting him on a bus back to Chicago. Wirtz thought he deserved better treatment than that, so offered to drive him home to Chicago.
After he returned to Virginia, Wirtz started playing with the Charlottesville Allstars, working as a short-order cook on the side for extra money. He also obtained his certification in Special Education from James Madison University, although he was almost prevented from graduating due to discrimination regarding his unusual appearance. Luckily a teacher, impressed with his abilities, helped him navigate the politics of the department. He still uses the skills he learned, as he has continued as a music educator. “I frequently do Blues in the Schools programs. I do a specific program for middle-schoolers. I would teach them how you can take any song and change the beat. I will take ‘Old McDonald’ and make it funky. There are always one or two students that stand out. In Ottawa there was a kid and the teachers told me he was adopted and had some real problems. But he heard me talking about Muddy Waters and I gave them an extra credit assignment to learn about Muddy Waters. He came back and said, ‘that guy was the coolest!’ That makes you realize why you do it. The funniest thing was when I did a program for the special needs class at a Catholic School. The nun was in the back, bopping to the music like she was out of Sister Act, and she came up to me at the end and asked me to play ‘Shake, Rattle and Roll’. That is where the universal power of the blues is. This music that we treasure can reach out to the special needs kids and to the nuns.” Wirtz is possibly best known as a satirist, including writing parodies such as “I’m a Sissy” to the tune of “I’m a Man” (“I don’t have my mojo working. I don’t even know what a mojo is….”) And gospel-influenced songs, such as the one which wonders if there will be a shopping mall in heaven. (“Will the escalators work up in the sky? You’d better save me a parking place, or I’ll swipe the handicapped space. Are there Taco Bells in the sweet by and by?”). The satire is often delivered in a somewhat manic form, and it can require a fair degree of concentration to hear how truly clever his lyrics are. (And his performances are likely the only ones that use vocabulary words such as ‘cerebellum’ and ‘undulate’.) “I wrote funny songs my whole life as a kid. The first time I got laughs, it was like a drug. I got a warm glow all over me. I wrote my first parody at the age of twelve. And the blues falls right in there. If you look at classic blues songs, there is often double entendre stuff, like in Tampa Red’s songs. To scrub that off is wrong. But I’m a little tired of the whole preacher schtick. Now I’ll take songs and tell an entire story that leads into the song. It’s not just a comedy routine. It’s telling about who I am and also giving some lessons to the audience. For example, I’ll give them understanding about certain lyrics. Such as Ray Charles’ song, ‘What’d I Say”. When he says ‘Tell your mama, tell your pa–I’m gonna send you back to Arkansas if you don’t do right’ it’s a reference to some horrible race riots in Arkansas. He’s saying, ‘I’ll send you back to someplace you don’t want to be’. And the song about Kansas City that says, “there’s some crazy little ladies, and I’m gonna get me one,” is referencing how it was a wide-open sex city. There were sex shows right in the middle of town. I think this knowledge only adds to the audience’s appreciation of the song, and it makes for an interesting show.” Wirtz took a brief detour from the blues at one point and ventured into the world of wrestling, working as a manager.
Wirtz has had many other opportunities to educate others. He was an invited speaker, partnering with Dr. Jerry Zolten at the conference in memory of Woody Guthrie’s 100th Birthday which was held at Penn State. There they presented a workshop on the history of Gospel music. Wirtz has also delivered a few workshops while performing on the Blues Cruise. “On the Blues Cruise, I’ve given a workshop entitled ‘Gospel 101’, and also led a panel discussion about the history of the blues. The panel had Bobby Rush, ScrapIron, Leon Blue, and Latimore, telling us stories about what it was like to work with artists like Elmore James and Little Milton. It was very well-received and led to me being asked to give the eulogy at ScrapIron’s funeral. It was very intense. I’ve been working with Roger Naber since before it was called the Legendary Blues Cruise. I like the way he runs his game. He is a visionary! His cruises are like a combination of a 24-hour blues festival and a summer camp for grownups. He usually will place me in the piano bar on the first day. I kind of welcome the new guests and get them ready for the week. I tell them to just have a ball for this week—no politics, no struggle. One of the things about the blues world is there is much less of the divide between artists and the audience. People can approach and talk with the artists. And we do have those workshops too. There is a great deal of substance in those.” Roger Naber expressed why he repeatedly invites Wirtz to join the lineup on the Legendary Blues Cruise. “’I’ve known Reverend Billy C. Wirtz for 30 years now since he was performing for me at my live music club, The Grand Emporium, in Kansas City. Billy has always been a fascinating musician as he researches various aspects of African American music culture. Rev. Billy had researched Gospel music before coming on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, giving workshop talks on the beginnings of recorded gospel records. Once he came on our cruise and met some of the blues legends who have worked the deep blues & soul circuit (commonly called the ‘Chitlin’ Circuit’), he delved into the history of that culture. He is an avid fan of music history and always offers to bring his knowledge to either piano workshops or other discussions on the history of American Black music which many of the cruise fans onboard the ship have not experienced. He is also what I consider an event ‘team player’, offering to do more than that for which is contracted. For example, he was asked to lead the services and sermon at Frank ‘ScrapIron’ Robinson’s funeral service in Memphis following Robinson’s tragic freeway accident in 2020. In addition to being a talented pianist and humorist, Reverend Billy C. Wirtz is a generous human with a lot of intellectual soul.”
“My knee was killing me, and I couldn’t walk and was strung out on prescription opiates. A cruise staff member grabbed a doctor who frequents the cruises and asked him to fix my knee. They flew me out to Texas, and he fixed my knee. Only then was I able to get on Suboxone and get off the opiates. Using just a little bit of medical marijuana helped too. We need to make marijuana federally legal, so we can do the research. The FDA has come out showing that in states where marijuana is legal the recidivism rate of opioid addiction actually drops.” Wirtz has also educated others through his writing of blues articles for various magazines, and recently won an award for an article he wrote for Forum Magazine. He hosts a weekly radio show called “The Rhythm Revival” which often features lesser-known roots music. And his next project is a documentary about the Chitlin Circuit, a collection of performance venues in the south and eastern US which offered opportunities for African American musicians during the era of racial segregation. “I’m very excited about this documentary and I’ve been trying to locate some of the old clubs. There was a club in Jacksonville called the Two Step. It was an all-Black club with a dance floor that held a thousand people, seats around the floor for many more, and two stages. Some nights they would have Count Basie at one end and Louis Jordan at the other. The music would start at midnight and go until 5 am. I’d like to get some markers down to commemorate where these venues used to be.” Whatever he decides to do next, you can be sure Billy Wirtz will be finding creative opportunities to teach others about the blues. “It’s my mission. I want to see the blues artists get the recognition they deserve. I want the blues to receive the same accolades that jazz and classical music get as so-called ‘serious’ music. The blues should not be simply pushed off to one side as ‘party music’. There’s more to it than that.” Wirtz currently lives in Ocala, Florida, with his wife, Linda, and a house full of cats. You can find out more about Billy Wirtz’s projects, including his tour schedule, at his website: www.revbillycwirtz.com This content is from Blue Blast Magazine written by Anita Schalnk. Writer Anita Schlank lives in Virginia, and is on the Board of Directors for the River City Blues Society. She has been a fan of the blues since the 1980s. She and Tab Benoit co-authored the book “Blues Therapy,” with all proceeds from sales going to the HART Fund. |
It might seem that blues & boogie-woogie pianist, Billy C. Wirtz (real name William Wirths), was unsure which career path to follow, so he found a way to follow them all. He is a skilled musician, a former special education teacher, a satirist, published writer, former wrestling manager, music historian, music educator, radio show host, and he has even officiated at weddings as the ordained minister of the “First House of Polyester Worship and Throbbing Teenage Desire”. Wirtz inherited his musical abilities from his father, who was not a professional musician but had perfect pitch and could play keyboards. He likely inherited many of his other talents from his mother, who was a former police officer, turned psychologist, and was also a published author of several books.
“I had a ’63 Cadillac hearse at the time and I remember he said, ‘I am going to ride in the back soon enough, I might as well see what it looks like from the front!’. He told me stories about playing with Big Bill Broonzy, and Memphis Minnie. He said Minnie was a mean drunk who carried a razor and took no shit off anybody, but she could also burn almost anyone off the stage on guitar. I ended up staying with him for a while and learned the other side of the life of the blues man. I didn’t see any cops around where he lived, and no white faces. He told me not to go out at night—ever. But it was a life-changing experience. When we traveled, he always wanted to eat at Howard Johnson’s, and he would say he didn’t need a menu and would just order a fish sandwich. One time there was no HoJo’s around, and he said he left his glasses in the car and asked me to read the menu to him. It happened a few times, until I realized he couldn’t read and was trying to avoid embarrassment. So, then I started saying ‘let’s see what we have on the menu’ and would kind of read it off so he wouldn’t have to ask. We had a great time. He had so much spirit and his stories were just unbelievable.”
“When I was in school, they were really stressing how important it was to have sportsmanlike conduct. I wasn’t very good at sports, and then I turned on the TV and saw these guys who were completely disrespectful, and they cheated and had wild costumes. I was enthralled by that. I especially liked the managers with their rhinestone turbans, and they would say these hilarious things to get the fans completely enraged. I saw this female wrestler who was a little person, and I thought she was cute, so I wrote the song, ‘Teeny Weeny Meanie’. That led to a gig in professional wrestling after they did a video for that song. Wrestling makes the music business look sane, well-organized, and honest. It was heavily drug-ridden with painkillers and steroids. And, they have secret handshakes and a secret way of talking that came out of the Carny tradition. There was a whole mystique of how to project and protect the business. People thought it was legit. Now everyone knows it’s scripted and it’s like a big Rocky Horror show with people yelling chants, but back then about 80 percent of the audience thought it was genuine. I have been tripped by fans, and had lit cigarettes thrown at me. I wrote a book about that experience. It is called Red-Headed Geek, because that’s what the audience would chant at me when they saw me.”
Wirtz noted that he also credits the blues cruise for saving his life.