Transcripts of Ben Manilla Productions Interviews

Lazy Lester talking about his first recording session

So I got on a bus and go into Rain because I have some friends there. And Lightnin’ Slim was on the bus. And I said, Lightnin’, where you going, man? And he said, I’m going to Crowley to do a record, do some recording. I, oh yes? He said, Where you going? I said, I’m going to Rain, just before Crowley, you know. So we talked and talk and talk and that was it. I didn’t tell him noting about me play a harmonica or nothing or god. He said, When we got, we get to Crowley, we had to go get the harmonica player. And come back and do the recording.

So I decide I stay on the bus, and go on over to Crowley. So I hand the bus driver a quarter. He say, oh you keep that, buy you some coffee. Said maybe your lucky day, you know, because he heard me talking with Lightnin’. So, we went on, got on the bus in Crowley, got some coffee and biscuits and walked around a couple of blocks to the studio. And met Jay Miller and Lightnin’ said, This little feller here, I don’t know what his name is, and I go, Oh, my name is Lester, I said. And we talked but we never did call by name. Say, no Leslie Johnson.

And he said, Well, look, you want to hang around? I say, I got nothing else to do. He said, Well, I got to learn how to pull off a Beaumont and look for Wild Bill. You want to ride out with us? I said, I got nothing else to do. So I said, Wait just a minute so I ran over to Armitaw’s Trading Post, had a liquor store and a army-navy store. I ran over and got me a little pint of wine and ran back, jumped in the car and we took on off, went out to pull out, pull out Beaumont, Oynes, look everywhere looking for Wild Bill. Didn’t find him. Came back to Lake Charles, check out to see if he was around there, so forth. No Wild Bill.

So we came back to Crowley. And he got on the phone and he call Henry Clemmoth. And Henry had just left Crowley going back to Baton Rouge because he was in college at Southern. So he said, Well, we ain’t got no harmonica player. So what we going to do about it. I’ll have to postpone this until later on and just we’ll put something down and do the harmonica later. I said, What’s so special about this harmonica player? He said, Well that’s they guy we been using all the time. I said, I can play better than that. Finally he say…

Want a drink? (interviewer)

No, I got. He say, You what? I can play better than that. I’ll go get me a G and an A. I knew exactly what key he was playing because I been playing behind those records. He went and got me a G and A and I reached and got the guitar and tuned it. He said, I don’t believe this. I just heard the harmonica tune the guitar with the harmonica, and had, Lightnin’, let me hear what you got, man. And he had Sugar Plum.

[Sings and plays Sugar Plum] And I filling in with the harmonica. The man said, Wait a minute, wait a minute, let’s cut this, let’s cut this. You rode all over hell and Texas and didn’t tell me that you played? I said, you didn’t ask. He said, I’m looking for him and got him right here with me. Looking for him and got him right there in my hand. He said, You know, you ought to be shot. Had me running all over the world, looking for you, and here you is.

Lazy Lester talking about the swamp blues sound

Well, it's a combination of Cajun, country, rock and pop mixed up all together. Because whatever you're doing, like we say, it pops into your mind of some other class of music, you know, if you want the sound of it. Just on your style, like half country and half blues, you know. So, where swamp came from, I really couldn't tell you. But they came up with the swamp blues after we started playing it, that music. Maybe because it's from the artists that play in the backwoods, I guess.

Phil Guy talking about Baton Rouge

Were talking about Baton Rouge, the capital, yeah, thats the capital, the home of the LSU Tigers. And also the Southern Jaguars, you know. I dont want to leave that out. But Baton Rouge always been a place where the blues was always there, ever since I was a little boy, because thats where Lightning Slim, Slim Harpo, and Silas Hogan and all these guys come out of there. Mose Allison, yeah, a whole bunch of blues guys, Lazy Lester, he was there when I, you know, start playing. And they all comes out of that area. And now you got Kenny Neal coming out of there with all his brothers and his father still there, Raful. So we, we just had a good old time there, you know.

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