Bullfrog Willard McGhee

Just a small gallery of posters from shows I've been fortunate enough to play. Some of the posters I made. Some of them were made by other artists. I hope you enjoy them...
Bullfrogs Art Gallery

These are the things I draw...

I guess it's the thing I do instead of taking dope...or drinking...or laundry.

Willie-Trice.jpg
Furry-Lewis.jpg
Floyd-Council.jpg
Nat-Reese.jpg
John-D.-Holeman.jpg
Elizabeth-Cotten.jpg
Son-House.jpg
Sonny-Terry.jpg
Pink-Anderson.jpg
nat_reese_poster.jpg
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Bullfrogs Movin Pitchurs

Movin' Pitchurs

Runaway Man - Floyd Council
th'Bullfrog Willard McGhee - Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me
Katy Katy
It's a Fine Day - Bullfrog Willard McGhee
Furniture Man - Luke Jordan/Dick Justice

Runaway Man - Floyd Council
th'Bullfrog Willard McGhee - Let The Mermaids Flirt With Me
Katy Katy
It's a Fine Day - Bullfrog Willard McGhee
Furniture Man - Luke Jordan/Dick Justice

Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me - video by Alysse Miller for One Thin Dime Productions

EPK

Bio

th' Bullfrog

Thumbnail Bio:“Bullfrog” McGhee is a genius. A multi-instrumentally talented, rambling-shaggy-dog-story-telling, torch-song-sentimental-beer-hall-bawdy-songwriting genius. A West Virginian by nature and temperament, Bullfrog was raised on the road by chronic movers. In Chicago he tended relationships with Howard Armstrong and Johnny Shines; in California with Utah Phillips and Brownie McGhee; in Virginia with John Jackson and John Cephas. Bullfrog is a Piedmont guitarist in the “Virginia” tradition: Bullfrog's style is rolling-hills-rural, often gentle and melodic.He taught himself how to play the guitar, banjo and harmonica and he did an astonishingly fine job of it. With a powerful affinity for narratives and storytelling, Bullfrog relates his experiences as a United cab driver in New Orleans, a West Virginia coal miner, a purveyor of suspect periodicals in Chicago, a Burlesque performer, a house carpenter, grocer and hardware salesman all with a fine wit and clever songs beautifully and fluently expressed in a number of traditional idioms.Currently settled in Raleigh, North Carolina, Bullfrog sits on the board of the Triangle Blues Society, writes about blues for a variety of periodicals, occasionally speaks to college classes about music, folk traditions, migrations, disease and poverty, sells a little hardware and performs regularly with his partner and friend Tad Walters.The extended-long-play-German-release bio:“When I was eight or nine, my old man asked me what I wanted to be after I’d grown up. ‘Peter Pan, William Kunstler or a folksinger,’ I replied. He clutched me to his bosom and sobbed. He smelled like Old Spice and nicotine and peppermints and old books…he was a librarian, you know. Years later, it occurred to me that he might have been laughing…” - (concert recording made 01.19.2001, Hobnobbery, Lewisburg, WV.) Bullfrog’s sensibility is informed by his deep West Virginia roots: the politics and humor of his father’s family; the tradition and spirituality of his mother’s family; the high undulating horizons of Mercer County. A graduate of West Virginia University, he has a degree in History which he earned studying the 19th century migrations of musical instruments, repertoire and culture in the Eastern U.S. and their influence on 20th century music, particularly mountain music, early country music and blues. This research led to personal and musical associations with Don Stover and the Lilly Brothers, Nat Reese, John Cephas, Phil Wiggins, John Jackson, Aunt Jenny Wilson, Ed Cabell and many others. West Virginia has a colonial economy fueled by the world’s boom/bust appetites for coal, timber and salt. In boom-times everybody stays home where there’s jobs and family. In bust times, kids from West Virginia are more likely to grow up in the hillbilly ghettoes of Columbus, Detroit or Chicago where their folks make tires, assemble cars or pack meat during the week. On the weekends, of course, they all drive the 77 or 64 or 79 interstate highways back to their home counties to see the folks and eat real tomatoes. Sometimes they migrate to California or some square-red-river-state out west. Bullfrog’s family crossed the Ohio River and lit briefly in all of these places. In Chicago, Bullfrog found great bluesmen in the phone book. Johnny Shines, Dave Edwards and Howard Armstrong all agreed to meet him and with great tolerance and good humor showed him those few licks he treasured but could not remember. Mostly, they told stories and bickered and described in bewildered tones a country that had become unrecognizable in their own formidable lifetimes. Bullfrog met U. Utah Phillips in California and forged a friendship that lasted many years. He boomed out west with a hobo named Willie Grey who loved Tampa Red and John Hurt. Bullfrog traded Willie beer for songs – often a tricky proposition as their friendship began when Bullfrog was fourteen and all the liquor store clerks in southern California are good, virtuous and law-abiding men. But, as long as there was beer and a little bit of a fire, Willie would sit on the beach, slide his National finger picks over his coarse fingertips and play the gentle blues of the rolling Mississippi hill country or the bawdy blues of the Arkansas turpentine camps. He’d tell stories and outrageous lies and offer obscene and unsolicited advice about the pursuit and seduction of loose women (Bullfrog didn’t know many of those when he was fourteen – but he reckoned if he was ambitious and worked hard…). Willie was killed by a train in the summer of 1988. Back in Chicago, Bullfrog renewed his association with Honeyboy Edwards and Johnny Shines. He started busking in earnest, working regular spots around the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Jackson el stop. He met Junior Wells, Son Seals and James Cotton – occasionally sitting in until someone noticed him and asked him to sit out again. During this time, Bullfrog worked for the U.F.W., the Wobblies, and a small armada of environmental and political organizations. He traveled with Cesar Chavez, whipping the crowd into a righteous frenzy with songs of labor and social justice before Cesar came out and lambasted the assembly about the grape boycott and the rights of migrant workers. Life ensued and Bullfrog found himself in Boston. Bullfrog was profoundly influenced by the musicians he met in Boston: Richard Goodman, Elliot Gibbons and Ned Landin chief among them. Cliff Wagner and Bullfrog forged a musical alliance, calling themselves “The Crazy Ol’ Man’s Chorus.” They recorded one self-produced album, Public Domain. He argued with Tracy Chapman and Mary Lou Lord about which of them would play the peak hours on the Park Street T Platform. He argued politics and poetry with Dave Rovics. He collaborated with Richard Calloggerro on another self-produced album, American Tales, which featured eight of Bullfrog’s own songs. Bullfrog’s father died of leukemia in 1994. For the next nine years, Bullfrog lived close to his grandmother in West Virginia, playing shows in a great geographic triangle from Pittsburgh to Memphis to Atlanta. He earned a college degree. Twice he was West Virginia Artist-in-Residence at the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis and Elkins College. In 2002, he represented the John Henry Blues Society at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tennessee. Though selected, he chose not to go in 2003. In 2010, he represented North Carolina’s Triangle Blues Society at the IBC. Trae Buckner, founding member of the bluegrass/old time band, the Hillbilly Gypsies and owner of the Pickin' Shack Recording Studio in Fairmont, West Virginia recorded material for four seperate albums with Bullfrog over the course of the early oughts, culminating in a six week long session during the summer of 2005. Those albums included, Red Dove (Frank Niday's Guitar), Let the Mermaids Flirt With Me - A Tribute to John Hurt and Rana Catesbeiana. In 2003, Bullfrog moved to New Orleans. He drove United Cab 170 and 154 when he wasn’t performing at Lucky’s, the Maple Leaf or Checkpoint Charlie’s. His musical associations there included Walter Payton, Walter Washington, Clarence Brown and Jim Smith. Twice he nearly and, he swears, inadvertently, ran down Dr. John in his cab. Chased out of New Orleans by ferocious storms, Bullfrog bought half a restaurant on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, North Carolina. The restaurant could not survive rabid urban renewal projects or the current economy. These days Bullfrog's looking for gigs, doing a little painting and drawing and generally making a nuisance of himself around Raleigh. He sits on the board of the Triangle Blues Society. He's raising money to put a marker somewhere near Floyd Council's unmarked grave. He has a new record with local blues maharaja, Tad Walters called “Stealin' Gasoline.” If you have a festival or a club or have influence over someone with a festival or a club, send Bullfrog an e-mail - he loves to drive long distances for money.Current release: Stealin' Gasoline, TadFrog Records, rlsd. Jan. 2011. Available through CDBaby, iTunes etc.Upcoming release: Pink & Mr. Floyd; Blues from the Piedmont w/John D. Holeman, TadFrog Records, due June 2011.Current projects: Bullfrog and Tad with T.B.S., the Questell Foundation and WSHA Radio are raising money to put a marker on the grave of Piedmont blues guitarist Floyd Council. Bullfrog is writing a driving tour of notable blues sites in the Piedmont which is being released in serial form on the Triangle Blues Society website. Both are booking dates together and separately for the rest of the year.Upcoming shows: Southland Ballroom w/Jimmy Thackery; Lincoln Theatre w/Bob Margolin and Gaye Adegbalola; Riverside Blues Festival, Elkins, WV.; Blues City Deli, St Louis, Mo.; Club Cafe, Pittsburgh, PA.

Press

Press & Media

True to his handle, th' Bullfrog Willard McGhee sings in a friendly, gurgling growl, a little like a latter-day Dave Van Ronk. While his voice is warm with a world-weary gentleness, his acoustic guitar smacks and snaps as he picks out the Piedmont blues Blind Boy Fuller made famous. —Andrew Ritchey Independent Weekly"Great, great music..." -U.Utah Phillips "I think he's a real good musician and a real nice man to go with it. You couldn't ask for any better. He is a wonderful person." -John Jackson "[th' Bullfrog's] songs evoke the loud drunken laughter of smoky speakeasies and coalcamp house parties...Bullfrog belongs in the upper echelon of sweet funny blues singers, somewhere between John Hurt and Leon Redbone." -WMTD Radio (the River), Beckley, WV. "I'm gonna learn all his songs." -Nat Reese "In the time I've known Bullfrog and had the privilege and opportunity to play traditional music with him, I've found him to be in the top echelon of traditional artists...I hope someday to see him on the major stages of the traditional world." --John Cephas "I like the way he plays." -John D. Holman "...incredible finger-picking...tough, husky singing..." - Susanna Robinson, Graffiti, Charleston, West Virginia "[Stealin' Gasoline's] a great album." -Billy Boy ArnoldIt's safe to say that I loved this record. I have just about worn my CD player out with it. It's a definite must buy for anyone who enjoys traditional music, and If you like Piedmont blues you're in for a special treat...I promise you will not regret it. --Josh Preslar, Triangle Blues Society Newsletter, March 2011"th' Bullfrog possesses a gift...he's just so damn funny." -Daily Athenaeum, Morgantown, West Virginia ["Stealin' Gasoline's] already receiving great international revues, as it should. The songs are amazing. My favorite is one by Willard, who spent years traveling and landed in New Orleans. The song, "Sweet Honore, the Tatooed Lady of North Dauphine Street", is kind of a love ballad, only different. -Mel Melton –Musician “th'’ Bullfrog” Willard McGhee has nothing but respect for the blues greats of the Piedmont. In fact, McGhee would love to see more being done to honor blues pioneers like Blind Boy Fuller and Floyd Council. Their legacies live on in McGhee’s music. His new CD project, recorded with fellow blues guitarist Tad Walters, is called “Stealin’ Gasoline.” In the tradition of blues, the songs are personal and poignant and sometimes racy. WUNC North Carolina Public RadioTad & Bullfrog are masters of the acoustic Blues tradition and bring their own fire, talent, and stories to their music. The human challenges that inform both old and new Blues are expressed in their timeless music which speaks right to the soul. --Bob MargolinI'da got up and left if I didn't like it... --James Cotton

Bullfrog on WUNC

Bullfrog on WTVD

Epk

Press

Music

Bullfrog Bio

Liner Notes
Grunge Simple

Stealin' Gasoline

These are the liner notes, or at least some observations about the songs, that didn't make it onto the album's cover...

1. Stealin' GasolineThere's something about Roy Book Binder's playing that I just love. I hear it well. I tend to know where his hands are on the neck of his guitar when he's playing. Twenty five years ago or more, my Dad and me agreed that, as good as his playing is, we'd be just as happy to sit and listen to him talk as sing. He's funny. He loves the music. He's as much a radiator of the music and the tradition as he was and has been a receptacle of it...All that being said, The roots of this song are in a Charley Jordan number called "Keep it Clean." Larry Johnson learned it off a Charley Jordan record, I believe, and cleaned it up and taught it to Roy Book Binder who rearranged the chorus and generally stream-lined the song for his own style. I learned the song off a Roy Book Binder record, rewrote the words so they suited me and we recorded the song for the album...We did it in one take. You can tell we did it in one take - my timing is a little goofy, but the track sounds like me and Tad sound when we're sitting up on Tad's porch fooling around in the evening and that feeling is hard to get in the studio so we went with it...2. Keep On Truckin' MamaThis may be the first Piedmont tune I ever learned. The tune comes from a 1918 burlesque number by Bob Carleton called "Ja-Da." It was a hit in 1919 for Arthue Fields. Tampa Red used the tune in the twenties for his number, "What is it That Tastes Like Gravy?" Blind Boy Fuller recorded "Truckin' My Blues Away" in 1936 with a re-working of all of the entendre stuff Tampa Red had done with it in the twenties...Me and Tad each do slightly different versions of this song which combined nicely on the record into a whole new rendition of this standard.3. Walkin' My Blues AwayThis is another Fuller number...sort of. Everybody in the thirties seemed to have a version of this tune. I think I learned it off of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. Tad learned it off of the Fuller recording. We waded through verses that had been added over the years by Big Maceo, Brownie, Fuller, and others and sort of compiled this version which owes more to Fuller's "Walking My Troubles Away" than any other. The Jimmy Spiers I was singing about owned the cabs I used to drive for United in New Orleans before the big storm. He was sort of a Bunyanesque character who was said to swing whole cars around over his head, one in each hand, causing repairs to be done to them by sheer dint of will and meanness - he was bow-legged and crotchety and already ancient when I knew him - I still owe him money and I reckon one day I'll have to give him some. When Jimmy got mad at a driver, walking was the least of his troubles...4. Let's Make A Dirty MovieI'm not sure what to tell you about this number. When I wrote this song, technology was not what it is today - which is to say, digital technology has changed all of our lives and given this song sort of an anachronistic quality that I appreciate. Like looking at the old advertisements for Beta videotapes...I was playing in New York with Clifford Wagner. Late after the show I was lying on a couch in the apartment of the brother of a mutual friend of ours up on 78th or 79th watching teevee. There's a public access cable channel there, channel 35, I think, that plays commercials for adult book and video stores, escort services and phone sex lines. The scope of it was amazing. The audacity of the whole proposition was astonishing. I was very impressed.I watched Robin Byrd interview a stripper and wiggle around to "Baby, Let Me Bang Your Box." I watched in fascinated horror as Al Goldstein (classy publisher of Screw and Swank Magazines) interviewed Jeanna Fine (actor in 400-some-odd adult films). She described for him at great length and in specific detail the critical role the brain and our imaginations play in our sex lives. I was very impressed.This experience and a lifetime of listening to Kinky Friedman records led to the deliberate and careful construction of this song.5. I Can Hear My Name Ringin'Tad was talking on the phone to Billy Boy Arnold about this song. Between the two of them I think they came to an accord about times having changed sufficiently - or maybe not having changed enough - so that the original title of this song would have to be changed in self-defense from the knee-jerk crowd. Originally, the song was called "I Can Hear My Black Name Ringin'" and it is a haunting work-song-type-blues about the delicate nature of a man's reputation and the degree of personal destruction that comes from losing it.6. Katy, KatyThis is a love song, sort of, that I wrote to my house after Katrina swept through New Orleans. After the storm, I was hiding out in my Mom's attic in Clayton, North Carolina waiting to get any useful news out of Louisiana. I was liking Ray Nagin, mourning Clarence Brown and twitching from the anticipation of getting home. I got drunk one night and called the switchboard at the White House - must have been about four in the morning - and I demanded to talk to George Bush. The operator sounded like the kind of woman who'd taught fourth graders a little too far into her sixties and had profound regrets about the kind of bulldogging she'd done this late into her life...In spite of herself she offered to take a message...7. I'm Gonna MoveJim Jackson, like Henry Thomas was one of the older first generation bluesmen - by 1930 he was already done recording. Much of his repertoire pre-dated the blues. He was one of Gus Cannon's Jug Stompers and played with Furry Lewis and Robert Wilkins around Memphis. He played out of the minstrel show tradition which gave his songs a wonderful and bawdy sense of humour. Tad chose this song for the record because he's a genius.8. Sweet Honore, The Tattooed Lady of n. Duphine StreetI think between the two of us my Dad and me knew about six or eight songs about tattooed ladies and we'd sing them in the car with lusty abandon. I wrote this one after going to a burlesque at the Shim Sham Club with my buddy Luke Noderer. Tourists coughed at us and waved their hands theatrically in front of their faces as if they could dispel all the smoke in the place by giving us the hairy eyeball.Luke had the kind of argument in that bar that the likes of you and me usually only see in Spencer Tracy movies. She slapped him and threw her drink in his face and we were asked to leave. She buggered off to St. Louis or Minneapolis or wherever people like that come from and Luke sallied forth into the dark, dark night.In New Orleans, lo these many years ago, Luke was always sort of the Boudreaux to my Thibideaux.9. Good Morning Little School GirlIt's a standard anymmore. Sonny Boy Williamson probably wrote this song, or part of it, in 1934. He recorded it in 1939. Tad taught it to me so he wouldn't have to play Tommy Johnson's "Big Road Blues." As it turned out, Tad's lobby was the right one...10. DeliaRoy Book Binder learned this song from Gary Davis and I learned it from Roy. Delia has always been one of my favorite songs. It's part of that cycle of songs that pre-date true blues and includes Frankie and Albert, Frankie and Johnnie etc. Delia might be a girl named Delia Holmes who was killed in Georgia after agreeing to marry a man named "Coonie" and then jilting him when the time came to marry. On the other hand, it might just be another version of Frankie and Johnnie. Either way, It doesn't take any effort to imagine Gary Davis sitting down at Pettigrew and Fayetteville steets in Durham singing Delia in the haze of the pig smokers for nickles and dimes.

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