For all of the talented musicians that have emerged from Hampton Roads, the majority who have found substantial success outside had to leave the area to find it. Most of them, however, didn’t have to wait nearly as long to become the talk of the town as Jerry Williams, Jr., the 82-year-old Portsmouth-born singer/songwriter now better known by the sobriquet of Swamp Dogg.
He started his career when he was barely into his teens, wrote and recorded albums for major labels, including Elektra and Island, while also penning songs and producing for other artists. Still, Swamp Dogg remained pretty far under the mainstream radar until 1999, when Kid Rock sampled his song “Slow Slow Disco” on a track called “I Got One for Ya.”
The increase in Swamp Dogg’s profile hit a new high in 2018 with the release of “Love, Loss & Auto-Tune,” recorded with the assistance of Ryan Olson and Bon Iver, which was followed by 2020’s “Sorry You Couldn’t Make It,” featuring appearances from John Prine and Jenny Lewis.
Now, Swamp Dogg has made his way to the silver screen, the focus of a new documentary, “Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted. " In addition to detailing the activity cited in its title, the documentary takes the viewer on a trip through Swamp Dogg’s career.
WHRO had the opportunity to chat with the legend from his Los Angeles home before he comes to Norfolk for the film screening at the Naro Cinema on Wednesday and his performance at Norfolk’s Perry Pavilion on Thursday.
The interview has been edited for length.
I have to start off by telling you that I'm sitting about 15 minutes away from someplace you used to perform: Sunset State Park, or Oak Grove Lake Park, as it's called now.
Oh, yeah? What is it, a cemetery? That's what it sounds like now!
No, it's still a nice park. But, they don't have the concerts they used to have there, unfortunately.
Yeah, that was the place to go. That, and Midway Park. Do you live down there?
I do. I'm a native. Born at Norfolk General.
No kidding! I was in Portsmouth. And we never run into each other, huh?
You would've been more likely to run into my father. But I know he used to go to shows. He's often told me about getting to see James Brown when he came to town.
Oh, yeah, James came to town a lot … and he sold out every time!
Well, I was able to watch the documentary and it was absolutely fantastic, not to mention extremely educational.
Well, thank you!
So what was the origin of it? Did the filmmakers just come to you and say, "We'd like to tell your story?"
They came out to do a video for “Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune,” and … I guess we ended up starting some kind of camaraderie and respect. And when they got into my history, they became more and more interested.
Did you enjoy the process of being on camera? Or did it start to get a little too autobiographical at times?
Well, it was monotonous a lot of times. But so is audio recording, y'know? Where you gotta go and do 20 takes and all that kind of stuff. So it was monotonous, but it really didn't bother me. I can live with monotony.
It must've been nice just to be able to actually tell your story.
I didn't realize that's what we were doing at first. Not until we were halfway through! Because we were doing it in segments. So I really didn't get a chance to ... I mean, I knew what I was saying at the time. And I guess there's enough footage left to do another movie! [Laughs.] There's things that I pressed on, I guess, that weren't necessary for the making of the movie. And from the way it's being heralded, they were 100% right in the way they edited it.
What made you decide to start pursuing a career in music? I just started singing. There were a lot of little cocktail bands or cocktail groups, as they called them at that time, and my mother and stepfather, they had one. They played all over the country. They even played Cuba once. Her name was Vera Holley, just in case anybody wanted to know. [Laughs.] But I was just singing in the church. I was in the Baptist church, and then somewhere along the line, I got switched over to Catholicism, and I've gone back and forth with my religion. But that's another whole story. It was hard for me to believe a lot of things. But I didn't lash out at anybody. I lashed out at politicians, but I didn't lash out at none of the people who were supposedly sent here by God with messages and so forth.
So, anyway, I was singing in church, and by the time I was, like, 8 years old, I was singing with little bands, grown-up bands. But I could sing the blues! I could sing all of Big Joe Turner's stuff. That's who I wanted to be like. As a matter of fact, I bought his car from his wife several years ago. It was a '69 Cadillac. Anyway, somebody stole it. I was gonna have it refurbished, but I didn't get around to it, because it was parked illegally and somebody stole it. I guess, 'cause it's gone! But I was crazy about him. So he was one of my true inspirations, along with Louis Jordan, Wynonie Harris, and then you come on down later to Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. When I heard Chuck... Oh, lord, it was over! I said, "This is it!" Chuck was a master storyteller. He painted a picture from the very first stroke of the brush, man!
And he also namedropped Norfolk, Virginia. Yeah! [Starts singing.] "Left my home in Norfolk, Virginia / California on my mind..." Now, why can't I remember words when I go onstage? [Laughs.] I carry a little booklet onstage with my lyrics, but I'm here singing my heart out this morning!
I know later in your career you ended up having a songwriting collaboration with Gary U.S. Bonds, but did you actually know him when he was in Norfolk? Yeah! I knew him … not during his glory days. But he still had one foot in the glory days when I met him. But he had taken an apartment in Portsmouth at 951 Tazewell Street, and I was at 10-something Tazewell Street, so we met, and from there we started collaborating. And he's still one of the greatest writers I've ever worked with. He's got great, great, great imagination, and it was between him and another guy, Charlie Whitehead, who I renamed Raw Spit. Between Charlie and Gary ... Oh, boy, we could write. There's a song that we never did called "She Shot Him Right Through His Coffee and Cake." It was about a guy who was not being sincere. [Laughs.] But, oh, we wrote some good stuff.
You had a minor hit when you were still living in this area and going under the name Little Jerry Williams.
Yeah, it was very minor. [Laughs.]
Was that the song that spurred you to leave the Hampton Roads area and go elsewhere? No, I left there because, as you know ... Well, you might not be old enough, but there was really no way to get out of there.
Oh, there still isn't.
[Laughs.] Ruth Brown got out of there, and that girl with the Griffin Brothers, Margie Day, she kinda got out of there. And Gary got out of there. And I tried to get onto Legrand Records, but Frankie [Guida] always told me, "Boy, you know, you can't sing. You can't sing at all. You're the worst!" And I was, like, "What the hell? Why even tell me this? Just tell me you don't want to be bothered!" But anyway, there was no inspiration down there at that time. It was, like, your ambition was to go in the Navy yard, which I was signed up to go into as a pipefitter, which I still don't know what the hell it is.
So anyway, that kind of motivated me to get out of there, too, because they were trying to make me take on a job. Which I had a job working for Washington Pharmacy … I think I went to work for them when I was 12 as a delivery boy. And I had a television show down there, on Channel 27. It was WTOV, I believe. It was owned by a guy who had a Pontiac dealership, and he was selling cars, and he bought this station and he needed things to kill time. And I was one of his time killers.
What was the TV show? What did it involve? It was called “Rock and Roll Time,” and it was just a guitar player, a drummer and myself. We were all about the same age. And we went on camera and I just sung and played. The same thing I do now. Only maybe not as good as I did when I was 12. [Laughs.] But I'm still doing it!
I don't know if you've become more prolific in recent years or if it's just being heard by more of the public.
Thank God for public radio. That's where I got most of my play.
Do you have anything new in the pipeline?
Yeah, I've got the album that's out now on Oh Boy Records called “Blackgrass: West Virginia to 125th Street.” It's been out a year. But it's doing pretty good! NPR said it was the best country album of 2024. There's a new push on it because of the movie and the cookbook and the tour. And if I don't break this time, God just didn't want it to happen! [Laughs.] But I think He enjoys my stuff, because he’s let me continue to do it, and with no reprimand!
Having done a country album, it's worth noting how many times your song "She's All I Got" was covered.
Oh, man! It was up there. Maybe 70 covers. All kinds of people. I've got about 15 albums here that it appears on. It was big. It was really big. And I turned on the satellite radio the other night and it was playing! I turned to the country station and "She's All I Got" was being played. I was, like, "Well, I'll be..."
Your show is part of the Virginia Arts Festival, so I guess your music is officially considered art now.
Yeah, ain't that something? [Laughs.] From garbage to greatness!
Well, it’s been great to talk to you, Swamp Dogg, and I hope the film gets all the attention in the world.
I do, too. I really do, too. 'Cause I need the money! [Laughs.] I'm in it for the love of it but I could still use the money!
WHRO’s CEO Bert Schmidt and Vice President of News Maurice Jones are members of the Virginia Arts Festival Board. Neither is involved with editorial decisions.
Visit narocinema.com for tickets and information with his Q and A at the screening. Visit vafest.org for tickets and information about his Thursday performance.
