Tallahassee singer/songwriter and slide guitarist Bill Wharton is known as the "Sauce Boss." Mainly because he brings his own Liquid Summer datil pepper hot sauce to his one-man band gigs, and cooks a big pot of gumbo for the crowd while he performs. Better yet, after the last encore, everyone gets to enjoy a bowl on the house.
“You take that ’53 Telecaster, pump it through that ’48 Fender amp, add a bass rig, mix in some drums, all simmered down over some funky swamp blues, and smothered with gumbo, and you got a recipe for the largest one-man band on the planet,” Wharton proclaims.
The Sauce Boss will be at Eddie's Attic in Decatur at 8 p.m. tonight, living up to the song Jimmy Buffett wrote about him, called "I Will Play for Gumbo."
I spoke with him earlier today by telephone. Here’s what he had to say about his hot sauce and gumbo recipe, and how he started cooking at his shows.
How did you start making hot sauce?
A friend of mine brought a handful of datil peppers to my house and said you need to start growing these as a cash crop. So in the early ’80s, I stated growing these peppers and making sauce. And people who would come to my house would eat it all up — like two gallons in two weeks. So I decided to put it in bottles and they could pay me money for it, if they liked it that much. I started taking it to gigs and selling it. And it sort of took on a life of its own, in terms of people knowing me by my sauce.
That was the beginning of the Sauce Boss?
Well when I was working on my first national release in 1989, I was in the studio and Raful Neal was also doing some sessions there, too. Shirley, his wife, was making gumbo in the kitchen in the studio. I watched her like a hawk and I learned pretty much how to do it. So that year, on New Year’s Eve, I decided to make a batch of gumbo on stage during the show, and I served it to the audience. And 200,000 bowls later, all served for free, here we are today.
And the sauce is still selling?
I still sell it at my gigs and I feature it in the gumbo. And you can buy it on my website. That’s the best way to get it.
The datil pepper in the sauce has a really interesting history, doesn’t it?
It grows around St. Augustine, Florida. It was brought there by early indentured servants from a failed indigo plantation in New Smyrna is one of the stories. At any rate, it was brought there by early colonists.
What do you like about that pepper?
Well, for me, it is the best. It’s not quite as hot as the habanero, though it’s related. It has a creeper burn that takes about 10 seconds to arrive. That gives you 10 seconds to taste what it's in, like gumbo or chili. That’s why I like to cook with it. It doesn’t do that searing thing. It comes up slow. And it comes up mellow. And it marries everything together. But it is a hot pepper.
What’s in your Sauce Boss gumbo — and do you need to buy the ingredients before every gig?
It’s an okra gumbo with chicken and seafood. Usually I have a rider for the ingredients. So instead of a fine bottle of Scotch or a bowl of M&Ms with the brown ones removed, the rider is peppers, onions and stuff like that. I usually bring the roux and the hot sauce.
Besides feeding the people at your shows you help feed hungry people through your Planet Gumbo project. How did that start?
All this time, when I was serving up the gumbo at my shows, I was thinking, this is sort of like a soup kitchen. You know what, this could go to a soup kitchen. So, about 10 or 12 years ago I decided to try it. And it changed my whole life in a good way. Because after playing homeless shelters all over the country, and feeding them gumbo, I feel like I can righteously sing the blues.
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