Swamp Dogg Brings “Blackgrass” By Breakin’ Rules (while Paintin’ Pools)

For readers of The Bluegrass Standard, the name Swamp Dogg might not ring a bell. But for the past six decades, Jerry “Swamp Dogg” Williams has been a thorn in the side of the music industry — a soul singer, producer, songwriter, and cult figure whose eccentricity and creative ambition have kept him just under the mainstream radar. And now, at 81, he’s done something no one saw coming: a bluegrass album.

"Blackgrass: From West Virginia to 125th St." is Swamp Dogg’s 26th studio album and possibly his most surprising. Released on John Prine's Oh Boy Records, it trades in his signature auto-tune experiments for raw banjo, fiddle, dobro, and the Appalachian soul that first inspired him.

"Not a lot of people talk about the true origins of bluegrass music, but it came from Black people," Swamp Dogg says, having grown up in West Virginia and never forgetting his roots. "The banjo, the washtub, all that stuff started with African Americans. We were playing it before it even had a name."

Though some might scratch their heads at Swamp Dogg’s pivot into bluegrass, the man’s got country credentials. He co-wrote "She’s All I Got" with his buddy Gary U.S. Bonds — a song that Johnny Paycheck took to No. 2 on the country charts in 1971. Conway Twitty, Tracy Byrd, and Tanya Tucker (as "He’s All I Got") covered the tune. And if you caught the Johnny Paycheck episode of the Cinemax animated series Mike Judge Presents: Tales From the Tour Bus, you’d have heard Swamp Dogg’s voice and seen his likeness right there alongside the honky-tonk legend.

"Going back to 1973, I put out an album called 'Swamp Dogg's Greatest Hits' — there were no hits on it, just all brand-new songs," he laughs, cracking himself up. "On one of those songs, the main instrument was a banjo played by this old redneck who didn’t care too much for Black folks but thought I was alright. That’s when I started getting my nerve up to try this stuff."

In the following decades, Swamp Dogg became known as an underground legend — the guy who worked with Irma Thomas, Z.Z. Hill, Patti LaBelle, and even dabbled with the Commodores before Lionel Richie stepped to the mic. He’s an artist who has toyed with every groove imaginable, refusing to stay pinned to one sound. "I wanted to fuse country and soul music, Black music, rhythm and blues music — I don’t know what you call it these days, but I wanted to fuse those. And I’m happy with what I’m doing."

Produced by Ryan Olson, who has worked with artists Bon Iver and Poliça, "Blackgrass" ropes in an all-star bluegrass lineup: Noam Pikelny, Sierra Hull, Jerry Douglas, Chris Scruggs, Billy Contreras, and Kenny Vaughan. Guest shots come from Margo Price, Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, Jenny Lewis, Justin Vernon, and The Cactus Blossoms. But for all the big names, the album still feels unmistakably Swamp Dogg.

"No matter who you bring in, it still has to come through me. It’s still my voice, my stories,” he says. “Deliver the message. You don’t have to open the envelope or anything, just deliver the message."

One standout track, the mostly monologue "Murder Ballad," sprang from a collaboration with one of his rappers. "This was a whole rap thing, and what I did was pick through the song, find what I considered the highlights, and then expand on it. It’s the same story, but I made it much simpler," he explains. "I split the publishing, I split the writers, because that’s how you do it."

A remake of his own composition "Rise Up," taps into something more defiant. "It could mean a lot of things," Swamp Dogg says. "It could be, let’s incite a riot, or let’s come together. People who like country like 'Rise Up,' even though it’s not a country guitar — that’s hard rock."

The recording sessions of "Blackgrass” can be seen in the documentary "Swamp Dogg Gets His Pool Painted," released this past spring. The film gives a rare glimpse of the chaotic, funny, and brilliantly weird world Swamp Dogg inhabits, all against the backdrop of the gradual painting of his swimming pool. "[The filmmakers] came to shoot a music video for 'Love, Loss, and Auto-Tune,' and then it turned into this whole thing," he laughs as he explains how the documentary project started. "It’s got some weirdness, it’s got heart, it’s got some smarts, but you don’t know where it’s going to go."

Swamp Dogg’s restless creative energy leads him down strange turns in the musical road, but he’s always at the wheel.

"I don’t really have a genre," he muses. "I’ve been open to all kinds of music. I’ve got old classical albums. I took piano lessons for about a year, but I couldn’t get to where I wanted fast enough. So, I guess you could say that I took piano lessons from Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino. That’s what I wanted to play anyway, and that’s what I’m still playing, but I’ve got it wrapped up in another way. If you listen intensely, you hear it: I’m doing the same thing, just switching it around. If it’s red, I’ll paint it green, and you’ll say, 'Hey, he got a new one, it’s green,’ but man, that’s the same."

For an artist who has spent his life dodging labels, "Blackgrass" feels like both a culmination and a provocation. Swamp Dogg has taken the music of the hills and hollers and run it through his own unruly filter, serving up something simultaneously traditional and entirely his own. After six decades of coloring outside the lines, Swamp Dogg gave us another picture, an alternative bluegrass album that will likely never be matched in tone, style, or flavor.

"I’d hate to leave this world not having tried everything I wanted to try," he says.