Alex Wilson’s house of blues

Alex Wilson’s house of blues
By Jim Lundstrom
Scene

Alex Wilson has a few Wisconsin Area Music Industry Awards on his shelf declaring him best guitar slinger in the state (2008) and his Milwaukee-based trio as best blues band in Wisconsin (2009, 2007), but if it was up to him, he would be known as an indie artist.

“Only because, unfortunately, being classified a blues artist seems to be a way for whatever club is hiring you to pay you less,” said the 28-year-old leader of the Alex Wilson Band. “I know a hundred rock bands that aren’t nearly as good as the blues bands I know but get paid fives times as much. It’s kind of sad when a genre is an excuse for robbery.”

But that, as they say, is the blues. Wilson has been playing the club scene for more than a decade, and before that accompanied his bass-and-drum-playing father, Tom, to gigs. So, if he leans a little more toward blues and blues-rock, well, he’s prepared to play the hand he’s dealt.

“It disturbs me the way blues is treated but it doesn’t really discourage me,” he said. “Any music that I involve myself in or with, that’s just me. I’m just trying to be true to myself. I love music. I like all kinds of music, as long as it’s good, in my opinion. That is the deciding factor for me. It’s not blues or rock or country or whatever. I like all those, but it depends on who’s doing them. I don’t get discouraged, even though it’s tough to keep going sometimes.”


The Alex Wilson Band is a family band – his brother, Matthew, plays bass and sings harmony, and his uncle, Marc Wilson, plays drums.

“As a family, we’re pretty in touch with each other, and on a musical level, it comes through,” he said.

The band received yet another WAMI nomination this year for best blues artist.

“It’s a nice thing to have in your press kit. It’s nice to be recognized on some level,” he said.

Wilson was also one of the featured performers at this year’s WAMI Awards show at Turner Hall in Milwaukee on April 27. He performed with Tallon Latz, the 9-year-old, guitar-playing phenom from Milwaukee.

Wilson is working on material for a follow up to his 2007 debut release Tell Me Why, a CD that included work from Wisconsin harmonica legend Madison Slim, as well as an endorsement from Slim’s harp-playing pal Charley Musselwhite.

“I met Charley through Madison Slim,” Wilson said. “I was at a gig in Fremont. My phone rang. I didn’t recognize the area code. Somebody calling, asking for Madison Slim. Well, Slim’s not on the gig with me today. Who can I say is calling? This is Charley Musselwhite. Slim had given him my number to get hold of him. I talked to Charlie a couple minutes. Gave Slim the message.”

Wilson kept in touch with Musselwhite via e-mail, and let him know the band was planning a January 2008 visit to Tom Wilson, who now lives and works as a blacksmith in Beijing.

“We wanted to visit my dad, but none of us have any money and we needed to work, so my dad set up a few shows for us,” Wilson said. “I was e-mailing Charley and told him we were going to China. He came out of the blue and said, ‘Hey, are you saying I can come to China with you?’

So, what started out as a simple trip to China became a cultural blues mission with the Alex Wilson Band and Charley Musselwhite dishing out the most American of music to Chinese audiences.

“My dad found out and really started booking a lot of shows for us. We played some cool stuff with Charley. I could tell Charley didn’t know what to think before he hit the stage with us. He was like, oh, boy, wonder how this is going to go? But as soon as we started playing, he started smiling. From that night on, we had a great time over there.”

Wilson says his sophomore album is in the works, but he’s not about to predict when it will be ready for an audience.

“The thing about that is you can’t push it,” he said. “It will be done when it’s done and I don’t know when that’s going to be. When I think it’s ready for people to hear it.”

Whatever you want to call the trio’s music, Wilson and the band have been making friends throughout the state and Midwest.

“I’ve found my niche in Milwaukee,” Wilson said. “They like us in Kansas City and Indianapolis. We have good crowds in Central Wisconsin. The Sheboygan area has been good for us. We play The Green Room (Sheboygan) in May (16). I’ve never played there before but I’ve heard a lot of good things.”

“But,” he adds, “you can never guarantee a crowd. A lot of times you go into a place and it’s full of people. A lot of people like you, but people don’t clap at the end of the song. It’s not that they don’t like the band. They’re too busy talking to their friends. There might as well be a jukebox.”

Wilson sees that as more of a reflection on the 21st century and our shortened attention spans than on the music he makes, because, he says, “As far as a live audience goes, sometimes you can make them listen.”

Ultimately, that’s all Wilson asks, that you give his music a listen.

“I try to make noise when I’m playing the shows, really turn it up and do my thing the best I can do it. I try to be true. I try to keep the fire in it,” he said.