Little did I know about Swamp Dogg’s line-crossing. The 82-year-old singer, songwriter, producer, arranger and recording artist’s real name is Jerry Williams Jr. He was born in Portsmouth, Virginia, and began his career recording under the name Little Jerry. He released his first recording “HTD Blues (Heartsick Troublesome Downout Blues)” in 1954, when he was just 12 years old, featuring his parents and an uncle. Williams continued to record straight-ahead R&B and soul music steadily through the 1960s, scoring a minor R&B hit with “Baby, You’re My Everything” in 1966, which rose to #32 on the R&B chart, just missing the national Billboard Hot 100. In 1967, he began songwriting, producing, arranging and recording for others, including Gene Pitney, Gary “U.S.” Bonds, Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, Dee Dee Warwick, Z.Z. Hill, Irma Thomas, the Commodores and Dr. Dre.

Williams’s line-crossing began in earnest in 1970 when he adopted the moniker Swamp Dogg. By that year, Williams was fed up with having been cheated out of royalties on over 50 single records. He had also found his way to the new “mecca of funk” in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, a gravitational center of the “swamp music” that fused country music, funk and soul and often featured white musicians accompanying R&B figures like Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin.

“I wanted to sing about everything and anything and not be pigeonholed by the industry,” he wrote in the liner notes for 1995’s Best of 25 Years of Swamp Dogg. “So I came up with the name Swamp Dogg because a dog can do anything, and anything a dog does never comes as a real surprise.

Williams debuted his new alter-ego in 1970’s Total Destruction to Your Mind, where he channeled various undercurrents of the counterculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s within an expansive blend of southern soul, rock and funk.

“I sung about sex, niggers, love, rednecks, war, peace, dead flies, home wreckers, Sly Stone, my daughters, politics, revolution and blood transfusions (just to name a few), and never got out of character,” Williams wrote. “Recording in Alabama and sincerely singing/writing about items that interested me, gave birth to the name Swamp Dogg.” Since then, Swamp Dogg has released at least 26 albums, all mixing soul, rock and country, all showing off his unique humor, politics and raunch, all uniquely Swamp Dogg. His output is so consistently high quality that I am hard-pressed to name a favorite of his records. They are all great.  

Swamp Dogg’s latest record is his first with Oh Boy Records, an independent label founded by John Prine, recorded with renowned country and bluegrass musicians. But country music is not new to Swamp Dogg. In 1981, he cut a country album for Mercury Records that the label decided not to release, and he has been listening to country music since he was a kid in the 1940s. “I loved George Jones, Flatt & Scruggs, all of it,” he says. “One of my songs even went all the way to #2 on the country chart when Johnny Paycheck recorded it.” 

That song was “She’s All I Got,” which brought success to Paycheck in 1971 when his career was at its lowest. It won Williams a nomination for Country Music Association songwriter of the year in 1972. “Not a lot of people talk about the true origins of bluegrass music,” Williams says, “but it came from Black people. The banjo, the washtub, all that stuff started with African Americans. We were playing it before it even had a name.” 

Blackgrass announces its intentions right away with “Mess Up Under My Dress,” an energetic bluegrass stomp with Swamp Dogg’s unique and raunchy lyrical sensibility. Swamp Dogg and his producer Ryan Olson (Bon Iver, Poliça) have recruited a talented group of bluegrass and American musicians: Noam Pikelny on banjo, Sierra Hull on mandolin, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Chris Scruggs on guitar and bass, Billy Contreras on fiddle and Kenny Vaughan on guitar. Their excellent musicianship shows up throughout the album, creating a unified whole out of diverse songs.

Swamp Dogg re-records a number of his previous hits on this album with guest star musicians. One of the highlights of the record is “Count the Days,” sung by Jenny Lewis, formerly of the band Rilo Kiley, as Swamp Dogg actually counts off the days. The original version of this song, a 1968 hit for Inez and Charlie Foxx, was arranged by Swamp Dogg. The version on Blackgrass is an infectious pop/country tune that I have been humming to myself ever since I first heard it.

The great contemporary country singer Margo Price sings “To the Other Woman,” a #7 R&B hit for Doris Duke, co-written by Swamp Dogg. While the original is a deep southern soul cut, Price and Swamp Dogg turn it into a country weeper. Price’s emotional vocal moves me deeply.

Another highlight on the album is the energetic and mostly instrumental “Rise Up,” originally co-written by Swamp Dogg and recorded by The Commodores in 1971. The version on Blackgrass starts as a straightforward bluegrass instrumental accompanied by chanting of the title “Rise Up.” The song ends with an instrumental freakout featuring guest Vernon Reid’s patented guitar playing.

The album’s most striking song is the closer “Murder Ballad.” The song is about a man who sits in the electric chair and tells his tale of coming home and killing his parents after telling them about his fame as a murderer. It ends with him begging the executioner to “pull the lever.” The song is almost too powerful to listen to. As well done as the song is, I find myself skipping it unless I am in a particularly dark mood.

The intensity of the last song aside, this is really an enjoyable album, with mostly upbeat songs and a couple of weepers that reflect Swamp Dogg’s playful sensibilities with country and bluegrass accompaniment. I continue to enjoy it after multiple listenings. I highly recommend the album.

Here is a playlist of songs performed, written, produced or arranged by Little Jerry/Jerry Williams/Swamp Dogg spanning his long career:

Lee Winkelman

Lee Winkelman is a long-time community organizer and pop culture fan. He lives in Los Angeles.