About Billy Prewitt: Talented Blues Artist

Musician Journey

• Earning a "Streetwise" Diploma to Focus on Playing the Blues

  

  Dropping out of school allowed Billy to move forward exploring the magic of Chicago’s South Side blues. His goal was to eventually move to Chicago however, Billy was allowed to join the United States Air Force at only 16. At that time he still worked with many local music groups on and off Vandenburg Air Force Base where he was stationed.

  

  He formed his first group in 1962 and met a very young Buddy Miles, who was from the local rival group called “The Premiers.” That interesting story is in Episode #1 of his podcast.

  

  Later that year, he also met Otis Redding and was encouraged to stay positive and continue playing blues before he passed away a few weeks later revealed in Episode #2. 

  

• Post-Military Life

  

  After the military service with his honorable discharge in hand, Billy moved to Miami, formed a new band, and worked with Wayne Cochran as the house band at the local club called “The Barn.” Then he moved to metropolitan New York City to work at local Greenwich Village night spots playing whenever he could, where he met Paul Butterfield in the elevator of the historically artsy Albert Hotel where they both were staying. Paul convinced Billy to move to Chicago and play the blues.

  After that chance encounter, critics began comparing Billy to Paul in musical reviews because of their similar electric Chicago-style approach and aggressive amplified harmonica sound.

  Hall of Famer & Grammy winning Richard Shurman has referred to Billy as “The ghost of Paul Butterfield”.  50 years later Richard would host the documentary that was made about Billy’s life and went on to win the only Emmy ever awarded to a blues film called Talk A Blues Streak which is now a registered trademark.

  

• His Time in Chicago's Old Town

  Determined to become a part of the Chicago Blues scene Billy went from club to club and eventually found himself sitting in live on stage with Freddy King, Howlin’ Wolf, Otis Span, and other legendary bluesmen finally becoming a regular at the historic Mother Blues Nightclub on Wells Street. It was there luck was with him one night when he landed a permanent job with blues master Otis Rush that would last for many years through the 1970s. 

  

• Experience Working with Otis Rush

  Otis became his mentor as they traveled together from Chicago to New York city and beyond. They even played the very first Ann Arbor Blues Festival that became an historic event, which had over 10,000 spectators, in 1969.

  Billy was hungry to learn so he became friends with Wayne Bennett, the original guitar player on Bobby Bland’s early albums, and learned lots of licks from Wayne as well as Hubert Sumlin who was Howlin’ Wolfs guitar player and wrote many hook blues riffs. By then, Billy had already visited 2120 South Michigan Avenue that was the nearby legendary Chess Recording Studios.

  On March 23, 1969, Otis and Billy’s picture standing proudly together were featured on the cover of the Chicago Sun-Times Sunday magazine. The feature article was titled “Black, White, and the Blues.”  In the multi-page story were pictures and details of Magic Sam, Sam Lay, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters. Billy was the focal point of the story since he was one of the few white bluesmen way back in the 60’s.

  

• Coming into His Own as a Blues Artist

  Paul Butterfield became the first white musician to bring Chicago blues to the white radio audience, and Billy was close behind in this regard. Billy attended the original Woodstock and became inspired to produce his own album while working with Sam Lay, the original Butterfield Blues Band drummer and Otis. His side men included Phil Upchurch on bass guitar and the late Donny Hathaway on keyboards. That complete story is on his podcast in Episode #4.

  The late Steve Goodman heard Billy in the studio and asked him to play harmonica on a demo tune he wrote called “The City of New Orleans,” which went on to be a big hit for Arlo Guthrie. Billy’s efforts were starting to pay off but the best was yet to come.

• Forming Another Trend-Setting Band

  The next job to come along was with a 14-piece black soul band called Baby Huey & the Baby Sitters. The band played their powerful sets from Rush street to being featured at a New York festival called SOUND STORM with the Grateful Dead, Illinois Speed Press & Rotary Connection.

  At this point, Billy couldn’t resist forming another band of his own. Having always had a sense of humor about his legal name, “Horace William Prewitt III,” he called his new group “Horace Monster” since the rumor on the street was that he had evolved into a monster guitar player.

  

  One of the local performers who auditioned for his band was Chaka Khan, who had formed a band called “Rufus.”  Billy & Chaka became close friends and had many interactions from then on.  That story is scheduled to be posted shortly on the podcast “Talk A Blues Streak.”

  Horace Monster would continue working in one form or another for the next 15 years, from originating in a Rock & Roll/Rhythm & Blues format to evolving into a 3 piece power blues trio. There are a few surviving Monster videos of the trio on the video page as well as Chicago’s very first music video filmed in 1979. This was before bands were making music videos and before MTV started airing music videos beginning in 1981. 

  The band was voted the Top Blues/Rock Act of 1975 by the Chicago Reader’s Annual Poll and Horace Monster often became a topic of conversation when Steve Dahl had national radio shows that originated in Chicago and he has finally earned national recognition as the elder statesman of Chicago music radio.

• Becoming a Solo Blues Artist

  

  After spending two Chicago winters in 1976 and 1977 living in his van because he was watching his pennies, he met Lowell George, the lead singer of Little Feat, who showed interest in recording four of Billy’s songs. This was a few week before Lowell passed away and that story is documented in the film Talk A Blues Streak. Billy then went on his own with a acoustic blues solo career for the next few years.

  

   

• Rollercoaster Years in His Career

  Billy was asked to join a new version of “Alliotta, Haynes, and Jeremiah” to replace the late Skip Haynes who wrote Lake Shore Drive. The new band was called Acme Thunder and was very well received when they toured. 

  

  When Billy finally left the group after a good run they searched for a worthy replacement to fill Billy’s shoes and Harvey Mandel was chosen.

  Later, Billy would team up with singer and lead guitar player Mark Skyer, who had just returned from touring with “Canned Heat” and Harvey Mandel. Mark and Billy became a blues duo.

• Prolific Writing and Recording Songs

  In the late 70s, Billy was inspired and wrote many songs including “The Hollywood Sign,” Then, he wrote and recorded “Feels like Gold” which got lots of airplay on WLUP, WXRT, WLS, and WMET. The songs were road tested being well received when played live in bars.

  

  He also recorded a popular WXRT commercial for The Chicago Music Company.

  Today he is writing a new song for each podcast about the artist featured in each episode and the story told.

• Forming the Greased Lightning Blues Band

  Inspired to bring back ‘60s and ‘70s doo-wop street corner blues music at summer festivals, Billy took his well-known double-neck lightning bolt guitar back out of the huge case that had wheels and started a new band in 1990.

  

  Six years later, he would meet the late great blues singer Bobby “Blue” Bland, who encouraged him to stay loyal to the blues. That episode will be on the podcast page shortly.

Reconnections

Recent Years

Media Appearances

On March 3, 1982, David Letterman mentioned Billy on his national TV show. Billy was also able to perform as a musician at a new event in Chicago called “Chicagofest” with Dana Clark during that year’s summer.

On December 14, 1990, the star of the “Wild Chicago Show,” Ben Hollis, interviewed Billy about his music for a segment.

On June 19, 2019, historian Richard Shurman interviewed Billy for a documentary about his life playing the blues. This documentary went on to win the only Emmy ever presented for the Best Blues Documentary of the Year from the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences – Chicago/Midwest Chapter.