{"id":1843,"date":"2025-06-02T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-02T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/?p=1843"},"modified":"2025-06-02T20:19:35","modified_gmt":"2025-06-02T20:19:35","slug":"remembering-willie-dixon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/remembering-willie-dixon\/","title":{"rendered":"Remembering Willie Dixon"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"706\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SignedCard.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1844\" style=\"width:576px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SignedCard.jpg 576w, https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/SignedCard-245x300.jpg 245w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">\u00a0<br>Remembering Willie Dixon on what would have been his 110th birthday!<br>July 1, 1915 &#8211; January 29, 1992<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>I miss Willie Dixon. I had the tremendous good fortune to sit and talk with him on several occasions during the 1980\u2019s, and he never failed to amaze, entertain and enlighten me. During those years you couldn\u2019t go into a Southern California club, blues venue or attend a music festival without seeing the man surrounded by an entourage of adoring friends and fans. He was finally acknowledging his role as blues ambassador and accepting it with his natural ease and grace. Willie Dixon had become everybody\u2019s favorite uncle; the elder statesman whose dues had all been paid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"987\" height=\"740\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/eBE8hh8h5e0\" title=\"Willie Dixon and John Sebastian -  Spoonful Live on Sunday Night 1989\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a bluesman who had been there and done that, Willie lived his life exactly like he wrote songs; simply, without pretension and at gut level. A huge man both in girth and talent, he became a voice for the broken man and the troubled woman. He had a genuine gift for musical arrangement and composition and is, to this day, still considered one of the blues\u2019 most prolific songwriters. He was incredibly intuitive when it came to pairing songs with musicians and musicians with sessions, then successfully capturing on vinyl, the best from both. Just look through any of the Chess or Cobra libraries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a studio producer, songwriter, session player and stage performer, Dixon had few peers. His remarkable body of work remains the watermark for today\u2019s generation of blues players. A keen ear for talent and ribald sense of humor made him versatile, but Willie\u2019s observations of the human condition and flair for innuendo, made him legendary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Born seventh in a line of fourteen Dixon children, Willie could trace his education and understanding of the blues directly to his family upbringing. <strong>\u201cOne of the phrases my parents used to teach me, especially my mother, \u2018Think twice before you speak once, and think the third time before you act.\u2019 And another thing she always said was, \u2018Anybody can get mad, but anybody can\u2019t get smart. It pays to get smart but it don\u2019t pay to get mad.\u2019 When I was a youngster I couldn\u2019t understand it because it didn\u2019t make sense. But today it makes sense because the world can make anybody mad.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cAnother thing, \u2018If you don\u2019t listen you can\u2019t learn\u2019 and those are three things in life that a person have to do to really understand and learn to enjoy life, because if people make you angry you will never enjoy it. And these are the kind of things that had a great influence on me after I got grown, even though I knew them as a youngster.\u201d Shaking his head, he admitted, \u201cBut many a-times I done things without thinking.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"attachment_11533\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Willie-Dixon-Roy-Gaines.jpg\" alt=\"Willie Dixon and Roy Gaines\" class=\"wp-image-11533\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Willie and Roy Gaines share reading material and a laugh. PHOTO BY YACHIYO MATTOX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The True Facts of Life<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Willie had the unique ability to relate life\u2019s experience through his music. A twelve bar documentary of the world around him. <strong>\u201cThat\u2019s why I wrote so many songs, because I\u2019ve been writing about the true facts of life that exist today and what I hope, tomorrow, will be a better future. I\u2019ve been writing songs all my life, you know? I used to walk around with a gunny sack full of songs. I couldn\u2019t get nobody to do them. I used to sell them outright for $10.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there has ever been a central figure or seminal root of the blues, that list of names would begin with Willie Dixon. From a dirt-poor youth in Mississippi to the revered and respected elder of America\u2019s only indigenous music, Dixon began his pursuit at the tender age of eight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cI was a kid in Mississippi and we used to be outside of a place called Zack Lewis\u2019. He had a little tavern; they called it a barrelhouse in those days, and Little Brother Montgomery would be in there playing piano with his band. We used to follow Little Brother all over town. I\u2019d be bare-footed, running up and down the road behind them, they\u2019d be up on a wagon bed or a T-model Ford truck and he had a piano up there. Little Brother was short and little at that time and we always thought he was a kid, but he was several years older than we was. I know every time we chased him all day long, I\u2019d go back home and get a whippin\u2019 for missing school and following the band all day.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Those first short, dusty steps would begin a lifelong journey for Willie Dixon. A path he embraced with open arms and sometimes clinched fists. Occasional brushes with the law and time spent in reform school exposed Dixon to the serrated edge of life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I\u2019m Ready<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cI used to be a fighter, you know?\u201d I used to train at Eddie Nichol\u2019s Gym in Chicago. Fightin\u2019 is a hard job. Of course, I won the Golden Gloves in 1937 and I fought pro a few times. After I found out everybody was getting money but me, my management company was taking advantage of me, so we got into quite a hassle and it caused both of us to get expelled. Fights get into your system like everything else, you know? Until you finally get beat enough to give up. I got a chance to train with the \u2018Brown Bomber\u2019 (Joe Louis) down to Eddie Nichol\u2019s gym I was supposed to go on a tour with them, but I never did go. My manager didn\u2019t want me to get shell-shocked before I got out there too far, you know?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Shell-shocked is the pivotal word here. As often happens with dramatic and unforeseen turns in life, Willie, while somewhat disappointed, began to contemplate his options. <strong>\u201cAfter sparring with Louis, I knew from that point on, and for the rest of my life, that I wanted to be\u2026..a songwriter. The music don\u2019t fight back and you don\u2019t have to be ducking and dodging and running and keeping yourself together, you know?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"987\" height=\"740\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xS2nVWmYTqc\" title=\"Willie Dixon   Rock me, Shook me live montreal\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Eddie Nichol\u2019s place may have witnessed the end of Willie\u2019s fight game, but it also provided the catalyst for his next career. A fellow musician and delta native, who was also a ringside regular, would steer the impressionable Dixon in a totally different direction. That fight fan was Leonard \u2018Baby Doo\u2019 Caston.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cHe was the one teaching me about the musical things, you know? He used to come around the gymnasium where I was training and sitting around there playing guitar and singing all day. The first instrument I started on was a one-string tin can \u2018Baby Doo\u2019 Caston made for me. I had been singing bass in the south as a youngster on the spiritual side, I knew a pretty good bass line and I\u2019d learned how to play that on one string, so it wasn\u2019t hard for me to learn.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As part of the short-lived \u2018Five Breezes\u2019 in the late 30\u2019s and later \u201cThe Big Three Trio\u201d, Dixon and Caston were fast becoming Chicago\u2019s original blues brothers. The Windy City was experiencing post-war prosperity where jobs were abundant and high-paying. The continuous migration of southern laborers and struggling musicians along with the sudden influx of returning, cash-laden military personnel combined to make the south side of Chicago an entertainment flashpoint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Venues materialized as quickly as the crowds. Clubs, bars and boulevards (Maxwell Street) beckoned to blues players from every region of the country, especially the talent-rich Delta. Some clubs were more prestigious than others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"attachment_11536\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Willie-Dixon-and-Tim-Mattox-2.jpg\" alt=\"the writer with Willie Dixon\" class=\"wp-image-11536\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Willie Dixon says hello to one of his biggest fans: me. PHOTO BY RENDA LOWE<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cPlayin\u2019 in some of them old dives in Chicago, every night when you walked in you was lucky to get out. I could name a lot of places we used to play, you know? Like 708 when they was first gettin\u2019 out, and they used to have a place down on Indiana they called \u2018the Hole\u2019. You\u2019d have to look goin\u2019 in and look comin\u2019 out because you didn\u2019t know whether you were gonna\u2019 make it goin\u2019 in or comin\u2019 out. I remember the I Spy Lounge, that was on 43rd street. Richard Stems owned the I Spy. The Green Door was another place; they used to have a lot of those rough places. People now days don\u2019t even know what rough stuff is. A lot of times guys you were workin\u2019 with had their guns and things and I was more afraid of them than I was the folks out there.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Gospel According to McKinley<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Chicago, in the late 40\u2019s, was Mecca for blues players but their styles were diversifying and experimentation produced a new, amplified city sound. On any given night you could find Willie, Big Maceo, Sleepy John Estes, Sonny Boy, Memphis Slim, Memphis Minnie or Son House hanging out at Tampa Red\u2019s place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cTampa Red had a big old room back there, he lived right up over a pawn shop on 35th and he had an old, raggedy bed sitting in the corner and a broke-down piano in another corner. Everybody could get in there and could sit on the bed or on the floor or on the piano and they\u2019d all be in there arguing about songs, you know and making songs, like that. Lester Melrose would be in the front room and he\u2019d always have the old lady cooking something; chitlins or something. He\u2019d come back there, \u2018What you fella\u2019s got?\u2019 And each one would come up with what he got.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Creative juices flowed like hot grease down the Melrose stove. Working with Leonard Caston and Ollie Crawford at local clubs, The Big Three would occasionally find themselves on stage with another Delta musician. Willie\u2019s personal association with this one time plantation resident would last a lifetime and their collaboration would become legendary. McKinley Morganfield and Willie Dixon were about to alter the world\u2019s perception of the blues.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cMuddy Waters was one of the first ones that starting doing some of my tunes, you know? I was walking around with 200 songs in a bag and nobody would do none of \u2019em. I\u2019d go around and sing \u2019em to him, so he said, \u2018Man, I like that song.\u2019 I had a little trio called the Big Three Trio at that time; we had recorded for Columbia and also for Bullet Company. We done that song about the \u2018Signifyin\u2019 Monkey\u2019 and \u2018Wee, wee baby you sure look good to me\u2019 and other songs.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So this \u2018Hoochie Coochie Man\u2019, Muddy Waters liked it, you know? So I started to go out there and jam with him with our trio. He told me, \u2018Man I sure like that song, if you let me, I\u2019ll record it.\u2019 Sure enough he got with his manager. I got with Muddy over on 14th Street one night, I took the song over there and he said, \u2018Dixon, I\u2019m gonna\u2019 do that song tonight.\u2019 He didn\u2019t know the song, he\u2019d just heard me singing it.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So I took him in the washroom on the intermission, and we practiced the song. He walked out of there and he said, \u2018Man, you better let me do it first, so I won\u2019t forget it. By the time he came out of the washroom, he went on the stage and he started doin\u2019 the \u2018Hoochie, Coochie Man\u2019 and he done it til the day he died.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Writing music occasionally created conflicts among Willie\u2019s friends, especially if an artist wanted, or didn\u2019t want to record a certain song. And Dixon was the first to admit that writing the song wasn\u2019t necessarily the most difficult part of the recording process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cSometime I just have the idea of the experience that people go through involving themselves in different things, and this is what I write about. And then sometime I try to find people that I feel like can properly express these things, because sometime people can express a thing better than another one\u2026 sometime. \u201c<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One case in point, \u2018Wang Dang Doodle:\u2019 <strong>\u201cOh yeah, Howlin\u2019 Wolf recorded it long before Koko Taylor, but the Chess Brothers wouldn\u2019t release it. In fact, I wrote a lot of things for people they never actually would accept and I\u2019d have to give it to somebody else. And then ten to one after somebody else get it, then they\u2019d like it. I used to always have trouble with Muddy and Wolf because one thought I was giving the other one the better song, you know? So I got to the place I just used a little backwards psychology on \u2019em. The one I be writing for Wolf, I tell Wolf, now here\u2019s something I wrote for Muddy and that\u2019s all I need to do. (Wolf would say) \u2018Man, how come you got to give that to him, that\u2019s better than mine.\u2019 And vice a versa, that\u2019s the way it worked.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another case in point, \u2018My Babe:\u2019 <strong>\u201cI had a hard time in getting <a href=\"http:\/\/travelingboy.com\/archive-travel-tim-little_walter.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Little Walter<\/a> to do \u2018My Babe\u2019. Two years I was trying to get him to do \u2018My Babe\u2019. He didn\u2019t want to record it. He just didn\u2019t like it. But after he recorded it and it started going over, it was his top running number.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"attachment_11534\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Dixon-Creach-and-Gaines.jpg\" alt=\"Willie Dixon with Papa John Creach and Roy Gaines\" class=\"wp-image-11534\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Willie with Papa John Creach and Roy Gaines. PHOTO BY T.E. MATTOX<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">I Am the Blues<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>************************<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cLearn to respect the wisdom of the blues, because the wisdom of the blues and the blues itself<br>is the&nbsp;greatest music on the face of the earth. The blues has proved to have more wisdom and<br>understanding than any other music. And once you learn the wisdom of the story<br>of the facts of life, it gives you a better chance in all of life.<br>And I think that\u2019s a great thing for people to do all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2013 Willie Dixon<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>&nbsp;************************<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">American Folk Blues Festival<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>As the self-appointed ambassador of the blues, Willie Dixon and a few special friends began spreading the word outside America\u2019s borders. <strong>\u201cMemphis Slim and I started the American Folk Blues Festival. We was just working as a duet, we went to Israel and other places trying to promote the blues there. None of these blues organizations was even thinking about them at the time, but everywhere we went we talked about the blues and promoted them. Some of the people got into it before we could complete our thing. I\u2019m glad they did, because today we\u2019ve got the blues thing going.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>During the early sixties the American Folk Blues Festival featured some of the most recognizable names in the genre; players like John Lee Hooker, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Victoria Spivey, Otis Spann, Muddy, T-Bone Walker, Big Mama Thornton, J.B. Lenoir, Lonnie Johnson, Big Joe Williams and the Wolf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wouldn\u2019t be until years later that Dixon would discover the profound effect he and his friends had had on a very select group of young British musicians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cWell when they was young, overseas, me and Memphis Slim was over there and they had their groups going, but that was before they was popular. The Stones, they was kids over there. I didn\u2019t know one from the other because they didn\u2019t have no name then, you know? When I was over in Europe and other places, I would give songs to everybody and a lot of kids tell you, \u2018I\u2019m gonna\u2019 do this and I\u2019m gonna\u2019 do that\u2019, and how would I know who\u2019s who?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>But when they come back years later they say, \u2018You remember you gave us that song here and gave us a song there,\u2019 well I don\u2019t know them but they know me. Some of them gave me their picture when they was young, you know? And when they came to Chicago, a lot of them would come to my house or we\u2019d meet in different clubs and things. How are you gonna\u2019 remember a bunch of kids, man? As many countries as I went into and meet \u2019em from all over everywhere, I worked with so many different people in so many different places, I can\u2019t remember them all no way.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">A Man with a Mission<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Active for most of his life, Willie thought about retirement when he moved to Southern California, but it wasn\u2019t to be. If anything, demands on his time increased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cEver since I\u2019ve been out here, it\u2019s been one thing right after another. I try to back off from \u2019em, but with the Blues Heaven Foundation I have retired away from working for myself, and by being able to reap some of the benefits of some of my own royalties that I should have got years ago. And this is why I started the Blues Heaven Foundation so I could help other people that wasn\u2019t as lucky as me.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Not only does it try to get some of the capital that\u2019s been owed to artists, people who been beat and cheated out of their thing, but we also help \u2019em to learn how to protect their songs and copyrights. We do this with donated capital and the Blues Heaven Foundation takes not a penny from nobody. I do all of my work for Blues Heaven for nothing. All the people that has passed on and their families didn\u2019t get anything, all they had to do is prove that they are involved or in the family and they can reap the benefits of their forbearers.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>You know when you feel like you\u2019re underprivileged, and know you\u2019re underprivileged and not getting your rights, you always want to know why? Believe it or not, (prior to the civil rights movements in the 50\u2019s and 60\u2019s) people didn\u2019t know they had a black law book and a white law book at that time but today most of them know about it. It wasn\u2019t until after the Martin Luther King era and the government ratified the 14th and 15th Amendment, that everybody had to hear us out and give us just dues just like everybody else. My chance for justice as well as anybody else\u2019s is good today.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Blues Heaven<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u201cThat\u2019s the reason I\u2019m trying to expose the Blues Heaven Foundation because you don\u2019t have to die to enjoy the great things of life. You don\u2019t have to get to the place where you have to have this religion or that religion, fighting over ten dollars and then tell me you\u2019re going to a place where the streets are paved in gold. Don\u2019t you know I don\u2019t want to go there if you\u2019ve been raising as much hell over a dollar here? So I figure if we can enjoy the luxuries of life here as we should, everything is here you need. They say if you went to heaven you\u2019d get milk and honey. We got milk and honey here.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>It\u2019s just a matter of time because you see, everything have to change, everything changes. People get more experience and understand each other better, but when you haven\u2019t been taught any of the right things, naturally you can go wrong because you\u2019re only thinking about yourself and not others.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With a chance to reflect on his life and given the option to change the outcome, Willie just smiled. <strong>\u201cFrankly with the experiences I\u2019ve had since I\u2019ve been involved in these blues, I wouldn\u2019t take billions for it, but I wouldn\u2019t want to do it all over again for trillions\u2019.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\" id=\"attachment_11535\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/travel\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/Willie-Dixon-and-Tim-Mattox-1.jpg\" alt=\"the writer with Willie Dixon at his home in Southern California, 1987\" class=\"wp-image-11535\"\/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">At Willie\u2019s home in Southern California, 1987. PHOTO BY JOE REILING<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Through his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bluesheaven.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Blues Heaven Foundation<\/a>, lovingly minded by his widow, Marie and grandson, Alex, Willie continues to touch the lives of disadvantaged youth and the surviving family members of early blues greats. Whether it\u2019s assisting students through scholarship programs, donating musical instruments, or recouping lost royalties, Blues Heaven continues to educate, perpetuate, and carry out Willie\u2019s most heart-felt wishes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Willie Dixon lived, worked and breathed the blues. His music conveyed the depth and drive of that battered old upright bass. To use boxing vernacular, it was his combinations. He could double you over with thumping bass lines and drop you to your knees with devastating lyrics. The name Willie Dixon will always be synonymous with the blues, but to paraphrase the late Dr. King, it\u2019s the \u2018content of his character\u2019 that we\u2019ll all miss the most.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I miss Willie Dixon. I had the tremendous good fortune to sit and talk with him on several occasions during the 1980\u2019s, and he never failed to amaze, entertain and enlighten me. During those years you couldn\u2019t go into a Southern California club, blues venue or attend a music festival without seeing the man surrounded by an entourage of adoring friends and fans. He was finally acknowledging his role as blues ambassador and accepting it with his natural ease and grace. Willie Dixon had become everybody\u2019s favorite uncle; the elder statesman whose dues had all been paid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":1845,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[774,772,19,773],"class_list":["post-1843","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-blues-legend","tag-deaths","tag-home_page","tag-remembering"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Remembering Willie Dixon - Traveling Boy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/remembering-willie-dixon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Remembering Willie Dixon - Traveling Boy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I miss Willie Dixon. I had the tremendous good fortune to sit and talk with him on several occasions during the 1980\u2019s, and he never failed to amaze, entertain and enlighten me. During those years you couldn\u2019t go into a Southern California club, blues venue or attend a music festival without seeing the man surrounded by an entourage of adoring friends and fans. He was finally acknowledging his role as blues ambassador and accepting it with his natural ease and grace. Willie Dixon had become everybody\u2019s favorite uncle; the elder statesman whose dues had all been paid.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/remembering-willie-dixon\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Traveling Boy\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-06-02T13:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-06-02T20:19:35+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/travelingboy.com\/adventure\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/06\/Wiilie-Dixon.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"360\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"224\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Tim E. Mattox\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Tim E. 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