Sule Greg C. Wilson...and sometimes friends and family.
Influences
My grandparents—Hugh Ella Hancock Gregory, Thomas Montgomery Gregory, Ernest James Wilson I, Beatrice Butler Wilson—and their children; Taj Mahal; Baba Ngoma; Eleanor Harris; Taiwo Duval; Miriam Makeba; Charlie McCoy; John Jackson; Mike Seeger; Hugh Masakela; Mongo Santamaria; Parliament/Funkadelic; Joe & Odell Thompson; Fred Newton; Blind Boy Fuller; Washboard Sam; Santana; Jimi Hendrix; Henry Thomas; Nathan Frazier; Big Sweet Lewis Hairston; Vinx; Larry Graham; Billie Holiday; Chaka Khan; Stozo da Klown; Clarke Buehling; Bessie Smith; Joe Ayers; Dom Flemons; Gus Cannon; John Blandford; Olukose Wiles; Fanta Damba; Bo Carter; Mississippi Sheiks; Tennessee Chocolate Drops; Fletcher Henderson; Bobby Blue Bland; Eubie Blake; Algia Mae Hinton; Aretha Franklin; the Beatles; Mamas & Papas; Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young; Memphis Minnie; Joni Mitchell; Stevie Wonder; James Brown; Grady Tate; C. Scoby Strohman; Prince; War; Earth, Wind & Fire; Ephat Mujuru; Dumisane Maraire; Alhaji Bai Konte; Murphy Gribble; Roy Ayers; Otis Taylor; Ali Farka Toure; Cathy Fink; Pete Seeger; Leadbelly; Jimmy Strothers; Othar Turner; Odetta; Libba Cotton; Etta Baker; Eileen Carson; Bo Didley; T-Bone Walker; Zap Mama; Digable Planets; Last Poets; Incognito; Erikah Badu…and you?
Sule (“Soo-Lay”) Greg Wilson was born and raised in Washington, D.C. and got his very first paycheck—in Junior High School--for performing African folklore--stories, dance, song and music. Before that he was climbing trees and taking tumbling, beating on oatmeal boxes and banging on his neighbor’s lacquer red upright piano. In High School he worked on drum kit, conga, harmonica, kalimba and Jew’s harp while listening to Taj Mahal, Les Ballets Africaines, Billie Holiday, EWF, Hendrix and the Persuasions. “All my cousins were trying to play like Hendrix. I loved him, too, but took a slightly different route, I guess you could say. I was on the drums.” He also took time to hang out with Parliament-Funkadelic and Graham Central Station whenever they came to “Chocolate City”.
Sule kept percussing through High School and on to Oberlin College, where he began his study of tabla and played in Oberlin’s gamelan and various jazz ensembles. He was selected to perform with guest artist Abraham Laboriel and jazz intructor Wendall Logan. January 1976 was spent in New York City, performing with Babatunde Olatunji. He moved to New York that summer, and served as photographer, light designer, dancer and musician for the International Afrikan American Ballet, 1977-1982. He married Vanessa Thomas in 1981.
Around this time one of his teachers, dance historian Ray McKeithan, told him to either go live in Africa or dig deep here in the States. So, during his time in New York, Sule worked and/or studied with tappers Eleanor Harris and Charles “Cookie” Cooke, with Lindy Hoppers Pepsi Bethel and Mama Lu Parks, capoeiristas Jelon Viera and Loremil Machado, drummers/dancers C. Scoby Strohman and Titos Sompa, and was guest artist with Boston’s Art of Black Dance and Music. He flew to Ghana for the Ashanti Confederation’s Jubilee Celebration—playing at the Asantehene’s Palace and taking part in the Durbar in Kumasi. He also got his BFA in Television Production and Masters in History and Archives from New York University, interviewed Ali Abdullah and Gregory Hines and got to speak with his old idol Taj Mahal right after Mahal’s return from his first trip to Africa.
In 1985 Wilson bought his first banjo, ‘cause all his dance research was leading him back into minstrelsy and beyond; banjo music was the key. It wasn’t until moving back to DC with his wife and first child—and his first book, “The Drummer’s Path”, was near completion--that he really started playing strings. “My sister had a beat-up dreadnaught, and my brother strummed uke every once in a while, and my daddy could sing. But, I’m the one that really got serious about playing. I went to Debbie McClatchie’s banjo workshop at House of Musical Traditions, Joe Fallon’s and Cathy Fink’s banjo retreat in West Virginia, looked up Bruce Hutton, talked with Etta Baker and, just as I was about to head to North Carolina, heard that Odell Thompson was hit and killed at MerleFest. That was a real blow.”
Still, by the time the family, now with another baby girl, left the DC area for Tempe, Arizona in 1994, Wilson had recorded with Joe Ayers for Rounder’s “Minstrel Banjo Style”, with Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer and played with Tony Trischka on tour in North Carolina, as well as produced his own CD, “The Drummer’s Path”, which included the percussionist’s banjo debut on “Kaira Silo: The Hand of Love”, a West African wedding song arranged by Wilson, that features Ysaye Maria Barnwell and Nitanu Bolade of Sweet Honey in the Rock. He’d studied bodhran with Celtic Thunder’s Jessie Winch, done drum events with Arthur Hull and co-directed a Pan-American music ensemble, Conjunto de Colores/Time of Pastiche, with Smithsonian curator Marvette Perez. But it was time to move on.
From home base in Arizona, Wilson has done residencies in Northern Ireland and Hermosillo, Mexico and held workshops and performances from Hawaii to Florida, Texas to Minnesota, Washington State to Massachusetts. He sat on a banjo panel with John Jackson, aided Algia Mae Hinton in her buck dance classes, jammed with Howard Armstrong, taught blues dancing at Augusta and played behind fiddler Joe Thompson.
The historic Black Banjo Gathering of 2005 in Boone, NC, that Wilson helped organize, brought together elders such as Thompson and Hinton with Creole banjoist Don Vappe, the Ebony Hillbillies, Cheikh Hamala Diabate, Clarke Buehling, Dom Flemons and Bela Fleck. It also heralded the creation of Sankofa Strings and the Carolina Chocolate Drops, which led to Taj and Wilson tearing it up on stage at the Music Maker Relief Foundation's Congressional Blues Festival in Washington DC.
Wilson can be heard on recordings by Sankofa Strings, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the Repeat Offenders, Cloud Dance, the "Minstrel Banjo Style" compilation and, of course, himself. He has produced two CDs of his own music, and is currently recording his third, as well as an instructional DVD for percussionists. He currently has three books in print, and more are on the way. What's up with you?
HOTT DOGG!! Looking forward to seeing you at the 2008 Uncle Dave Macon Days in Murfreesboro, TN, July 11-13!! Don't forget, UDM Days adds its first ever jug band competition on Friday night!!
