In the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, getting gigs in Milwaukee was easy by today’s standards. There were a lot of venues that would have live music 4-5 nights a week, and if you could draw a bunch of kids that drank beer, you were in. The quality of the music was secondary, at least at the beginning. There wasn’t music blaring from every awning and orifice in the city. There weren’t TVs in every club or cell phones in people’s faces; live music had real value.
As a result, the East Side music and club scene was a relatively safe place to suck and figure out who I was as a musician while living in a cheap, cat-box-scented flat on Bartlett Street. There were great performers and songwriters around like Paul Cebar, John Kruth, Jimmy Liban and Pat McCurdy. Real artists.
Club owners charged a cover and people generally didn’t blink. They’d hang in the doorway and listen, and you had to close the deal with ‘em. It was a powerful time of art and music for all of us and Milwaukee proved to be an excellent base camp for me to branch out from. I’ll be forever grateful to my hometown for the grease, grit and support that has fueled my musical adventures both within and beyond the borders of our state!
Willy Porter will be inducted into the Wisconsin Area Music Industry Hall of Fame at the 41st Annual (WAMI) Awards Show at Turner Hall on Sunday, May 21, 2023.
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Visit: Willy Porter
Photo Credit: Erol Reyal
