Revisiting this conversation from early 2019 offers a fascinating snapshot of a modern bluesman at a critical inflection point. Victor Wainwright was riding high, fresh off a Grammy nomination for his explosive, self-titled album with his band The Train. It was a moment of mainstream validation for a career built far from the pop charts, deep in the trenches of the international blues circuit. But looking at the raw transcripts from our chat, it’s clear the nomination wasn't a finish line. It was fuel.
The thrill was still palpable. Wainwright was floored by the recognition, a sentiment that feels both genuine and earned after years of grinding it out on the road. “I mean, we were thrilled; it’s hard to describe it in any other better way,” he says, still processing the experience. “I mean, excited, pumped, just floored really by the nomination. And then we got to go to the Grammys, which was another huge thing with the whole band.” For an artist in a genre often relegated to the cultural margins, this was more than an award nod; it was a signal that their unique brand of piano-pounding roots music was breaking through the noise.
But awards were hardly a new phenomenon for him even then. The industry had been taking notice for years, particularly the Blues Music Foundation. He speaks with a specific reverence about his first major award, the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year. And it’s here you get to the heart of what drives Wainwright: a profound respect for lineage.
“The award is called the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player of the Year Award,” he explains. “Pinetop Perkins is a historic, huge name with blues piano and blues music… For me, it was almost overwhelming because here I was, being a very young—the youngest—participant in this category and having won, to feel like I should be carrying that torch.” This wasn't just a trophy. It was the passing of a mantle from a deity of the genre, a man who played with Muddy Waters and defined a style of boogie-woogie that pianists still aspire to master. The weight of that name became not a burden but a profound inspiration.
That sense of responsibility only magnified with subsequent wins, including the coveted B.B. King Entertainer of the Year award. That particular honour is the Blues Foundation’s highest, a recognition that your impact transcends mere technical skill. To win an award bearing King’s name is to be acknowledged as an ambassador for the entire culture, a showman capable of connecting with an audience on a primal level. It’s a standard Wainwright clearly still holds himself to.
His sound, a potent gumbo of southern-fried styles, wasn't cooked up in a conservatory. It was inherited. He traces it all back to his grandfather and father, musicians who lived and breathed the working-man’s soundtrack of the American South. “My grandpa played piano, and my dad played whatever instrument that my grandpa needed in the band at the time,” he recalls. This was a house where the lines between country and blues blurred, where Jim Reeves and Jimmy Reed coexisted on the turntable. That fusion of honky-tonk rock and roll and raw blues became his native tongue.
Yet, there was a significant detour. In a classic tale of parental pragmatism, his family, knowing the brutal realities of a musician's life, pushed him toward a more stable career. His choice was almost an act of defiance. “They asked me to pick something that I wanted to do besides music, which was a very hard choice for me… I told them, and I chose—I said that I want to be an air traffic controller.”
And he wasn't kidding. They called his bluff and he enrolled at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach, Florida, studying air traffic management for five years. But the music was an unstoppable force. While learning to guide planes, he was forming bands, cutting records, and even co-founding the Daytona Blues Society. The muse was not going to be denied a flight plan.
I can't really mimic any other blues piano player, and blues piano players find it very hard to mimic me. It's kind of interesting because I don't know how to read notes. I don't know how to read music. I play by ear.
The story culminates in a choice that perfectly encapsulates his journey. After graduation, the FAA offered him two posts: Ohio or Memphis, Tennessee. For a kid steeped in roots music, this wasn’t a choice at all. It was a pilgrimage. “I chose Memphis, knowing its ties to roots, genuine rock and roll, and blues music in particular,” he says. He moved to the epicentre of American sound to work as a controller, but the gravitational pull of Beale Street proved too strong.
That period was definitive. The long nights on Beale Street, soaking in the city's musical soul, made the day job untenable. “I couldn't really make it into work without wearing sunglasses and having red eyes and feeling like I was a little bit dangerous,” he admits. Music finally won out over air traffic control for good. It had to.
This winding path is precisely what forged his singular style. He’s not a blues purist in the academic sense. He’s an intuitive player who learned by ear from his grandfather’s honky-tonk technique before he ever dove deep into the catalogues of Pinetop Perkins or Otis Spann. “I really wanted to play like my grandfather, and that's who I play like, honestly,” he states. “I can't really mimic any other blues piano player, and blues piano players find it very hard to mimic me.” It’s a style born of family tradition then baptized in the gritty blues of Florida and Memphis.
You see this ethos of joy and camaraderie in everything he does, exemplified perfectly by the music video for his song “Money.” It’s less a slick production and more a party of old friends, including his original guitarist from his university days, Greg Gumpel. “You could tell, like, that's what life's about to me, you know, is just love and appreciating every day and trying to live it to its fullest, but having fun while you're at it.”
When confronted with the idea of being an “overnight success” following the Grammy nod, he rightfully scoffs. Fourteen years is an eternity in pop music but standard dues-paying in the world of blues. He paints a vivid, unglamorous picture of the early years, a reality check for any aspiring musician. It’s a world of dive bars paying a few hundred dollars, sleeping in kitchens on mystery foam pads and surviving on gas station food. The glamour is a mirage; the labour is real.
Perhaps his most insightful analysis is on the piano’s place within the blues. He astutely points out the historical dominance of the guitar, an instrument born of accessibility. “An acoustic guitar for a very poor family, especially a very poor family in the South, to afford an instrument like that,” he notes, was far more feasible than acquiring a piano, once a status symbol of the wealthy. Early blues players could fashion instruments from broom handles and wire; a piano was an entirely different economic proposition.
This history makes Wainwright’s position as a frontman piano player both a challenge and an advantage. The instrument was traditionally seen as accompaniment, a rhythm piece behind a lead guitar. He is part of a crucial lineage of players like Marcia Ball and Barrelhouse Chuck who dragged the instrument to the front of the stage, demanding it be heard not just as support but as the lead voice. It works out for him. In a sea of guitar slingers, the sound of 88 keys hammered with soulful abandon cuts through.
He’s not just reviving old sounds; he’s pushing them forward with a key ingredient: curiosity. “I like to be very curious when approaching roots music,” he says. “I think that's what leads you to explore new things, to turn over stones that have not been turned over, and to really, you know, dare to go places that some people haven't gone.” This is the work of a modern traditionalist—respecting the origins while refusing to let the music become a museum piece.
That forward momentum is a collective effort. He’s quick to credit his band, a diverse group of musicians from across the United States who bring their own experiences to the table. The result is that “gumbo” he speaks of, a sound that is bigger than any one person. It’s the sound of America, distilled into rhythm and blues.
As our 2019 conversation wrapped, Wainwright was looking ahead to a show in Windsor, promising to bring the very same all-star band that recorded the Grammy-nominated album. It was a commitment to delivering the authentic, powerful sound they had captured in the studio. Play good music, make people happy. It’s a simple motto, but one that has taken Victor Wainwright from a small town in Georgia to the red carpet in Los Angeles, with a crucial and fateful detour through Memphis along the way.
519 Magazine Archive: We are thrilled to officially unearth the 519 Magazine Digital Vault. This isn't just a re-post; it's a high-fidelity restoration of a pivotal era in music journalism. By pairing original print dates with modern retrospectives, we’re bridging the gap between historical rock-and-roll grit and the lightning-fast performance of today’s web. These stories—once locked in physical print and lost URLs—are now back, fully searchable, and optimized for a new generation of fans.
We are thrilled to officially unearth the 519 Magazine Digital Vault. This isn't just a re-post; it's a high-fidelity restoration of a pivotal era in music journalism. By pairing original print dates with modern retrospectives, we're bridging the gap between historical rock-and-roll grit and the lightning-fast performance of today's web. These stories—once locked in physical print and lost URLs—are now back, fully searchable, and optimized for a new generation of fans.
