Crawdaddy!: Do you remember who or what inspired your interest in words and wordplay?

Baby Gramps: When I was young, it was my father. He would say, “Pronounce ‘GHOTI.’ ‘Goatee.’ Nope. You take the GH off the end of tough, the O out of women, and the TI off of emotion. It’s pronounced ‘fish.’” When I toured with Phish, I thought that might be an interesting CD title for them, as I named a Béla Fleck and the Flecktones album UFO Tofu when I toured with them.

Crawdaddy!: How did you discover your voice had its various extraordinary qualities?

Baby Gramps: I discovered I could do Popeye when I was knee-high to a tootsie-wootsie.

Crawdaddy!: I read in an interview posted on your website that you learned the elbow technique hanging out with Furry Lewis. Was he as good-spirited as his recordings?

Baby Gramps: I can remember partying with Furry in Seattle, down on Fairview on Lake Union, until we almost sunk the house boat we were in! This was years before he toured with some huge band.

Crawdaddy!: What other blues players from his era did you see play/meet/observe?

Baby Gramps: I was fortunate at a very young age to experience the Reverend Gary Davis, John Lee Hooker, Elizabeth Cotten, Mance Lipscomb, Big Joe Williams, Buell Kazee, Roscoe Holcomb, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and others. They all, each and every one, cast their shadow upon me.

Crawdaddy!: When did you first hear a blues recording and how?

Baby Gramps: KRAB radio came about in ’62, a kind of underground radio station. The likes of Tom Robbins, Jean Shepherd (of A Christmas Story fame)… Captain Crunch, the “phone phreak” [John T. Draper, a onetime radio wave and phone line pirate] would call up. In the early ’60s I heard my first country blues, Pink Anderson (’20s blues). Later, Pink Floyd was named after this medicine show performer, as most of your readers know.

Crawdaddy!: What was the first record you bought? Do you have all your original records?

Baby Gramps: Ray Charles was the first album I bought in 1960, but before this I got my older sister’s 45s and R&B album collection, Ernie K-Doe, Fats Domino, Little Richard.

Crawdaddy!: Do you still play 78s at home, for your own enjoyment?

Baby Gramps: Yup, I still play 78s, especially when the lights go out in a storm. I also play Blonde on Blonde, a 33 RPM, at 16 RPM whenever I get lonely for Charles Brown or a soul singer.

Crawdaddy!: When did you start playing music publicly and where?

Baby Gramps: Parties and pizza parlors. They’d put me up on a little table.

Crawdaddy!: Who inspired you with the practice of storytelling to go along with the songs?

Baby Gramps: Uncle Dave Macon, Uncle Josh [a pioneer of comedy recording at the turn of the century] on 78s and cylinders, old geezers on celluloid, “Scattergood Baines” [a radio program turned into a film], and Lord Buckley.

Crawdaddy!: Who does some of your favorite versions of the old-time songs, say, “St. James Infirmary” and “Big Rock Candy Mountain”?

Baby Gramps: As far as these two ditties, I’ve accumulated a hundred versions, everybody from Satchmo to Haywire Mac [aka "Big Rock Candy Mountain" composer Harry McClintock] respectively.

Crawdaddy!: Cartoon music: Was it a big inspiration? What about your favorite cartoons as a kid?

Baby Gramps: Krazy Kat, Bosko cartoons, Flip the Frog (produced and drawn by Ub Iwerks), Van Buren cartoons.

Crawdaddy!: And now?

Baby Gramps: Early ’30s jazz cartoons. The surrealism cartoon music is just as surreal as Tex Avery’s eyes popping out.
 
Crawdaddy!: How did “Teddy Bears’ Picnic” come to be your theme song?

Baby Gramps: Because of Halloween.

Crawdaddy!: What’s the origin of your love of Halloween?

Baby Gramps: “Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”