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“Muddifing” the Blues.
The Mudds are known for their soulful, relaxing sound. Their smooth jazz and blues style will return you to the days of Louisiana speak-easy lounges and cool cats. Cool jazzy blues for any venue or festival needing relaxing easy listening music. They play as a husband and wife duo, or a band by adding a drummer and/or Sax/Clarinet and keys.
To build their vast setlist, Sam and his wife Betsy, hand-pick songs from the 1940s and 1950s blues masters such as Eddie Boyd, Ollie Shepard, Smokey Hogg, Willie Dixon, and ZZ Top. Sam Mudd writes all of their original songs. Because Sam is wonderfully talented and has vast musical knowledge he comes up with unique lyrics and tones. It works by learning the unique sound of scale degrees, (root, 2nd, 3rd, 7th, etc), understanding the rules of music (music theory) and how those rules sound in action.
Sam Mudd began playing bass as a teen. He would put on an LP and drag the needle back a million times to learn every note of a song. In high school, he played with his friends at his prom and parties. After his father was killed in Korea, Sam’s mom moved the Mudd clan to Florida. By chance he met Sarasota Slim in a pawn shop. Slim needed a bass player. Over the next decade, Sam gained a ton of experience playing with Sarasota Slim, Lucky Peterson and numerous other great musicians. He toured the globe as the original bassist with Tampa Bay blues band Rock Bottom & The Cutaways. His last gig was with Slim’s band in Key West at Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville around. That was around 1990. Like many musicians, he needed a break from the business. Sam took a twenty-five-year hiatus to pursues home building, real estate, and antiques. In 1998, he met Betsy in a scuba diving class. A bucket list thing for Betsy. As dive buddies they became close. Betsy was an independent artist and businesswoman. They became best friends and moved to Inverness, Florida to retire early and be close to Betsy’s folks.
2014. On a whim, and while Betsy was spending a couple of months in Jax with her grandsons, Sam bought a bass and called up Slim. Sam wasn’t really sure if he wanted to return to the music scene and all that comes with it… But Sam decided to stick his big toe in the water. And after a few trips to the Tampa-St Pete area to check out the music scene with Slim he decided to jump in the deep end. He worked tirelessly getting his “chops up” and reawaken his musical memory of Slim’s songs, all the blues covers. Within a few weeks, Sam was asked to play full time with Franc Robert. Little Mike and various top-notch Florida bands called him to play bass as well.
Betsy returned to a changed man. She had never seen Sam play and was, shall we say, impressed. She started getting gigs for him. Slim even dubbed her “Colonel Parker” Elvis’ manager. She never missed any of Sam’s gigs, but the late hours and honky-tonk clubs were wearing on both of them.
Summer of 2015, they traveled to Lenoir, North Carolina with Slim, Chicago Bluesman Nitro Bozeman and drummer Jim Mackey to play the VII Pop Furguson Festival. On the way to the festival, they play Savanna and a couple of other places Slim had set up. During the two day festival, Sam played bass for Big Bill Morganfield Muddy Water’s son, Trudy Lynn, Barbara Carr, Wanda Johnson, even Creole Jazz Serenader’s Don Vappie and many more.
After about a year in, Sam and Betsy decided to put together their own little band. Sam handed the bass over to Betsy. He taught her his entire bag of tricks all the while perfecting his vocals, guitar leads and writing all of the songs on their first album “Dream One Day”. They practiced night and day. Betsy had never played an instrument in her entire life. But as an artist, Betsy learned quickly that music was just another medium to express art. Best of all, her smooth rhythmic lines fit like a glove with Sam’s old school style. Sam says, “Betsy’s solid, she’s eager to learn new material, and (almost) always smiling.” Betsy says, “It’s not easy to get in front of a crowd of people and play, but you over-come the butterflies because you love the music. And making someones’ night a little more special because they heard some good blues. Playing bass next to my husband is like a dream come true. Sam and I have never been happier.” That was just four short, but productive, years ago.
The Mudds first began playing at Sip in Leesburg, Florida every Saturday on the patio. Shortly after, Whispering Oaks Winery in Oxford took them on as the House Band. Confident that The Mudds were ready to play any venue, Betsy got on the horn and the gigs started rolling in. Check their calendar and catch them playing all over Central Florida.