You wouldn’t know it from listening to him sing and play, but blues musician Little G. Weevil didn’t grow up in Mississippi. Or Memphis. Or anywhere in the South. In fact, he grew up thousands of miles away, in Budapest, Hungary. That’s where, as a teenager, Weevil fell in love with the blues. And heavy metal music.

“Really, really heavy metal music,” Weevil says. “Slayer, you know.”

Thanks in part to a rise in the popularity of blues in Hungary, Weevil found the blues to be more compelling than metal.

“It used to be, back in the middle of the ’90s, there were blues festivals everywhere all year long,” Weevil says. “For five or six years, we called it the ‘blues boom’ over there in Hungary. That’s when I came in the picture.”

Weevil got hooked on the blues, and became a successful blues musician in his home country.

“I got really lucky because I started playing guitar and practiced so hard-hours everyday,” Weevil says. “After three years practicing I started gigging. So, from the age of like 21, 22, I made my living as a blues musician over there.”
Weevil, 31, is a long way from ‘over there.’ He’s currently on the first leg of a months-long tour spanning four countries and two continents. Birmingham is Weevil’s home base for the American part of the tour, which includes local shows at Up Top, Marty’s and Wellington’s Bistro, plus a Sunday night Blues Stages house concert.

Exodus

Weevil knows Birmingham well. The Magic City was the first place he landed when, in his mid-20s, he decided he needed to get out of Hungary.

“When I moved here, to be honest I had a really comfortable life in Hungary,” Weevil says. “I played throughout Europe in different bands. But this rock ‘n’ roll life – I had some serious alcohol problems at the ages of 24, 25. Stuff like that. I wanted to get out.”

Weevil didn’t choose to come to the American South just to get escape his rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle. He wasn’t satisfied with his blues style or with European blues in general. He needed to experience the blues in the place where it was born.

“For a European, it’s not the same,” he explains. “I don’t know if you’ve ever listened to European blues. It sounds different. They play different. The surroundings you grow up in are different.

“The blues is not only the music,” Weevil says. “You represent a whole culture. And I was just like, ‘Man, if I could be in the South…’”

After selling off everything he owned, Weevil secured a temporary work visa and emigrated. He was able to find work in a Birmingham hotel, but his music career stagnated.

“I did not really play much here in Birmingham,” he says. “I just worked six days a week for little or no money, you know?”

After six months in Birmingham, Weevil moved to Memphis and found work as a dishwasher in a blues club. During his breaks, Weevil watched the acts on stage from the back of the club. He was discovered when one of the club’s frequent performers noticed Weevil and invited him to play. Weevil took the stage still wearing his apron. His performance that night led to a gig at the club. Within weeks Weevil secured a weekly performance slot, and soon he had gigs all over Memphis.

Now a few years into his Southern odyssey, Weevil has developed an authentic American blues sound. His first album, Southern Experience, released in April 2008 by Apple Picker Records, has a raucous, electric blues feel indicative of his time in Memphis. His guitar licks have a thick electric sound that’s got a real smoky-blues-club feel. His voice is low and powerful, and he growls through his lyrics with no trace of an accent.

Weevil has recorded a number of tracks for a planned second album. One of the tracks is “Highway 78,” about driving the road that runs from Memphis to Birmingham. In that song Weevil gives a shout-out to Bessemer bluesman Henry “Gip” Gipson, who operates a much-loved juke joint at his house. Last Saturday, Weevil returned to Gip’s for the first Birmingham gig of this tour.

“The first time I came down last year to Gip’s, it was an absolutely life-changing experience,” Weevil says. “I love these people. This is really different – it’s all about love. It’s almost like a physical feel. You touch it.”

If you missed Weevil’s performance at Gip’s, you can catch him Thursday night at Up Top or at Marty’s on Saturday night. But Weevil says that the don’t-miss gig is the last show of the American leg of his tour, at Wellington’s Bistro on Second Ave. North.

“I want everyone to be there at Wellington’s,” Weevil says, clearly excited. “We’ll bring out the whole band, special guests, they have a really nice PA system, good beers. The lady, the owner lady, sings. She’s an excellent singer, so you guys have got to come out.

“We go there and let our hair down,” he says. “We’re going to play on top of the tables, get every woman naked.”

Little G Weevil plays at Up Top on Thursday, March 12, Marty’s on Saturday, March 14 and Wellington’s Bistro on Friday, March 20. For details on the Blues Stages house concert and his show in Tuscaloosa, visit www.littlegweevil.com