| PART 10 JR-Yeah. (Believe it, or not.) I'm basically a shy person.You know...I was raised that way. I was raised by my mother. And she never did encourage me very much. YTN-Oh? Is that right? The family never did think much of your musical 'aspirations'? JR-Well, no...no...Mama never did...I guess I was about 11, or 12, years old...I used to go from class room to class room singing...and there was an amatuer contest...and I wanted to go to this camp, called Camp ----------------. I was in the Boy Scouts. So I told my mother I was going to enter that contest. The prize was $15.00. She said, "PeeWee, they're gonna laugh your little coon-ass right off that stage!" I said, "Probably so, mama...I guess." But I wanted to win that money. I wanted to go to Camp ---------------. (Begins laughing at memory.) Anyway...I won that sonofabitch,...and it was about a mile and a half from the house....and I run ALL the way to the house!...beatin' on the door!..."Mama! mama! Let me in! I won!" (Still laughing. ) She couldn't believe that, you know? YTN-Well, hell! You couldn't have been TOO shy! I never would have had the nerve to try that at that age! JR-And, you know...she died a year and a half ago. And my mama only come to see me play one time, in all those years...one time. YTN-Only one time? Is that right? And what about your father? Did he ever come to see you play? JR-Uh, well...my father, yeah. But he didn't raise me. He and mama had split up. When I was about 3 years old. I'd only see him every once in a while. And my kids...after they got older...they'd come around, now and again, you know. Yeah. Ya see, I've got a couple brothers I don't talk to. YTN-So none of your family ever followed your career all that closely? JR-Mmmm. Na-a. YTN-Are they familiar, at all, with the whole 'Johnny Rebel' deal? Do they really know anything about it? JR-They don't know anything about this. YTN-They don't have any clue that you have this whole website dedicated to you,etc? People all over the world that know who you are? JR-No. My kids do. At least, a couple of my kids do. Actually...three of my kids do. In fact, my oldest boy is the one that first found this website! In fact...I don't know how in the hell he found it. I was sitting right there, and he says, "Come here, daddy. Looky here..." You know? (Starts laughing at memory, and his surprise at finding it.) YTN-With regard to your music's apparent popularity...I don't know EXACTLY how many copies it sold back then, but to tell you the truth, for something so underground, I can't imagine that it COULD be moving any hotter than it is! Why do you think that is? JR-Well, again...All I can figure is all the racial tensions still in the air. I don't know. I have no idea. I really don't. I mean, at that time, it was REALLY hot stuff. He'd get big orders...I mean, HUGE orders for this stuff...back then, to sell over a hundred thousand copies...with no radio airplay? YTN-Because, I mean...other than a couple of the old Beatles lp's on VeeJay Records, I don't really know of any records that are bootlegged so consistently...but your records...I've never seen anything like it. I mean, it's on every damn white supremicist website on the net! Hell, anything even remotely related to Louisiana swamp music, history, heritage,etc., it's there. And even high school kids...you even drop the name..."Johnny Rebel"...it's like you mentioned the second coming of Christ! "You mean, he might make a record!?" (Johnny Rebel laughing in background. Clearly, in disbelief.) But, getting back to the issue of the rap music, and what's the difference between your Filthy McNasty material, or the Johnny Rebel stuff, and the current rap music... JR-It gets back to the thing...in my opinion,the attitude of the blacks is that they despise the white man. A big percentage of it. About 85%. Not all, but...a large percentage. Especially the younger people...it seems to be just something produced to provoke violence...or, cops...they don't like cops...a lot of that stuff is about killing cops...that's their message. And, of course, our message was never, "Kill anybody." You know...we just didn't like blacks, and didn't like the way we were being treated, and the way the United States was treating white people, on account of the blacks. Because of the civil rights movement. They're spreading the violence. |