Born and raised in the hill country of Central Mississippi, Welch—who worked as a cotton picker and pulpwood tree logger for the majority of his life—learned to play guitar and sing at an early age but was content to perform his gospel songs exclusively on Sunday mornings during worship service and the occasional blues set at clubs or social gatherings. At the age of 82, and with the help of a friend, Vencie Varnado, who would become his manager, Welch was discovered by Fat Possum Records and recorded two studio albums for their Big Legal Mess imprint, kickstarting a brief but impactful career that would expand to include a live record, a documentary about his life, and multiple tours, as well as a new album, The Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name, to be released posthumously on Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound this winter. To see music change a life is not a rare event, but to see it done so late in someone’s story is unique. Every person who came across Welch’s music was touched for the better, whether in the tiny churches of his home in Bruce, Mississippi, festival stages across nearly 40 countries, the record bins, or—in rare cases—the studio itself. As Auerbach, who produced the new album, says, “Working with Bud was a true blessing and I’ll never forget it.”Welch was born in Sabougla, Mississippi, in 1932, and was taught to play blues guitar by his elder cousin, L.C., on a homemade one-string “wall” guitar made from hay baling wire. He began playing gospel music at Sabougla Missionary Baptist Church services at age 13, and six years later moved two dozen miles away to Bruce, a tiny town about 50 miles southwest of Tupelo, where he started playing at Double Springs Missionary Baptist as well. He would live and work in Bruce while playing at both churches for his entire life. Although he preferred his first love of blues music, since any one of Mississippi’s 82 counties has more churches in it than the entire state has ever had juke joints, Welch focused primarily on gospel for his surefire Sunday audiences and only played the blues at clubs and the occasional picnic. It was in church that Welch would develop his reputation for playing for hours and even entire week-long revivals without repeating a song, as well as his ability to learn a new number in its entirety after hearing it only once. The gospel-and-blues dynamic would eventually define him, both in terms of music and his life.
“Leo was religious, but he was not superstitious,” says Varnado. “He defined religion his way. He went through the rituals; he was in church on Sunday morning then raised hell in the evening. His preference of music was blues but he loved gospel—he didn’t separate them.” Life moved slowly in Bruce. Welch married once for a short period, had four of his own children and was stepfather to three others. He worked on a farm picking cotton until the mid-1960s, and then got a job cutting down trees for the sawmill in the early ’70s. It was backbreaking work, with Welch wielding a massive, 80-pound chainsaw for hours on end. Nearly four decades of logging caused him to walk bent-over nearly in half, a physical characteristic that would only look natural while he was playing guitar, a hobby he had continued throughout the years. In addition to his church gigs, beginning in the ’50s Welch often sat in with blues acts at Bruce’s
renowned juke joint, the Blue Angel Ballroom, even opening for legends like B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Elmore James, and John Lee Hooker. At one point Welch was even invited by King to Memphis for an audition to play with the B.B. King band, but Welch didn’t have the money to get a hotel room and never went because King refused to pay for the trip. And so Welch stayed, content, in Bruce. Following a stint in the ’90s hosting and performing on a gospel show aired by the local television station, he was retired from logging, playing music occasionally—solo, or with one of several gospel groups and living happily in his small home next to the Piggly Wiggly grocery when he was invited in 2013 to play the show that would change his life. Varnado, a retired Army veteran from nearby Calhoun City, had heard of Welch’s musical reputation while growing up in the region and booked the 80-year-old to play his own 50th birthday party at his house. From that gig a special bond formed between the two men, and
Varnado took it upon himself to start booking other shows for Welch and to help out in Welch’s day-to-day life. Varnado knew that this talent needed to be shared beyond the chapels and back yards of rural Mississippi, so he called Fat Possum in Oxford hoping that the esteemed blues label would be able to listen to Welch’s music. And if not for label owner Bruce Watson’s chance overhearing of that phone call, Welch’s music still might never have made it out of the hill country.
“Vencie called the office and said, ‘Hey, I’ve got this old blues guy from Bruce’—which is only about 25 miles from Oxford—‘I’d love to bring him by and have him play for you,’” Watson recalls. “Our intern who answered the phone said, ‘Oh, we don’t do blues anymore.’ I just happened to overhear it and said, ‘Whoa, whoa! Let me talk to this guy.’ Vencie was all about Leo, and he’s very convincing, so in the next hour Leo was at my office with a guitar and amp. He played a couple songs, and when he played his signature number, ‘Praise His Name,’ he got up and started dancing. It was obvious he had something special and I signed him on the spot.” Taken by Welch’s abilities in both genres, Watson arranged a two-record deal: the first would be Welch’s rough-around-the-edges soul-gospel songs, the second a collection of his hill-countrystyle blues. Sabougla Voices, a series of gospel songs Welch had either learned, written, or
improvised, was released in 2014, marking the official recording debut of Leo “Bud” Welch. The blues album, I Don’t Prefer No Blues, followed in 2015 and got its title when one of Welch’s preachers approached Watson to let him know of his displeasure when he learned one of Welch’s albums would contain blues songs. Both albums succeeded in capturing Welch’s magnetic voice and incomparable style, and opened the door to his new career as a professional touring musician. The shows featured just Welch on guitar and singing alongside a drummer, with Varnado there every step of the way—managing, booking, hauling gear, driving, and helping out as needed, at times in the role of father and at other times as son.
“Leo’s music’s trademark quality is that authenticity of years gone by,” Varnado says. “The way he played is the same way he learned to play down in Sebougla in the ’40s. He never changed, he didn’t take the blues to Detroit or Chicago or Memphis. He wrote some, he played traditionals,some he improvised. Those old blues guys didn’t believe in rehearsing; Leo would say, ‘If you’re a musician, you’re gonna git wit me and we’re gonna do it.’ He didn’t have a filter, he’d embarrass you in front of one person or 10,000 if he felt you weren’t in tune with him or you were off-beat. To play with him, you really had to have a feel for the music because he never did a song the same way twice. It was always about how he felt. He wasn’t trying to impress you, he was just there to do the music; whatever the music required, whatever his gut gave him, that’s what he did. If he got up and danced it was because he felt it, he wasn’t trying to put on a show.
Leo did the music like it was supposed to be done.”
With the albums’ critical acclaim and his newly boosted profile, suddenly the 80-something musician who had never left Mississippi found himself driving around the country on tours, flying on airplanes for the first time, meeting fans overseas, and generally having a ball. Around this point, Watson sent Welch’s music to Auerbach, his longtime friend and one-time Fat Possum signee with The Black Keys. Auerbach was floored, and reached out to Varnado in order to book some time with Welch in Auerbach’s Nashville studio. Eventually, schedules aligned and Welch and Varnado arrived at the Easy Eye space to record for the better part of a week during the fall
of 2016. Joining them for the writing and recording was Auerbach’s band The Arcs, including the incredible Richard Swift, the musician and producer who passed away in 2018.
“Bud taught us the songs that he’d been playing since he was a kid,” Auerbach says. “He was so soulful. When he sang, you listened. And his guitar playing was steady as a rock. And Swift’s playing on this album makes it even more sacred now that’s he’s gone, too.” Auerbach worked to preserve Welch’s rawness, only occasionally attempting to get Welch out of his comfort zones. He would suggest songs for Welch to sing, sometimes asking him to play the same number several times in a row, and coaxed him to recall different tunes from various eras of his life. Despite his relative newness in the studio setting, the process came to Welch naturally, resulting in a smooth situation all around. In only a matter of days the album was recorded,
resulting in a mix of traditional gospel songs and tunes Welch had written himself.
“Dan was really impressed at how Leo was able to grasp which way Dan wanted to go with the album,” Varnado says. “Usually there was just one take, and if Dan wanted stuff changed, he’d say so. Leo would say, ‘Are you sure?’ but he’d do it the way Dan wanted. Leo saw Dan and the other guys in there as great musicians and got along with them well. The band was smart enough to know how to work with, around, and alongside Leo—some people don’t know how to do that.”
And so, The Angels in Heaven Done Signed My Name was made. Of the 25 or 30 songs
recorded, 10 are featured on the album. From the raw emotion of opener “I Know I’ve Been Changed” to the upbeat, trancelike, hill-country thickness of “I Come to Praise His Name,” it’s clear that the power of Welch’s music lives on. Songs like “Don’t Let the Devil Ride” and “I Wanna Die Easy” remind of the hardships that Welch lived through, while numbers like “Let It Shine” and “Walk with Me Lord” reveal his joyful, playful personality despite his tough-as-nails appearance, and his daily gratitude for his life. By the album’s final track, “Sweet Home,” the listener is left stunned, saddened, and ultimately overjoyed. The journey, we know, is now complete.
“He enjoyed playing music and he enjoyed people enjoying his music, but he didn’t care about the fame or the fortune,” Varnado says. “Ten thousand dollars and a hundred dollars was about the same to him. If you got enough money to get a pack of cigarettes and something to eat, as far as Leo was concerned you got enough money.”
“He was the sweetest guy in the world, the most gracious, with absolutely no ego,” Watson says. “He was so happy these things were happening to him at this stage in life. I really think the music career gave him four extra years. It gave him something to keep going for.”
But it would not last forever. Welch, who started smoking at the age of 12, suffered from advanced emphysema, the disease that would eventually take his life. (“He smoked longer than most people live,” Varnado says. “He never had an understanding of smoking being harmful.”) After spending much of the fall in the hospital, Welch passed away on December 19, 2017 at his home in Bruce.
Leo had said this many times to me: ‘Live as long as you can, and die when you can’t help it,’” Varnado recalls. “I don’t think he had any fear whatsoever of death. He understood his mortality, and he was gonna eat what he wanted to eat, drink what he wanted to drink, and smoke what he wanted to smoke. Leo was about living in the moment; he wasn’t worried about tomorrow or yesterday. He was religious, and he felt if there’s a better place to go, then he was going. But he wasn’t overly concerned with it.”
Thankfully, we have his music to remember him by for eternity. After all, as the album reminds us, the angels in heaven have already arranged for his welcome—all praise be to Leo “Bud” Welch, the man whose final chapter was changed by music.
