Papa Mali

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Papa Mali
Background information
Birth name	Malcolm Welbourne
Also known as	Papa Mali
Born	Shreveport, Louisiana
Genres	Funk, Blues
Instruments	Guitar, Vocals, Bass
Years active	1970s–present
Labels	Fog City

Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne is a slide guitarist, singer, and songwriter born in Shreveport, Louisiana and based in Austin, Texas.

His debut recording Thunder Chicken, produced by Dan Prothero, has been referred to as "one of the few truly wild and unruly records to come from the rock & roll tradition in the 21st century" by allmusic.com.

Biography

While still in grade school, he was conning his cousin to take him into the French Quarter so he could buy every element of Brian Jones' outfit from the front cover of High Tides & Green Grass... all part of his childhood wish to be "a real San Francisco hippie".

He had taken up the guitar at age four, and was playing blues by the time he was eight. The great blues guitarist John Campbell took him under his wing when Malcolm was 14, and around that time he started taking the Blues seriously as an instrumentalist. He teamed up with Michael Johnson and forming The Killer Bees in 1980. Upon the release of his debut album Thunder Chicken he remarked that for the first time in his adult life, he was finally able to reflect warmly on the years growing up in Shreveport.

Discography

• Thunder Chicken - Fog City Records
• Do Your Thing - Fog City Records

External links

• Fog City Records presents: Papa Mali
• Papa Mali collection at the Internet Archive's live music archive