In a lengthy article in a recent issue of the UK's magazine, JUKE BLUES, Willie Foster fondly talked about his two tours to New Zealand.
'You went to New Zealand, didn't you, Willie? Tell us about New Zealand.'
'I didn't really get to realise a lot of things until I went to New Zealand. I learned how people can pull together and love one another. Everybody just loves one another. I went there, the first time I went there was in '91. I was out there and something told me that God waited till you get to be 70 years old and he's gonna let you see the world. I always wanted to see the world. New Zealand's very different from here. You might see someone come from California and go over there. He get over there and he don't wanna come back. New Zealand is the best place I've ever been to. It is a place like … similar to here, but it's the difference to the United States. It's more lovelier people over there. There is not a whole lotta of crime, people killing up one another, and people going around and carrying guns. I won't go on my porch here unless I've got my gun, but over there the police don't even carry guns, I'm telling you.'
'They Maoris there, Maoris they call 'em. The Maoris is black. They look white but they got our mouths, kind of big lips you know, like me. You can tell they're black by the look of their mouths, but all of 'em, everybody, got beautiful long hair, good hair. Some of them got short hair, but mostly it's long. When I went over there, my hair was pretty long. They admired my hair, you know, the guys. One of them guys had a bushy head of hair and then they cut it off and tried to make it do like mine, I said it can't do like mine!'
'So how did they come to hear your music in New Zealand?'
'One guy came over here, a guy named Midge Marsden. He's a blues player, he had been just about all over the world. He comes to Texas to see Stevie Ray Vaughan. He loves to play, he blows the harmonica. He was a rock 'n' roll fan, then he wanted to know what the blues was. He came here, he said it was the first time he had come, to Mississippi. He had always wanted to come to the Delta, where the blues was born. He had a good band, and they got him a plane and he went to Texas and met a lady there who had a brother here. And she said, 'I want you to hear this band', so they got him a - playing and they got me and my band for the warm-up band for the New Zealander band. We got to play an hour or an hour and a half. Then Midge Marsden made a sound-check on his microphone, the drummer got back there and brushed at the drums and they all waited. Then he said, 'ShowTime!' and they struck out, started to play and, man, they started to playing. Them guys were playing! They flat were playing!
'After they took a break, he said, 'I wanna talk with you. I wanna carry you to New Zealand. It's a long way'. I said, 'Well, where is New Zealand?'. I thought it was somewhere in Japan, some town. 'It's about 18 hours' ride', he said. I said, 'In a car?' He said, 'No, in a plane'. I said, 'Shit, you know there ain't nowhere in the world that far'. I just thinking to myself, yeah, I'll probably go. I said, 'What kind of money are we talking about here? "We'll pay you a free ticket, and what kind of money would you want?' I said, 'How long would you want me to stay?' He said, 'Two or three months'. I said, 'Oh my God, you want me to live over there'. He said, 'Two months, three months maybe. You decide'. I said, 'You talking how much?' He said, 'We'll give you $25,000'. I thought, 'They's gonna work the hell out of me over there!' I said, 'Well, tell you what, we'll talk about it later, when we get through playing, Tomorrow we'll discuss it'. He said, 'OK' and next day he called me and we discussed it. He said, 'I can get about 50 plays in three months, and each night you play and you can get paid then or wait till the end. I got a lawyer down there and I'm working with your lawyer'. I said, 'OK, we'll work it from there, that sounds pretty good', and so, sure enough, he told me he would call me in two weeks and in two weeks' time he called me to check. I said, 'Yeah I'll do it.' Every time he called my lawyer from New Zealand, the lawyer would call me and explain it. He wrote up the papers, got me a contract. Said, 'Are you ready to go? Yeah, I'm gonna take a chance. I'm about 70 years old and I have lived three score years and ten so I'm ready to go,' the first time I ever went there, they sent me a round trip ticket, $2000, and that was not to come out of my pay.'
'So what's it like over there?'
'I went all over New Zealand. New Zealand ain't no bigger than Texas. I don't think it's as large as Texas and everywhere I played with them I made friends, playing with this band. I got to teach them a lotta things about blues 'cause they playing, they be happy all the time. I said, 'The blues is a feeling', and the girl in the band said, 'Willie told me that blues is a feeling and I realised what it is.'
On the wall in the back hall of the Fosters' house was a poster of Willie and the Midge Marsden Band. It had a lurid pink background and a posed shot of Willie and the band on it. Under the picture was a caption: 'Pink Butts (sic) Insulation. With Pink Butts (sic) you'll never be blue! New Zealand's Number One Insulators! (sic) 'I asked Willie about the poster.
'That was a commercial I did in New Zealand. It was right after I was made King of the R & M.'
'What's R & M?'
'Er ... I forget ... wait a minute, it's R & M B - Rhythm and Mississippi Blues and that was out all over New Zealand and everywhere I go I was known. All over New Zealand. When I went back there and carried my own band there, they say: Wille Foster and his all-black band, Mississippi Willie Foster and Rhythm and Blues Upsetters. All black.'
'Is that the same band you've got now?'
'No. I don't have damn one of those guys I had over in New Zealand.'
'What's your band called now?'
'It is the Rhythm and Blues Upsetters still but they are a different band.
