Little Victor

Son of an Italian mother and an American serviceman[5] who was constantly on the move, Victor also leads a wanderer's life on both sides of the Atlantic. He was born in Rome, Italy. and he grew up in many different places. He lived in West Memphis, Arkansas, Austin, Texas, Memphis, Tennessee, and Louisiana. He also spent several years in Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, before moving to the UK in 2014. He speaks fluent English, French, Italian and Spanish, He started to sing at the age of 14 - in 1981 - hence the nickname of "Little" Victor. His first band mostly featured songs from the Sun Records vaults. At 16 he started to play harmonica inspired by Jimmy Reed and the following year first picked up the guitar. He played for tips on Beale Street in Memphis six days a week with Uncle Ben Perry, the "King of Handy Park." This association is why Little Victor is also known as The Beale Street Blues Bopper. He sang, played and recorded with many different roots, rock and blues bands in the 1980s and early 1990s. He also did some recordings with Alex Chilton and Hubert Sumlin, before releasing Cuttin' Out (1994). In 1999, Little Victor was involved in the production of a film documentary on R.L. Burnside entitled, A Day with...R.L. Burnside,[6] a collaboration with Sophie Kay which also spawned two albums together.

His association with his blues hero Louisiana Red, produced the albums Back To The Black Bayou (2009) and Memphis Mojo (2011). Victor's own effort, Boogie All Night, was issued by El Toro Records, in between those collaborations, whilst in 2013 he produced and played on Pig Fat's Shadow of the Night.[7] In 2015, Little Victor toured Canada with the harmonica player Harpdog Brown and, in 2016, he produced and played on Brown's Travelin' with the Blues recorded in California with Charlie Musselwhite, Big Jon Atkinson, Rusty Zinn, Carl Sonny Leyland and Jimmy Morello.

The music journalist Johnny Whiteside, writing in the LA Times, described Little Victor's style of music:

'Little Victor (is) an untamed maverick whose raw, primitive sounds are the utter antithesis of the contemporary blues model. The offbeat singer-guitarist...eschews the genre’s prevalent trend for streamlined six-string virtuosity in favor of wild shouting, stabbing guitar and heavy, almost hypnotic, rhythmic repetition....He can effortlessly switch from shadowy, primitive low blues to the polished, uptown Beale Street-style R&B...to wild, wicked boogies, and all of it is put across with expressive, soul-deep conviction.'[8]

In 2017, he started to work as a freelance consultant and producer for the Rockstar Records UK Group. He produced various albums that were released by Rhythm Bomb Records such as The Blues of Little Walter by Mo Al Jaz & Friends and Jelly Roll Shuffle by the Jelly Roll Men. He also worked on a series of anthologies of obscure 1950s blues and rhythm and blues, for the Koko-Mojo label.

In 2018, Victor released Deluxe Lo-Fi, recorded over an eight-year period with various musicians, including the Downhome Kings, Kim Wilson, Big Jon Atkinson, Rusty Zinn, Carl Sonny Leyland, Steve Lucky and Harpdog Brown. The songs, mostly Little Victor's original compositions, display a wide range of styles. In an interview with the Good New Music blog, Victor said, 'The whole point here and the ‘concept’ of this album is about songs captured on old magnetic tape with vintage tube equipment at great vintage studios....the last two songs were recorded at a ‘modern’ state-of-the-art studio in Hollywood by the great Jeff ‘Mox’ Moxley but both songs were bounced through a vintage tube desk on magnetic tape, so the outcome sounds just like the other songs and has the same ‘vibe’ and feel.'[9]

Deluxe Lo-Fi was voted 2018 "Album Of The Year" in the UK by The Blues Lounge[10] and in Scandinavia by BluesNews magazine.

In January 2020, Little Victor formed the Mighty Lo-Fi Kings, a new band with Rob Glazebrook, in which both play guitar and share vocals. Orlando Shearer pays bass and Nick Simonon the drums. The band regularly performs at Peggy Sue's Music Bar in Leigh-on-Sea and the Black Lion in Brighton and has also been booked to play the 'Lache Pas La Patate' festival in Aulnoye-Aymeries, France in April 2020.[11]

The Mojo Man

• 2009: Grand Prix du Disque (France) Louisiana Red & Little Victor's Juke Joint - Back to the Black Bayou[20]
• 2009: German Record Critics' Award (Germany) Louisiana Red & Little Victor's Juke Joint - Back to the Black Bayou[20]
• 2010: Blues Music Awards (USA) : Nominations[21] for "Blues Album of the Year" and "Traditional Blues Album of the Year"[20][22]
• 2011: Jimi Awards (USA) Louisiana Red & Little Victor's Juke Joint - Memphis Mojo for Best Live Album of the Year[23]
• 2016: Maple Blues Awards (Canada) : Nomination for "Recording/Producer of the Year"[23]
• 2018: Blues Lounge Radio Show Awards: Best Album award for Deluxe Lo-Fi[24]
• 2019: Blues Lounge Radio Show Awards: Hall of Fame Inductee[25]