Maryland Monthly ‘The Blues Wire’ by Steven Levine (circa 1995)

Whop Frazier & Friends by Choice

Washington, D.C.-based player / singer Whop Frazier has been playing the blues for over 25 years. He has been in some of the best local blues bands to come out of D.C., and has played with some of the legends of the genre.

Frazier was Bobby Parker’s bass played for a good part of his career, and has played with blues masters James Cotton, Junior Wells, and Carey Bell. After years of being a sideman, Frazier has become a fine band leader, songwriter, and arranger. His band, Friends By Choice, recently released their first CD, Doing It On My Own, on the local Stampede label, and their second CD should be available soon.

Whop believes that, “You only got three kind of blues: that’s Delta, Chicago, and Down Home.” His own style of blues is a mixture of the modern and the traditional - blues and funk. In his playing and songwriting he has followed in the footsteps of the late Albert Collins, one of his biggest influences.

In Frazier’s own indomitable style he explains, “I like Albert Collins. See, Albert Collins was a kind of cat who could play the blues, but he funked it up, and basically I kind of admired him for doing that. He kept the soul and the blues together… I wanted to make my blues grab the younger generation.” Whop also sites Bobby Parker as an influence, and both Frazier and Parker tastefully combine funk and blues.