Interview with Blues Legend Paul Filipowicz

December 6, 2025

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Making a Scene Presents an Interview with Paul Filipowicz

He has been playing the blues for more than 40 years, all while working full-time in construction and roofing to make a living. This year, worn-out knees and elbows finally pushed him into retirement from the heavy labor. Even so, he hasn’t slowed down. He’s now building a cabin near Tomahawk using timber he harvested from his own 70-acre property.

When he’s home and not holding a guitar, he’s usually holding a wrench. He’s restoring a 1949 Ford pickup with dual carburetors on a flathead V8 engine, along with a 1948 Ford Super Deluxe four-door with suicide doors. In the yard sit a 1965 Mercury Comet and a 1950 Ford pickup waiting their turn. For gigs around the Midwest, he loads his equipment into a well-worn 2002 Toyota Sienna with over 140,000 miles on it. That van carried him to recent shows at Riverfront Mary’s in Sturgeon Bay.

“I’ve been wrenching all my life,” Filipowicz said as he walked through his garage filled with tools, motors, and spare parts. “I’m a Ford guy.” His days spent in work clothes and engine grease stand in sharp contrast to his sharp stage look—suits from Mitchell Street Men’s Wear in Milwaukee, cufflinks, and Stacy Adams shoes in red, black, white, or blue, topped off with a fedora. In 2013, Big City Rhythm & Blues named him Best-Dressed Male, and he earned Madison Area Music Awards for Best Blues Album in 2005 and Best Blues Song in 2006.

He learned his mechanical skills from his father, who worked full-time making sausage for Armour & Co. in Chicago and spent weekends repairing cars. When Filipowicz was a high-school sophomore, his father took a job at Jones Dairy Farm in Fort Atkinson, bringing the family to Wisconsin.

Music was part of the family, too. His father played harmonica and trumpet, his mother taught piano, and his two sisters played piano. Everyone sang in church. He picked up the guitar around age seven. After graduating from Fort Atkinson High School in 1968, he attended UW-Whitewater for five semesters before getting into construction work and moving to Denver. He returned to Wisconsin in 1974 and started a band. His first paid gig, though, came earlier in 1971, when he played harmonica at the Mint Lounge at Humboldt and North in Milwaukee.

He never learned to read music, instead learning entirely by ear, and he has always played guitar without a pick. “I knew it was the way to feel the guitar. It gives you a different tone,” he said. “Music is a feeling, and I try to transfer that feeling. When I saw Otis Rush or Fenton Robinson or Jimmy Dawkins, I didn’t watch their hands. I’d just close my eyes and go with them. It would lift you right to the moon.”

His guitars—all Fenders—include a 1973 Stratocaster he bought in 1981, a 1973 Telecaster, and a 1963 Jaguar he picked up in 1973 for $100 after his 1957 Stratocaster was stolen.

Over the years he has played with Ken Saydek and Mighty Joe Young and opened several times for Hound Dog Taylor during his Madison shows at the Church Key. He was a friend and admirer of Luther Allison, who passed away in 1997, and he became a regular at Luther’s Blues, the club on University Avenue near the UW-Madison campus from 2000 to 2005. He also counts legendary drummer Clyde Stubblefield as a mentor and close friend.

“As long as Clyde Stubblefield is still around, the world’s a better place, I’ll tell you that,” Filipowicz said. “He’s one of the greatest human beings I’ve ever met, and he influenced my music tremendously by being in my band and being my friend.”

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