Papa Mali

Malcolm "Papa Mali" Welbourne (born May 6, 1957) is an American record producer, guitarist, singer, and songwriter who grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana, United States, and lives in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States.

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".

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's outfit from the front cover of The Rolling Stones High Tides & Green Grass.

He had taken up the guitar at age four, and was learning to play rock and blues by the time he was eleven. At the age of twelve he witnessed The Meters performing on the back of a flatbed truck in New Orleans on Mardi Gras Day. This would influence the young musician. John Campbell took him under his wing when Welbourne was 14, and around that time he started taking the blues seriously. By the time he was 17, he had left home and was hitch hiking around the south, playing guitar on the streets for passing change, playing in juke joints, forming short-lived bands or backing up blues and soul singers.

A trip to Jamaica in 1977 exposed him to reggae music, and a few years later he teamed up with Michael E. Johnson and Stanton Hoffman, and formed The Killer Bees in 1980. They continued to play for many years, eventually becoming one of the first American bands to perform at Reggae Sunsplash in Montego Bay, Jamaica in 1988. Earlier, while on tour with Burning Spear aka Winston Rodney and his band, he received the nickname, Papa Mali from the reggae pioneers. By the time the Killer Bees disbanded, Papa Mali went solo.

Papa Mali performed at South by Southwest in 2015.

Selected discography The Killer Bees, Scratch The Surface (1985) – Beehive Records The Killer Bees, Groovin''' (1987) – Jungle Records Michael E. Johnson and The Killer Bees, Live in Berlin (1988) – Rykodisc The Killer Bees, All Abuzz (1997) – Mozelle Papa Mali and the Instigators, Thunder Chicken (2000) – Fog City Records Malcom Welbourne, slide guitar on Omar & the Howlers, Boogie Man (2004) – Ruf Records Papa Mali, Do Your Thing (2007) – Fog City Records Papa Mali, Music Is Love (2015) – 429 Records

As producer Ruthie Foster, The Phenomenal Ruthie Foster (2007) – Blue Corn The Greyhounds, Liberty (2005) – Luther Lavelle White, Into the Mystic (2004) – Antone’s Omar & the Howlers, Big Delta (2002) – Blind Pig Omar & the Howlers, The Screaming Cat (2000) – Provogue

With 7 Walkers 7 Walkers'', (2010) – Response Records