Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, February 15, 1991 TAG: 9102150421
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: TRACIE FELLERS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Reverend Billy's back - not that he ever dropped off the planet. After all, this guy has always been in his own orbit.
Anyway, this time around the good reverend - that's the Rev. Billy C. Wirtz, y'all - has come up with "Backslider's Tractor Pull," a 49-minute slice of Southern satire.
It combines a fire-and-brimstone sermon on the evils of cafeteria dining with a dial-a-reverend radio call-in show and fanciful storytelling. It pays homage to sleazy hucksters, loyal kitchen appliances and the aforementioned waitresses and wrestling fans. Plus, there's plenty of fine honky-tonk piano playing, along with a bluesy steel guitar and James Brown's horn players (missionaries from the House of Cold Sweat on the Good Foot.)
Just the kind of material fans of this "manic minister of multitudinous mesmerizing mirth" have come to expect.
"Backslider's" both "defies and defiles" a lot of things, Wirtz said in a phone interview from his Raleigh, N.C., apartment.
"There's been one or two reviewers that say, `I don't get it; I don't like it.' " But overall, "response has been real favorable," he said.
Wirtz, who has been playing clubs and colleges from Virginia Beach to Jackson, Miss., since January, brings his First House of Polyester Worship to Roanoke College's Student Center Cavern tonight. Admission to the 9 p.m. show is $2.
Reverend Billy is no stranger to Roanoke College or to Southwest Virginia, for that matter. Wirtz graduated from James Madison University in 1979, and he's been something of a regular performer at Roanoke College since his first appearance there - on an alumni weekend.
"I was going through a wild stage . . . I think wearing women's clothes and singing about my sexual fantasies about Marsha Brady," Wirtz said of his first show at the Salem school.
He's calmed down a bit since then - but the crop of spiky red hair and the tattoos aren't exactly conservative.
Wirtz, who has been performing since the late '70s, has been on the brink of the big time for the last three or four years. His 1989 album, "Deep Fried and Sanctified," got favorable press from People, Playboy and Musician magazines and several major daily newspapers.
There was a video for "Teeny Weenie Meanie," a tune about "a butt-kicking midget." But the album wasn't quite the breakthrough he'd hoped for.
Wirtz admits to fearing that he'll be history before he really hits his peak. "I'm scared that I'm going to be a has-been before I ever was," he said.
But the reverend also remains optimistic about his future. "The basic success is around the corner, and I'm stumbling over the little successes right now," he said.
He's pleased with "Backslider's," released on Hightone Records late last fall, and happy with the attention it's generated. "I had the time and money to turn out something I was real proud of."
And there's no doubt that Wirtz loves what he does. He even likes touring . . . most of the time.
"It becomes more fun every day, and that's what I think is really cool about it," he said.
Rev. Billy C. Wirtz: Tonight, 9 p.m., Roanoke College Student Center. $2. 375-2500.
by CNB