Popa Chubby (Theodore Joseph Horowitz, born 31. March 1960 in New York) is … Read Full Bio ↴Popa Chubby (Theodore Joseph Horowitz, born 31. March 1960 in New York) is a New York blues singer and guitar player. His angry and aggressive style of blues is influenced heavily by Willie Dixon. Like Jerry Lewis, he is more popular in France than the U.S.

Popa Chubby is a true native son of the Big Apple. He was born in the Bronx and grew up in a neighborhood made famous by Robert De Niro in the movie A Bronx Tale. His parents owned a candy store on the corner of 181st Street and Arthur Avenue. His early memories of hearing the juke box playing the hits of early sixties soul and R&B – and the neighborhood teens flocking around it – made a lasting impression on him. To this day the musical influence of Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Aretha Franklin and Marvin Gaye are ever present in Popa's music.

At the tender age of 8 he picked up the drums and became consumed in playing "Wipeout" (much to the dismay of his mother and neighbors). His parents were huge fans of jazz and R&B and had a vast collection of 78's and LPs. Popa would spend hours scratching them up by playing the sections he liked over and over again. When he was seven, his father took him to see an oldies show at Madison Square Garden. Up close to the stage he watched the headliner duck walk across the stage playing his Gibson 335 like a ringin' a bell!! Chuck Berry became Popa's idol. The untimely death of his father when he was nine left Ted living with his old-school Italian grandparents. His love affair with the drums was put on indefinite hold.

The 70's came and Popa began to hear the blues rock that was everywhere. Johnny Winter, Foghat, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were on the radio and in the record stores and Popa, being a loner, found solace in listening to these records over and over on a beat up record player bought at a yard sale for a dollar.

At age fourteen he picked up his first guitar and never put it down. His fingers bled from trying to pick out the blues licks he heard second hand from the rockers who played them. In the late 70's Punk Rock hit the scene, and Popa answered a classified ad in the Village Voice for a guitarist. He was hired by Japanese performance/special effects artist, Screaming Mad George, and played a fortuitous gig at CBGB in New York City's Bowery. There he met Punk Rock godfather, Richard Hell, who was putting together a new version of his band the Voidoids. Popa was hired for a world tour. All the while Popa was honing his licks via the records of Albert King, B.B. King and especially Freddie King.

"When I first heard Freddie King my world was turned upside down. I was 19 and this older cat in the neighborhood played me the Just Pickin' record and I was knocked out cold. I thought, ‘Man, that's what I wanna be when I grow up.'"

With the 1980's upon him, Popa played any and all styles of music he could, the education helping him to survive as a working musician. In 1984, while busking in New York's Central Park, he met singer-songwriter Pierce Turner who had just signed with RCA Records. Pierce and Chubby shared a love for Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix. Chubby was hired for a world tour and asked to contribute his blues-inflected guitar playing to Pierce's album The Sky and The Ground. Popa worked with Pierce throughout the late 80's, all the while itching to play the blues he loved.

In 1990 the Popa Chubby Band was born. The name was taken from an impromptu jam with Bernie Worell, one of the founding members of ‘70s psychedelic rock and R&B group Parliament Funkadelic. "He was singing a song called ‘Popa Chubby' and he pointed at me." The name captured the essence of what his music has come to represent. "Popa Chubby basically means to get excited. The core of my music is about excitement. I think music should make people feel alive."

Before long he was playing every club in New York. Popa landed the coveted spot as house band at the now defunct Manny's Car Wash. There he got to back up and open for many of the great musicians who came through town. The combined experiences of backing a variety of artists helped shape his vision of what he now calls "New York City Blues."

In 1991, he entered the National Blues Talent Search sponsored by Long Beach Radio station KLON. He beat out a score of bands to bring the title to New York City and was rewarded with an opening spot at the 1991 Long Beach Blues Festival. Popa soon started touring regionally and released two independent records on his own label.

In 1994 Popa signed a recording deal with the recently resurrected O-Keh label (Sony Music). At first reluctant to sign on with such a corporate outfit, it was the prospect of working with Tom Dowd, longtime Atlantic Records engineer/producer, whose recordings by Aretha Franklin, Ray Charles, Wilson Pickett and others are legendary, that convinced him. Booty and The Beast was released in 1994, and the single, "Sweet Goddess Of Love and Beer," soon was sweeping the country and became a summer radio hit coast to coast in 1995.

Creative differences left Popa a free agent in 1996, so he began releasing albums on his own label. On the advice of Dowd he went to Europe, where his first two CDs were released as a collection by the French Dixiefrog label. The record was an instant success and left Popa touring nonstop. The energy and showmanship of his sets earned him critical and commercial acclaim overseas, and in fact, he's become a huge star in Europe, where he appears on the covers of guitar magazines and routinely sells out major venues.

The innovative performer and producer went on to do a number of other projects for Dixiefrog, his own albums and others by Big Apple artists recorded under the aegis of Popa Chubby Productions. In the process, he spearheaded a New York City sub-genre of blues. The New York sound is as complex as the city itself, melding a variety of street sounds from hip hop, punk, straight-up rock, R&B, into an unadulterated blues format. "New York is a melting pot of social and musical cultures, and New York City Blues is an amalgam of all those styles," explains Chubby.

Popa Chubby's music, forged in the toughness that is New York City, takes blues to the cutting edge, where it highfives its contemporary cousins rock, rap, and hip hop. With his razor sharp, biting guitar, vocals from the gut, and top-notch skill as a songwriter, Popa Chubby artfully combines the rootsiness of blues with the more modern urban elements of today's popular music.

In May 2000, Dixiefrog released How'd a White Boy Get the Blues? in Europe, where it has sold over 60,000 records and is still climbing. Looking for a domestic label that would understand his unique approach to the blues, Popa brought the album to Blind Pig Records, which released this seminal blues-rock concept record in August of 2001. It uses electric and acoustic guitar blends, drum loops and electronics to show how close the blues, hip-hop and R&B really are. The New York Post said, "The guitar ace is fantastic on this CD - the quintessence of what New York City blues is all about. There isn't a bad song on it."

Popa Chubby's newest CD, Stealing the Devil's Guitar, was released on Dixie Frog Records in February 2006. The 13 songs on this record represent a journey through the real life blues of Popa Chubby. Popa writes from life and from the first track hits a home run with the talking slide blues of "Slide Devil Man Slide". The tone is set and the journey unfolds. Sonically, this record is the most textural to date with lots of slide and acoustic guitar, mandolin, Sitar, and a heavy dose of hard blues rock lead guitar. The urbane rap tome of "Smugglers Game" has Middle Eastern flavors and ejects the listener to exotic border crossings. The heart-rending dirge of "Preacher Man" bemoans the trials of the entrusted. The Western saga "Young Guns" sets the stage for a shootout between new and old- because if you want to take the devil's guitar, you got to steal it!

Discography:
Studioalbums:
1995 - Booty and the Beast
1995 - Hit the High Hard One (Live)
1996 - Gas Money
1996 - It's Chubby Time
1997 - One Million Broken Guitars
1998 - Brooklyn Basement Blues
1999 - Popa Chubby Presents New York City Blues
2000 - One Night Live In New York City (Live)
2000 - How'd a White Boy Get the Blues?
2001 - New York City Blues (Again
2001 - Flashed Back (Songs From The '60s Blues And Beyond) (feat. Galea)
2002 - The Good the Bad and the Chubby
2003 - Black Coffee Blues Band
2003 - Popa Chubby Live at FIP
2003 - Old School - Popa Chubby and Friends Play
2004 - Peace, Love and Respect
2005 - Wild Live
2005 - Big Man Big Guitar: Popa Chubby Live
2006 - Electric Chubbyland Volume One
2006 - Stealing the Devil's Guitar
2006 - Electric Chubbyland (3CD box set)
2007 - Deliveries After Dark
2008 - Vicious Country
2010 - The Fight Is On
2011 - Back to New York City
2013 - Universal Breakdown Blues
2014 - I'm Feelin’ Lucky (The Blues according to Popa Chubby)
2015 - Big, Bad and Beautiful (Live) (DoA, Live)

Compilations:
1996 - The First Cuts
2003 - The Hungry Years
2005 - Ten Years With Popa Chubby Best Of‎

Sweat
Popa Chubby Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Oh man, my head is killing me. Give me a smoke.
Yeah, somebody open the window it's hot in here.
Where am I anyway?
How did I ever get in here?
And how? How do I get out?
I was standing in the corner when they dragged you in the room.
Your eyes were red and bloodshot, your face was full of doom.
Sat you in the middle, and you swore you would not beg.

Then you crawled out to the window, on a pair of broken legs.
You said I know I'm crazy I hear voices in my head.
If I end up in that rubber row, I might as well be dead.
Looked down to your navel, began to hum a tune
Suckin' like a millionaire, on your silver spoon. You started to sweat.
Bullets from your soul.
Sweat.
Lost all means of self control.
Sweat.
Like a twenty dollar whore.
Sweat.
Lord, that's when she walked through the door.
She said her name was Sadie, that she was your doll.

She said Lay back and enjoy it. You know it's just a perk.
A blow job's better than no job Lord a girl's just got to work.
A look of catatonia, came upon your eyes.
When she took your head between her hands, sure did get a rise.
She made you sweat.
Ah, let me tell you about her man . . .
Six foot five and bullet proof, three hundred pounds of meat.
Badder than a bad dog lying dying in the street.
Sadie looked from me to him, then back from him to you,
Then she passed out cold from thinking 'bout the things that he might do.
Pulled a pistol from his pants, apologized and sighed.
Shot her sixteen times, one more time and said good-bye.
Left us sitting all alone, all we could do was cry,

And the sweat that mingled with our tears was such a sweet good-bye.
Made you sweat.

Overall Meaning

The song "Sweat" by Popa Chubby is a dark and gritty depiction of a scene in which the main character finds himself at the mercy of a group of people who seem to be involved in some kind of dangerous and possibly illegal activity. The lyrics describe the physical and emotional response of the main character to the situation and the events that transpire as a result.

The opening lines of the song convey a sense of confusion and disorientation, as the main character wakes up in an unfamiliar place and struggles to make sense of his surroundings. As the song progresses, we learn that he is in the company of a group of people who are engaging in some sort of illicit activity, and that he may be in danger.

The chorus of the song, which repeats the word "sweat" over and over again, serves as a kind of mantra that captures the intense emotional state of the main character as he grapples with the dangers and uncertainties of the situation.

Overall, the song is a powerful and evocative depiction of the darker side of human nature, and the ways in which people can be pushed to the limits of their physical and emotional endurance in the face of extreme danger and uncertainty.

Line by Line Meaning

Oh man, my head is killing me. Give me a smoke.
The singer expresses physical pain and requests a cigarette to alleviate the pain.

Yeah, somebody open the window it's hot in here.
The singer requests someone to open the window because it's too hot inside the room.

Where am I anyway?
The singer expresses confusion about their current location.

How did I ever get in here?
The artist questions how they ended up in the current location.

And how? How do I get out?
The artist expresses a desire to leave the current location but is unsure how to do so.

I was standing in the corner when they dragged you in the room.
The singer describes their initial location when the other person arrived.

Your eyes were red and bloodshot, your face was full of doom.
The singer describes the physical appearance of the other person, highlighting their negative state of mind.

Sat you in the middle, and you swore you would not beg.
The other person was made to sit in the center and they promised not to beg.

Then you crawled out to the window, on a pair of broken legs.
The other person attempted to escape through the window with broken legs.

You said I know I'm crazy I hear voices in my head.
The other person admits to being crazy and hearing voices in their head.

If I end up in that rubber row, I might as well be dead.
The other person expresses a fear of being institutionalized and would rather be dead.

Looked down to your navel, began to hum a tune
The other person looked down at their navel, which could be an allusion to a pregnant belly, and started to hum a tune.

Suckin' like a millionaire, on your silver spoon. You started to sweat.
The other person starts to sweat while consuming drugs through a silver spoon.

Bullets from your soul.
The other person is metaphorically shooting bullets from their soul as they continue to use drugs.

Lost all means of self control.
The other person has lost all self-control due to their drug use.

Like a twenty dollar whore.
The other person's behavior is likened to that of a cheap prostitute.

Lord, that's when she walked through the door.
A woman, named Sadie, enters the scene at this moment.

She said her name was Sadie, that she was your doll.
Sadie introduces herself as the other person's companion.

She said Lay back and enjoy it. You know it's just a perk.
Sadie encourages the other person to relax and enjoy the experience, which is just a perk of their current situation.

A blow job's better than no job Lord a girl's just got to work.
Sadie implies that performing sexual favors is better than having no job and that she has to work to survive.

A look of catatonia, came upon your eyes.
The other person's eyes grow wide with a look of catatonia, possibly due to Sadie's actions.

When she took your head between her hands, sure did get a rise.
When Sadie touches the other person's head, they become sexually aroused.

She made you sweat. Ah, let me tell you about her man . . .
Sadie makes the other person sweat due to sexual excitement. Then the singer introduces a new character, Sadie's partner.

Six foot five and bullet proof, three hundred pounds of meat.
Sadie's partner is described as a large, imposing figure.

Badder than a bad dog lying dying in the street.
Sadie's partner is characterized as being more dangerous than a dying dog in the street.

Sadie looked from me to him, then back from him to you,
Sadie surveys the room and the people in it, including the other person and her partner.

Then she passed out cold from thinking 'bout the things that he might do.
Sadie faints due to thinking about the violent things her partner might do.

Pulled a pistol from his pants, apologized and sighed.
Sadie's partner pulls out a gun from his pants and apologizes before shooting her multiple times.

Shot her sixteen times, one more time and said good-bye.
Sadie's partner kills her by shooting her sixteen times and then leaves the scene.

Left us sitting all alone, all we could do was cry,
The other person and the singer are left alone and overcome with emotion, crying over Sadie's death.

And the sweat that mingled with our tears was such a sweet good-bye.
The tears mixed with sweat are symbols of good-bye to Sadie, who had made the other person sweat before her death.

Made you sweat.
Repeated from an earlier line, this is a reminder of Sadie's ability to make the other person sweat and possibly hinting at their sexual connection.

Contributed by Grace G. Suggest a correction in the comments below.

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TRACKS