By Shelley Koppel

Entertainment writer

STUART - If you like your blues and gumbo hot, the Sauce Boss is coming to town.

Bill Wharton, aka the Sauce Boss, brings his blues guitar, stories and big pot of gumbo to the Lyric Theatre on June 19. He spoke recently about an act that combines two passions, music and cooking.

The self-styled "inventor of gastronomical boogie-woogie" has been a musician for years, but he began incorporating food into the act in 1990.

"I've always been a musician into roots music," Mr. Wharton said. "I started incorporating food into the show and it moved in a different direction. People talk about a musician 'cooking' figuratively. With me, it's more real life."

What Mr. Wharton does is cook a big pot of gumbo while he and two other musicians perform.

"When I started making hot sauce, I began carrying it around because people demanded it. I began incorporating it into the act because I wanted to show how good it is to cook with. Now, 150,000 bowls later, here we are."

Mr. Wharton described the show as a juggling routine.

"We begin playing a tune or two and the band cooks on the back burner while I do the cooking demonstration. Sometimes we're playing while I'm stirring. At the end of the show, everyone eats at Uncle Bill's Soup Kitchen, either onstage on in the lobby."

Mr. Wharton is from Orlando, but spent a lot of time in Louisiana and learned to make gumbo from guitarist Kenny Neale's mother.

"I usually ask if anyone doesn't like okra," he said. "I say, 'too bad. You don't like it because it's yucky and slimy. Mine's not yucky and slimy.' All you have to do is get it nice and hot and the slime and yuck go away. It's like a miracle cure for okra-phobia."

Mr. Wharton was immortalized by Jimmy Buffett in his song,

"I Will Play for Gumbo," and two of his tunes, "Let the Big Dog Eat" and "Great Big Fanny" were included in a Buffett album. The cooking guitarist is a musician first and a cook second.

"When I first started cooking, I thought it would get a foot in the door," he said.

"We've always been real musicians. It's evolved into something more than a show, more than just music. It's almost like a tent revival meeting with a lot of community in it. It's a soul-shouting picnic of a rock 'n roll brotherhood."

Bill Wharton, the Sauce Boss, comes to the Lyric Theatre, 59 S.W. Flagler Ave., Stuart on June 19 at 7 p.m. Tickets are $30. Call the box office at (772) 286-7827 or order online www.lyrictheatre.com.