He lived for a brief time in California, and later moved to Joilet, Ill., where he stayed for about 30 years, before moving back to the Ellisville area in 2001. He had various jobs in Joilet, including driving a tow truck. At night, he would go into Chicago and play some of the clubs there, but mainly he played in Joilet.

“I was the one in Joilet the singers from Chicago would come see when they came to town,” he said.

He played with blues legends like Muddy Waters, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Koko Taylor and Jimmy Reed.

But in all those years of playing juke joints, and growing up with whiskey stills nearby, he never drank. “I never did drink, smoke, chew tobacco, dip snuff or gamble,” he said. “I never found time for it. God gave us our lives to treat well. I’m in good health by the help of God and his will. I’m still mowing yards for folks and I still work.”

He credited a lot of his music to Blind Roosevelt Graves, a man who used to play and sing on the sidewalk in front of Lott Furniture. “He played on the corner and I would sit by him, and help him around town,” Ulmer said. “A lot of my church songs came from him.”

He remembers when singers like Peewee Crayton, Louis Jordan, Jimmy Reed, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker used to play in Laurel. “But I was too young to go in and hear them, so I just stayed outside and listened.”

With no gigs currently set, Ulmer is enjoying being back in the home he bought in 1983, but only moved to five years ago. He plans to put some songs on CD along with Chase Holifield this summer at a recording studio in Ellisville.