Horowitz adopted the name Popa Chubby in 1990 during a jam with Parliament-Funkadelics Bernie Worrell. He was singing a song called Popa Chubby and he pointed at me, he says. Given Horowitz's dimensions and his proclivity for getting audiences excited, the tag fit. Following two initial albums on his own Laughing Bear label, he was signed to Sony's briefly revived O-Keh Records, the one-time imprint of Mamie Smith, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong and other influential blues and jazz artists. Popa Chubby came into his own as a songwriter with 2002s The Good, The Bad & the Chubby with the affectingly sincere post-9/11 testimonial Somebody Let the Devil Out. His next album, 2004's inspired Peace, Love, and Respect upped the ante as an election year protest album with hard-cutting tunes about First Amendment rights ( Un-American Blues) and corporate war-mongering (Young Men). After tipping his hat to Hendrix with the three-disc Electric Chubbyland set and tour in 2006 and 2007, Popa Chubby's subsequent three albums including 2010s The Fight Is On have chronicled his desire to reconnect with his rock and blues roots while pushing both genres boldly into the future a task expertly accomplished by an extraordinary blend of song craft, musicianship and personality in Back To New York City that telegraphs the message what you hear is what you get. People look at me and expect a certain thing, Popa Chubby reflects, and don't realize theres more behind the picture. They see a big, burly guy with tattoos, and they expect to get beat over the head. And you will get beat over the head, but youll also get rocked to sleep, and there'll be poetry in there too.