Chris Smither on getting older, getting wiser and where in the world he feels happiest.

“Smither is an American original – a product of the musical melting pot and one of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world.” (Associated Press)

Chris Smither has had a performing and recording career for nigh on fifty years and has just released his 18^th album, Call Me Lucky. It’s a terrific piece of work showcasing his skill and experience as a bluesman, guitarist and songwriter.

His songs have been covered along the way by artists like Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Emmylou Harris and John Mayall, and he’s renowned for his rhythmic acoustic fingerpicking guitar. Long-time producer David Goodrich worked on the album with Smither, along with Billy Conway, Matt Lorenz, Keith Gary and Mike Meadows, to create a fine, bluesy album of Americana that features eight Chris Smither originals and a three nicely conceived, but surprising covers. It’s effectively a double album, the second CD consisting of a cover of the Beatles’ She Said, She Said and a reworking of five of the songs on the first.

As you’d expect on a Chris Smither album, the lyrics are sharp and laced with wry humour, without ever being cynical, the new songs demonstrating once again the importance of Chris Smither as a songwriter and artist.

Chris is touring with this album throughout the US and UK through until the Spring of next year. Be sure and catch a show! Down at the Crossroads chatted to him about the album:

DATC: Chris, Tell us about the idea behind the album, is there an overall thrust or theme of the album? And maybe a bit about making the album.

CS: At some point along the line I decided it’s time to make a new record and that means I need to write some new songs. Because I don’t write all the time, I write for specific projects. Having said that, of course, most of the songs are written within a nine months period and that usually means that they are thematically related, because they’re about what I’ve been thinking about lately. They tend to resemble themselves in some respects, but there’s no intentional feeling to the entire thing. If you’re looking for a theme, I’d say the idea behind the record is to get a new record out! [laughs]

The making of the record itself was what has become very standard for me…my producer makes suggestions…he has insights into what’s going on with me that I don’t even have yet. And at one of our meetings – we’d usually get together for a couple of days at a time – we started talking about covers, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do any covers of other people’s songs on this record. And I said well, I haven’t thought about it.

But then we were also having a conversation about Chuck Berry, who at the time was still alive – not for long unfortunately – and he had just turned 90 and made a new record. And we were wondering what Chuck Berry sounded like at 90! And then Goody [David Goodrich] says, hey, play Maybelline in a minor key – see if that sounds like a 90 year old! [laughs] So we started fooling around with it and we said, oh man we gotta do this. Because it changed the song so dramatically.

DATC: Yes, it’s fantastic. It’s like a new song…it’s like a Chris Smither song!

CS: Yes I know! And that kind of sums up this whole subject of covers. We had this on-going conversation about cover songs, and when we were down in Texas working on the record – those guys I was working with, well they stayed up a lot later than I do! I’m an old man, I go to bed at like, 11 or 12 o’clock, but they’re studio rats, they stay up until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. And they started playing around with stuff that we had just recorded. They’d take a song we had just recorded and totally re-imagine it, the whole arrangement. I remember the first one they did, it was the punk version of Down to the South and I walked in the next morning and they said, hey listen to this, do you think you could sing to this?! And I said, yeah, I’ll give it a shot. And it was just a goof, just playing around. And so I did it, and the next night they did another one. And I walked in the next morning and they said, sing this, this is a slow version of a fast song. So we started playing around with it and by the time we had about three of them, we thought, you know this sounds pretty good, we should just include this with the record.

DATC: So these are the alternative versions on the second CD?

CS: Yeah, those are all the alternative versions. It was just sort of playing around in the studio and then saying, hey this is interesting, we should let people hear this.. And then the only song on that disk that isn’t mine is the Beatles’ She said, She said. I had learned the song when I was asked to participate in a John Lennon tribute concert about 3 years ago, and I started working on that arrangement of the song. But then I had to cancel, because I had to have a heart operation, so I never got a chance to play it! And I was fooling around with it one afternoon in the studio and Goody said, What is that? And I said, She Said, She Said, and then Matt Lorenz [The Suitcase Junkett] started in on some harmonies, and we said, yes, we should do this, we should record this.

DATC: That’s interesting, Chris. Of course, you’ve a long history as an interpreter of songs. You’re not afraid to take on classic songs that are very familiar to people. When you decide on a song you’re going to cover, how do you go about that process of re-interpretation, of putting your own stamp on it?

CS: You know, I don’t really think about it that much. First of all, I don’t really think about covering a song unless I’m really familiar with it, where I’ve listened to it a hundred times at least. So basically, I just sit down and start playing around on the guitar, and I don’t ever go back to the original. I want to depend on my own memory of what it was like, because that’ll tell me what it was about the song that impressed me the most.

DATC: With something like Dylan’s Desolation Row, of course, it was probably very difficult to get the original out of your head!

CS: It was, but, you know, even on Dylan songs, when I hear them, I tend to sing harmonies along with them, and more or less the way I think it should go [laughs], and so basically, what happens is what I remember is my own harmony of it, as opposed to the way he does it.

And when you talk about covering Dylan, when I did Visions of Johanna, that whole tune – I do it in 3/4, instead of 4/4 – because that’s just the way I hear it. All the significant lines in that song make for a perfect waltz time – it’s actually 6/8.

DATC: I read in Acoustic Guitar Magazine that they said the album was about the big things – life, love, loss. And I’ve listened to it a lot over the past week or so, and as I’ve listened to it, I get the sense that a lot of it is about just getting older, considering the ups and downs of life, distilling a bit of wisdom that comes with age. Is that about right?

CS: I think you’re right! [laughs] Yeah, I would agree with that! I can’t help it – I’m almost 74, and you start thinking about things, you know? You’re starting to get towards the end and it occupies an increasingly large share of your thoughts. So it’s maybe not surprising that that is what comes out.

DATC: Yes, in Too Bad So Sad, there are a number of lines about this process of getting older, but I love the bit where you’re kind of complaining – “yes I have taken all my meds!” I can relate to that!

I read your essay on turning 60 that you wrote a few years ago for a book on that subject. I’ve not long passed that milestone myself and it seemed like a terrible thing to happen to me, so I thought there might be a bit of wisdom in there! I’m trying to be a bit more philosophical about it now! And one of the things you said was, “I’ve got less energy than I once did, but more than a lot of people half my age” – which I thought was a good attitude. Is that still the case for you, Chris?

CS: Yeah, I think so. People find it hard to believe I’m as old as I am. Of course, when they get close, they realize! But for some reason I haven’t turned grey yet. And that’s the thing that fools people the most! They think, he can’t be that old! And you know, I keep moving – I take good care of myself, I get a lot of exercise and I’m doing well.

DATC: Chris, you’ve had a 50-year career – what keeps you going as an artist, especially the touring, which presumably doesn’t get any easier?

CS: In some ways it doesn’t get easier, but in some ways it is easier, because I can afford nicer accommodation! It’s not too bad. I have slowed down some – I’m doing just under 100 shows a year these days, which is half what I was doing at my peak. But to tell you the truth, I would go crazy if I weren’t doing this. The last few years, we’ve not booked too many dates in January or February, just because it’s too hard to get around – we live in New England and you never know whether you’re going to be able to fly out or get back home at that time of year. But – at the end of those two months, I’m going crazy! I can’t wait to get out there and play! And then sometimes I’m at home for a week and I think, oh no I’ve got to get out again, but as soon as I get on stage I realize, this is what I do, this is what makes me happy.

DATC: Is it just that interaction, that feedback, that dynamic with the audience that does it?

CS: It’s not just that. It’s a place that I go to in my head when I play. I sort of dissociate from myself and I become…not another person, but a different avatar of myself. And if I’m out of touch with it for too long, I start to miss it. And I have countless people who come up to me after shows and say, please don’t stop what you’re doing – and it’s very hard to resist that kind of response!

DATC: Going back to the album, Chris, one of my favourite songs on the album is Nobody Home, which is a kind of wry, slightly caustic take on the current state of the world. You’ve got a few things in your sights here, including social media & disconnectedness. And in one of the verses, you have a preacher  just staring at his phone – getting the news or on FB or twitter, I guess – but his mouth is shut – “there’s nobody home.” And it made me think that the very people who ought to be saying something meaningful or critical of the way things are, are just silent.

CS: You got it! I got through to you! But it’s basically a song about a person looking for help, and he’s looking at all these places and he isn’t able to find it. But I’m not too cynical. But if the mid-term elections here in the United State don’t remedy things, I might get more cynical, because I find what’s going on politically almost unbelievable.

DATC: Yes, on this side of the Atlantic, we kind of watch, with jaws on the floor, each day’s new developments. And you mention quite explicitly in that song the big White House. And the “clown with a comb over, tweeting on his phone.” Again, there’s nobody home. How does this go down with audiences?

CS: You gotta understand about my audiences – nobody would come to my show being totally ignorant of where I stand on some issues. That verse is usually greeted with a huge roar of approval!

DATC: You’re busy touring the US for the rest of the year. And then you’re coming to the UK and Ireland in January. And you’ve been coming over here for a long time. You find get good responses in Ireland?

CS: Oh yeah. It’s a joy. People ask me, what’s your favourite place to play, and I always say Ireland – people there know how to get the best out of you.

DATC: Thank you Chris!

(Photograph credit: Jeff Fasano)

 

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The First Guitar Heroine of Rock ‘n’ Roll

Sister Rosetta Tharpe was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame during 2018 with an award for “Early Influence.” The Hall of Fame hailed her as one of the essential figures in the history of rock and roll” and said that “if she had not been there as a model and inspiration, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis and other rock originators would have had different careers.”

“No one deserves more to be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

Born in 1915, Rosetta Tharpe was a major star during the 1940s and 50s, sensationally filling arenas. In 1951, Griffith Stadium in Washington D.C. sold out, with 25,000 fans clamouring to attend her on-stage wedding. Her trail-blazing rock ’n’ roll tinged gospel performances, driven by her exceptional electric guitar work, sent audiences wild made her a major celebrity. She inspired the early generation of rock ‘n’ roll artists and Johnny Cash called her his favourite singer and biggest inspiration.

An early musical prodigy, Rosetta’s guitar chops were formidable. Reports from people who saw her play repeatedly used the phrase: “she could make that guitar talk.” She played the guitar with abandon, and yet still maintained control. There was power, excitement, pleasure and emotional release in her playing. Gayle Wild, her biographer, says that for Rosetta, the guitar was “an instrument of ineffable speech, of rapture beyond words.” Etta James was blown away by her playing, saying, “she payed guitar kind of like T-Bone Walker, in a real “bad” groove.” One musical director in New York said,

“She could do runs, sequences, arpeggios, and she could play anything. You could say something and she could make that guitar say it…I mean she could put that guitar behind her and play it: she could sit on the floor and play it, she could lay down and play it. And that made the people just go berserk.”

Rosetta was raised by her mother Katie and grew up immersed in the black Church of God in Christ, where Rosetta began to sing and play from an early age. By the time she was a teenager, she and her mother were touring the gospel circuit in the northern Midwest, where tent and revival meetings shaped her musical techniques, learning how to project over shouting, crying and singing worshippers, and developing a guitar playing style that enabled her to be heard and her playing seen by the congregation. Her trademark style of lyrical improvisation was likewise developed at this time.

After leaving the church for a period of time and making it big in the jazz clubs of New York City during the Swing Era (she became known as the “swinger of spirituals”) and playing with the likes of Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong, Rosetta returned to her sanctified roots as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, developing a successful career that was both career and calling.

Rosetta’s faith was a constant throughout her life, singing her gospel songs like Precious Memories and Didn’t It Rain, right up until her death. At her funeral, the eulogy said that, “she always testified of God’s goodness to her and he undying love for Him. She suffered a lot but she realized that if we suffer with Him we shall also reign with Him.”

No doubt it was that faith that sustained her during the struggles she had during her life, both as an African American and as a woman. She lived and performed during the Jim Crow era in America, where for black artists, pervasive racial discrimination and police harassment was a deeply resented fact of life. As she toured, she could not eat at most restaurants, stay in most hotels or use public toilets. To get around the problem of restaurants not serving black people, she employed a white chauffeur, who, when they had an emergency need for food when travelling, would go into the restaurant and buy food for the whole group. She sings, in her release of “Trouble in Mind” in 1941, “When you see me laughin’, I’m laughin’ just to keep from crying,” poignantly conveying the pain of the black community.

She also suffered a considerable amount of domestic abuse. Her first husband, Tommy Tharpe, was a preacher who benefited greatly from his association with Rosetta, but he was unfaithful to her and beat her. She married Foch Allen, after her divorce to Tharpe in 1943, but he proved to be both unsupportive to her career and abusive, interested only in what he could get out of her. Her third husband, Russell Morrison, whom she married in a fabulous stadium wedding, exploited her financially, insisting on her performing towards the end of her life when she was very ill.

It’s a familiar story with women artists, maybe particularly black women artists – Billy Holliday, Aretha Franklin, Tina Turner, Mariah Carey, Whitney Houston, Rihanna. As Zora Neale Hurston put it in Their Eyes Were Watching God “De n***** woman is de mule uh de world so fur as Ah can see.” Rates of domestic abuse are bad enough generally, but black women suffer from much higher rates of death from domestic violence than others. Unbelievably, the state of Mississippi still refuses to make domestic violence and other abuse grounds for divorce. What a disgrace. Sadly, as music journalist Jim De Rogatis said in a 2013 interview, “Nobody matters less to our society than young black women. Nobody.”

Yet Rosetta had the strength of will and personality to rise above the enormous obstacles and set-backs she faced. Armed with her faith, her huge talent and her charisma, she paved the way, howling and stamping and wielding a mean electric guitar, for the rock ‘n’ roll artists who would follow her and lived a life that continues to reverberate and influence right up to the present.

Read the biography of this remarkable woman: Gayle F. Wald, Shout, Sister Shout: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer, Sister Rosetta Sharpe.

 

And for a fine collection of her songs: The Absolutely Essential 3 Cd Collection Box Set

And check out this terrific cover of the Tommy Dorsey song that Rosetta made her own, by Brooks Williams and Hans Theessink.

40% off The Gospel According to the Blues

The Gospel According to the Blues dares us to read Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in conversation with Robert Johnson, Son House, and Muddy Waters. It suggests that thinking about the blues–the history, the artists, the songs–provides good stimulation for thinking about the Christian gospel. Both are about a world gone wrong, about injustice, about the human condition, and both are about hope for a better world. In this book, Gary Burnett probes both the gospel and the history of the blues as we find it in the Sermon on the Mount, to help us understand better the nature of the good news which Jesus preached, and its relevance and challenge to us.

“The Gospel According to the Blues is at once a primer in American music, culture, and race and religious history. Gary Burnett moves deftly from lyrics to theory and back again, from Blind Lemon Jefferson to the insights of contemporary scholarship. Highly readable, thoroughly researched, and with deep respect for the art form on every page. For best results, read with scratchy vinyl recordings of the masters as accompaniment.”

Michael J. Gilmour, Providence University College, Otterburne, Manitoba, Canada

Order at: Wipf and Stock quoting LABOR40

 

Ry Cooder’s searing critique of false religion

Ry Cooder has been making music and recording for the past 50 years and his latest album, The Prodigal Son, his first for six years, has been hailed as “destined to become an instant classic” (Daily Telegraph), the produce of a “musical mastermind” (Rolling Stone) and “completely fresh and contemporary” (NPR). MOJO declared it “A career-high.”

It is, indeed, something of a masterpiece – perhaps remarkable, in that it is a collection of gospel songs and the artist himself makes no claim to belief. But this is music that Cooder has always loved. “I’m not religious,” he says, “but I always felt drawn to these songs. There’s some kind of reverence mood that takes hold when you play and sing.” For Cooder reverence means “being a conduit for the feelings and experiences by people from other times, like when you stand in an old church yard and let the lonely tombs talk to you…I think any creative artist has to have a sense of a truth or force beyond the visible.”

These are songs that will speak to anyone, believer or unbeliever. The arrangements, musicianship and feeling – and the songs, what a collection of songs – are spiritually powerful. There’s humanity, decency, inspiration, hope in these songs, that anyone can feel. If you are a person of faith, however, you’ll find an extra dimension of faith, encouragement and challenge here too.

All of this much needed, of course, in these days of political bitterness, disregard for the truth, corporate greed, and desperate social inequality and injustice. So thanks, Ry, for putting the spotlight on the spiritual values that can ground us and help make us human again.

71-year Cooder plays guitar, bass and mandolin in what is mostly a carefully curated selection of blues and gospel from the early 20th Century. There are three Cooder originals, Shrinking Man, Gentrification and Jesus and Woody, the latter bemoaning the current state of the world and imagining Jesus telling Woody Guthrie “Guess I like sinners better than fascists, And I guess that makes me a dreamer too.”

Source: https://rycooder.com

Cooder’s reworking of other songs include Carter Stanley’s Harbour of Love; Blind Roosevelt Graves’ I’ll Be Rested When The Roll Is Called; You Must Unload by Blind Alfred Reed; Straight Street by The Pilgrim Travelers; William L Dawson’s, In His Care; and two songs by Blind Willie Johnson, Nobody’s Fault But Mine and Everybody Ought to Treat  A Stranger Right (“Blind Willie’s music is pure trance, it’s not 12-bar blues or any suchlike…In steel guitar heaven, I felt Willie looked down and saw that was good,” says Cooder. (Mind you I’m not so sure Willie would have been happy about Ry slipping in those couple of lines which adds Buddha to Jesus in Nobody’s Fault But Mine.)).

The choice of songs is masterful, and the treatment of each brings them bang up to date, without losing their original intent or spirit.

One of the most powerful songs on the album us You Must Unload, written by Blind Alfred Reed, who was recorded, along with The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, at the famous 1927 Bristol Sessions (The “Big Bang” of modern country music).

The song mercilessly challenges “fashion-loving, money-loving and power-loving” Christians – arguably broad swathes of self-proclaimed believers in North America and Europe – and tells them they must “unload.” Anyone who has read their New Testament scriptures would recognize the voice of John the Baptist here, with his fiery denunciation of religious self-satisfaction, or indeed, Jesus, with his searing critique of acquisitiveness and love of money. The Old Testament prophets, too, from which John and Jesus took their cue, were unflinching in their lambasting of those who were content with religious observance but yet oppressed the poor, sought power and preferred a nice glass of wine with their feet up to helping their neighbour – go and read the eighth century prophet Amos and you’ll see what I mean.

The song starts with an amusing dig at the fashion conscious whose obsession with “jewellry encrusted high heel shoes” bars them from the joys of heaven. They sure give Ry the blues. And Jesus too.

Then there’s the money loving Christians who don’t pay their way, who think making it in the kingdom of God is easy. Pretty damning of the way a lot of us Western Christians live, isn’t it, indistinguishable from the pushing and shoving and acquisitiveness that is the hallmark of life these days. The urge for more, bigger, better, more choice. And we want it all for ourselves – cut those taxes, let those poor people stand up on their own two feet.

And then the last verse – taking aim at those power-loving Christians. Power is such a seductive thing. As if political power were somehow linked to the Kingdom of God that Jesus talked so much about. But Jesus said his kingdom wasn’t “of this world,” meaning that it wasn’t like the kingdom of Caesar or America or wherever – it isn’t based on violence, the threat of violence, money, or influence. It’s based on love, compassion, generosity. That’s why Christianity was so successful in the first three centuries before it got entangled with government and the trappings of power. Christians lived out the counter-cultural values of love and self-giving service, devoid of political power, and yet ended up attracting huge swathes of the Empire to follow Jesus. Which is what gives the lie to the support for the 45^th President of the United States by so many so-called evangelical Christians. Do they understand the message of the person they purport to follow, if they are prepared to sacrifice values of compassion, love for the stranger, truth, and human decency for the passing gratification of temporary political power? What happened to taking up the cross and following the compassionate, justice-announcing Jesus? Wherein, paradoxically, is to be found the real joy of life.

All of which makes Blind Alfred Reed’s song and Ry Cooder’s fresh interpretation so relevant and compelling right now. It strikes at the heart of a false religion that somehow feels that money and power are compatible with the gospel. They’re not. Thank you Ry for this timely reminder.

The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock’n’Roll

Randall J. Stephens, The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock’n’Roll, (Harvard, 2018)

Randall Stephens has given us a riveting account of the way in which rock music impacted the Christian world in the United States, since its emergence in the 1950s. It’s well researched and detailed, and is expansive in its scope, covering the relationship between early rock ’n’ roll and Pentecostalism, the racism inherent in early Christian reactions to the new music, the resistance of conservative religion to the Beatles and other 60s developments, and then the emergence of Jesus rock, morphing into Contemporary Christian Music and the various reactions to that.

The book is well written and never dull, deftly exploring what has been a complicated relationship between rock and fundamentalist and evangelical religion. Along the way we get something of a history of evangelical Christianity in America over the past 60 years, including the distinction between fundamentalists, evangelicals and charismatic/neo-Pentecostals, and the way in which these groups saw themselves over against the prevailing culture in the United States. I liked the quotation from Duke and Notre Dame historian, George Marsden, which Stephens mentions (albeit noting that it doesn’t tell the whole story): “a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something.”

When rock ’n’ roll first emerged, fusing blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, and country in the 1950s, American Christians viewed it as sinful, deranged, demonic, the “devil’s music.” Yet by the late 60s and early 70s, large numbers of conservative Christians had embraced rock music as a means of evangelism and praise to God. Stephens skilfully tracks this trajectory and is able to demonstrate that “much of what animates evangelical churches in the twenty-first century comes directly from the unlikely fusion of Pentecostal religion, conservative politics, and rock and pop music.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Randall begins by tracing the development of rock ‘n roll from its roots in southern Pentecostalism. The hard-driving, powerful music in the worship of holiness and Pentecostal services gave rise to such popular performers as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Godmother of Rock and Roll, with her guitar-fuelled gospel. From a background in Pentecostal religion came major figures like Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, most importantly of all, Elvis Presley. Presley not only appropriated the rhythms and beat of his white Pentecostal background, but integrated black gospel into his style of singing and performing. Such integration was anathema to white southern evangelicals in the 50s who objected to the “jungle music” and “voodoo rhythms” of rock ‘n roll.

We then have a fascinating chapter entitled “Race, Religion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” where Randall explores the racist nature of white southern Christian reactions to the new music that was capturing the hearts of the nation’s youth. Fears about vulgarity, sexual licence, communist plots, and drinking and dancing combined with the worst of racial prejudice to fuel a fundamentalist loathing of rock ‘n’ roll.

The arrival on the scene of the Beatles in the 1960s is the subject of Randall’s next chapter. Long hair, an emergent youth culture, drugs and androgynous clothing, along with the youth hysteria that greeted the Beatles in America drew the ire and condemnation of church leaders. Billy Graham, in 1968, bemoaned the worldwide “moral deterioration,” which was a clear sign of the approaching apocalypse. Randall takes us through the fall-out in the Christian world of John Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus now” remark through to the beginnings of some soul-searching amongst evangelicals about how they needed to relate to a younger generation.

The next phase of the story is the emergence of Jesus rock and its morphing into Contemporary Christian Music, and the various reactions to it. Randall does an excellent job of catching the spirit of the time in the early 70s when some Christians, led by people like Larry Norman, began to express their faith in the medium of rock music. “Why should the devil have all the good music?” Norman asked. Or indeed, long hair and hippie attire. Even Billy Graham began to wear his hair longer, as folk and rock music were increasingly incorporated into church youth events. Professional rock and pop performers flourished, including Norman, Barry Maguire, Phil Keaggy, Chuck Girard and Cliff Richard, and mainstream performers like Johnny Cash, Pat Boone and eventually, at the end of the 70s, Bob Dylan proclaimed the gospel in their songs.

All of this provoked a furious fundamentalist reaction with figures liked Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye and Jimmy Swaggert fulminating against “a musical revolution that integrated aggressive music and aggressive sex” which ought never to be mixed with the gospel. Notwithstanding this, by the 1990s, Christian pop music and rock-infused worship music had broadly infiltrated the evangelical church and Contemporary Christian Music made up a respectable share of the total recording market, returning huge revenues to successful bands through sales of recordings and merchandise.

Randall closes this fascinating study with a short review of bands and artists with a Christian outlook which have gained critical and popular acclaim, including some that attempted to crossover from a Christian market to a more general one. He notes the Christian background and motivation of U2, and amusingly recounts the late 1990s foray of crooner Pat Boone into the heavy metal arena.

The Devil’s Music is a highly engaging examination of the struggles of American evangelicalism with the emergence and mainstreaming of rock music that gives us an important insight into the nature of the modern form of this type of Christianity, its values and fears. It’s a remarkable story of shock, opposition, accommodation and finally embrace which anyone interested in both the recent history of the church or that of rock ‘n’ roll will thoroughly enjoy.

[Randall Stephens has included a great Spotify playlist based on the book here]

Dana Fuchs in conversation: songs of hope and perserverance

Dana Fuchs’ 4^th album, Love Lives On, drips with emotion, honesty and passion. Recorded in Memphis, the songs are soaked in traditional American soul, along with a huge dollop of blues, and yet sound bang up to date. Born out of the pain of family loss and also the birth of her baby, Dana Fuchs sees the album as something of a new beginning for her. It is, she says, “all about hope and perseverance.”

Down at the Crossroads talked to Dana about making the album and the background to some of the songs.

DATC: Congratulations on the new album, Love Lives On. It’s got a great classic feel to it, great arrangements, great vocal performance – we love it! Tell us about the background of making the album and what you were trying to do with it.

DF: Thank you!  I decided to get out of New York City and go to the root of the music that inspired me to follow my passion.  The southern soul of Stax/Volt, Hi Records and Sun Studios. From Otis Redding to Al Green to Johnny Cash.  All huge musical influences.

It’s a way of paying homage to these great artists who inspired countless others.  All roads pointed to Memphis.  I wanted less heavy guitar and more space for the vocal. So, in

February and March 2017 we wrote songs with that direction which was so much fun because we only wrote with acoustic guitars and we would sing the horn lines we imagined creating with Memphis horns. Then I took a European tour that April trying them out live and then I went to Memphis to record my faves in May 2017.

DATC: Musically, it’s very rich – you’ve really got a great Memphis soul sound going, Tell us a bit about the musicians you worked with and the process of making this album.  

DF: The core band was:

• Charles Hodges – Charles created the soul rock organ!  At one point I had a steady diet of those Hi Record recordings of the Reverend Al Green.  I never really knew much about the Hammond organ until I discovered these records as a young girl.  That warm enveloping syrupy church sound that just makes you swoon.  Charles Hodges created that as far as I’m concerned.
• Steve Potts is the drummer – I wanted a seriously rooted drummer.  A guy who had as much power as he does soul.  A guy that defies all genre.  That is Steve Potts.  Almost 70 years old and plays with the strength of a 20 year old but with the wisdom and finesse that comes from his years of experience playing with so many legends of these genres.

 

• Then there is Glenn Patscha – Glenn has played on every album I’ve made except my very first.  He’s truly a musical genius.  He brings a flare and style to the piano, Wurlitzer and organ that is so unique.  It’s incredibly unpredictable.  He plays as if he’s a string or horn section and literally sings the parts for both before they even exist.  He can make keyboards sound like guitars, strings, horns, bells and go from dark and moody to happy and hopeful in one measure. It’s other worldly.
• Jack Daley is the powerhouse bass player.  He’s got such a feel and focus that just glues together every song.  He’s also been on most all of my albums.  Not to mention he’s just a Prince of a human being.  Jack is such a strong presence on bass yet at the same time can totally adapt and go with any flow.  He’s like that personally, as well.
• And then, Jon Diamond – Jon is the person I began my real musical pursuit with.  He is the one who turned me on to Otis and Al Green.  He puts the music under my words and knows where I’m going with something, sometimes almost before I do.  It’s a real songwriting partnership.  He’s been in the trenches with me since day one.  For better or for worse…hahahaha!

These guys were the live tracking band and made the songs come to life.  We’d listen down to the acoustic demo of each song once or twice and Steve the drummer would say, “Let’s cut it!” And we’d go in and usually they’d nail it in the first or second take.

It was seamless.  After that we brought in the horns.  Marc Franklin and Kirk Smothers.

They are the main studio guys down there and I see why!  They were lightning fast.

I’ve never worked with a horn section before, but it was amazing to be able to say, “Hey guys, can you make that part a little more…sad?”  Sometimes I’d say “lonely” or “desperate” or “hopeful’ and they’d just nail it in one take.  The singers were also just unbelievable.  Reba Russell and Susan Marshall.  Again, lightning fast and this style just pours from their bodies and throats!   Felix Hernandez was another gem we discovered down there.  We kept hearing congas on a few of the tracks and I finally asked the producer Kevin Houston if he could find someone.  We were almost out of time, but he delivered Felix and Felix more than delivered!

All of the musicians were chosen by Kevin Houston our producer except my NYC guys who’ve played on most of my albums:  Jon Diamond, Jack Daley and Glenn Patscha.

DATC: The album has a very positive, uplifting vibe. How much does that reflect your approach to life? Because as I understand it, life was pretty difficult for you at one stage.

DF: Yes, life definitely threw some tough punches my way and knowing that this is what life tends to do and many others have had it far worse, I was able to make the choice to use it as a way to grow and maybe even benefit others by sharing through music, or to just shut down.  There were times when I wondered if I’d ever be able to find joy on stage or in music again, but music never let me down.  (The business might – but the music doesn’t!).  As a Dutch friend of mine who works with refugees, addicts, orphans and autistic kids likes to say “we can go bitter or go better”.  I love that.  So, the album became about hope and perseverance.  Hopefully for anyone struggling who listens to it they’ll know they’re not alone.

DATC: Tell us about Callin’ Angels. It sounds like a call to be defiant in the face of difficulties.

DF: This is a song that has a verse for each family member who I lost.  The idea came about when I arrived at our Harlem studio at Jon Diamond’s place to write and he was playing the chords and saying “Come on all you angels.” Which struck me as odd because he’s an atheist and Jewish! He had no intention behind the words and was just thinking “gospel” style.  I immediately recalled a message someone sent me after my mother passed saying that with all the family loss I now had a lot of angels watching over me.  I was struck by the sweet sentiment and then reflected on how many of us have gone through loss already, so it has become a song of conjuring our lost loved ones in our hearts at every show.  But, I love that you see the defiance because it’s definitely there. There are times when I just speak to my brothers, sister or parents and say: “where the hell are you and why did you have to leave too soon?”  Sort of telling them “ok, if you’re angels watching over me, give some clue as to what the heck I’m supposed to be doing!”

DATC: And then there’s the gospel feel of Faithful Sinner, with the invitational church organ at the outset. What’s the background to that song?

DF: This song is about my father who went into the hospital with pneumonia and then was sent to a rehabilitation center to get his strength back.  He never did and died there hours after the family left him for the night.  I know that he knew he was going and I could see how scared he was.  He was a very tortured soul who had one of the most brutal lives of anyone I’ve ever known.  Severely abused by his own father & mother.  His father’s beatings only stopped because his father took his own life.  My father found him.  With all that pain he was most certainly a flawed parent.  Yet he tried so hard to do what was right.  A young man with 6 kids of his own struggling to keep his family running, he still always made sure we had a Christmas tree with toys, Easter baskets, bicycles he taught us to ride and he even made Halloween costumes every year for us with scraps of things around the house.   He could also be very angry and scary – especially when he drank.  That’s when the pain would overcome him, I think.  Still we knew he loved us.  He’d go to schools battling for us if we were wronged.  In the end, I know he felt so much guilt for where he failed as a parent.  He was raised Catholic and convinced God would never forgive him.  After he died my brother had a dream where my father told him that he thought “God set him up to fail.” This floored me, and I thought about my dad being once a beautiful little baby with so much hope and promise only to be neglected, abused and then try still to be a good person and father.  Which in many respects he most certainly was.  Hence, Faithful Sinner.  Ultimately, aren’t we all just flawed beings who are trying (I hope) to do the right thing?

DATC: Have you a particular favorite song on the album, one that’s particularly meaningful for you?

DF: It changes around.  First it was, Love Lives On, because that song was written for my mother while she was passing away next to me and I had just found out I was having a child.  Then it was Faithful Sinner and lately Sedative because it’s such a fun one to do live.  Plus, everyone initially thought it was about sex and a relationship gone wrong but it’s about panic attacks in the middle of the night from a mind that’s gone wrong!

DATC: You’ve included a cover of Ring of Fire. Johnny Cash’s original with the mariachi horns and so on is so distinctive, I wondered how you could do it differently. But it’s great. Why did you decide to include this?

DF: After my father passed away, I began covering this song live in this gospel way dedicating it to him each night.  He was a huge Johnny Cash fan as was I, thanks to him playing it for us as kids.  It was always so well received by audiences and once I knew I was recording in Memphis it made so much sense to add it.   It’s become a tribute to two great and tortured souls with bellowing voices.

DATC: You’re an ambassador for the JED Foundation. Tell us about that.

DF: The JED foundation is an organization whose mission is to protect the emotional well-being and prevent suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults.  Statistically, teens and young adults are suffering at alarming rates from a range of mental health issues including suicidal ideation and attempts. This level of emotional distress can be brought on by being overwhelmed with the transition into adulthood, especially if they’re battling depression, anxiety, bullying, discrimination, or any number of hidden triggers in their lives. I was approached by the CEO, John MacPhee, a few years ago, who is a fan and had been to several of my shows and heard me talk about my sister’s suicide around a song I’d written for her called, Songbird Fly Me To Sleep.  Since then, I have trained with JED and The Moth to become a JED Storyteller and I always attend their storyteller events and fundraisers, where young people get up and share their lived experiences. It’s really a smart approach, because hearing another person sharing what happened to them and how they got, or fought through it, is an incredible way to reduce stigma and create empathy and understanding. The song, Fight My Way is another one of my faves on the album, which I wrote just 2 days before going to Memphis to record, about the stories I’d just heard the night before from several young people who, if not for the right support, wouldn’t likely be here today.  I was so moved and shaken by it that I had to write a song about it.  Being a JED Ambassador simply means I spread the word through sharing my story and lived experience and I always point to JED’s amazing resources online any time I’m given a platform.  So, for me that’s always connected to music. On stage, in the studio – wherever.  It’s the only megaphone I have so it’s the best way I can hopefully serve the cause.

DATC: Dana, thank you!

Mavis Staples at Union Chapel, London – 7 Things We Learned.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Mavis Staples has had a remarkable career. She sang with her family band which moved from their church roots in the 50s to the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, before becoming a commercially successful R&B group in the 70s. Turning solo, Mavis recorded with Prince and in the last twelve years or so, has re-invented herself as a rootsy, bluesy, Americana artist, with a heavy dose of gospel. Her latest album, If All I Was Was Black addresses the broken heart of today’s America, suggesting that, despite the racism, violence and lying, redemption is possible. Mavis Staples wants to “Bring us all together as a people – that’s what I hope to do. You can’t stop me. You can’t break me. I’m too loving,” she says. “These songs are going to change the world.”

Down at the Crossroads caught her show in Union Chapel, London. Here’s what we learned:

1. Mavis Staples is a lovely person. That’s it. No qualifications. She loves her band, she loves performing and she loves her audience. And it showed from the moment she breezed onto the stage to warm applause and cheering at Union Chapel.

 

2. Union Chapel is a wonderful concert venue in north London. It’s a working church which hosts gigs by major artists and recording sessions, and has fantastic acoustics. Nobody is very far from the artist which gives the whole things a wonderful, intimate feeling. You can sign up for dinner before a gig and so get in early to nab your seat – and contribute to the church’s homeless ministry by so doing.

 

3. Mavis’s first song set the stage for the rest of her set – she sang about “love and peace,” and invited the audience to “take my hand.” “I got people who love me,” she sang, in that unmistakable voice which can rasp, croon, scat or belt it out, as the need may be. You begin to feel the love, forgetting for a while Trump, Brexit and all the other stuff that has been annoying you. We ended up, most of us strangers, holding each other’s hands and beaming like children.

 

4. Love and peace for sure – but also, she said, she was there to bring us some “joy, happiness, inspiration and positive vibrations.” And that she did for about 75 glorious minutes (too short, Mavis, but then you have just turned 79, sorry for bringing that up!).

5. And the joy and inspiration clearly comes from Mavis’s Christian faith – she unabashedly gave us the old blues song, Death Comes Creeping (covered by a host of artists, including Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell and Bob Dylan) – asking “whatcha gonna do when death comes creeping at your door?” Followed up by Far Celestial Shore, with its “jubilation, joy and exaltation when I see my lord.”

 

6. That faith is no other-worldly faith, but one that is driving for change here and now. She talked about working for justice in the 1960s, inspired by Rev Martin Luther King Jr., and about needing to continue that work, especially at the moment. “I’m thinking about going up to that White House,” she said, to the biggest cheer of the evening. Go for it Mavis!

 

7. Her five-piece band was everything you’d expect from long-time collaborators. Guitarist Rick Holmstrom treated us to a wonderful virtuosic display in a variety of styles, rewarded along the way by a fist bump from Mavis, and singers Donny Gerrard and Vicki Randel rounded out the sound, allowing Mavis to let her vocals soar with freedom.

A glorious, inspirational evening – keep going, Mavis, we love you!