Joe Louis Walker – Love is the strength of our lives

Joe Louis Walker has given us another cracking album, after 2012’s much-acclaimed Hellfire. In Hornet’s Nest Walker and his band are in fine, fine form with a hugely entertaining album of nine originals and three covers. Musically we get a set of highly enjoyable blues-rock, which punches you right in the face from the first note of the first track, with a nice sprinkle of gospel here and there. Right at the end of the album, after all the strutting and bombast (in the nicest possible way, of course!) from Walker and the band, we get the pure gospel of “Keep the Faith.” Introduced by unmistakable big gospel piano chords, Walker launches into his sermon, helped by Hammond organ and beautiful close harmony backing vocals. The music reaches right inside your chest and twists your innards – like all good gospel should.

Keep the faith, Walker says. Keep loving those around you is his message here – “love is the strength of our lives.” Think of a mother’s love, he says – “a job that’s never, never done.” That’s the sort of love that sustains us. Of course, “Everyone gonna lose their way some time;” but there’s always the hope of redemption, of home-coming, if love remains to light our way back. “They said you can’t you can’t go back home again,” says Walker, “But I say they are wrong.”

You can’t help starting to think about the lost son story that Jesus told. You know, the one who tells his father that he wishes he were dead and could he have his inheritance now please? After which he heads off to party until things go horribly wrong and he ends up at the bottom of the heap. But, as Walker says, “the light that shows the way back home always shines,” and the prodigal returned to a warm welcome from his dad. So warm in fact that the village head-man, who normally just walked around rather sedately, left all diginity behind and, quite shockingly to the other on-looking villagers, hoicked up his robes so he could run to meet the returning son.

Love – the light that shows the way home. As St. Paul said – “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” I guess every prodigal who’s found their way back home would agree – someone believed in them, loved them, welcomed them back. “Love is the strength of our lives.”

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Poet Billy Collins – noticing the pain of others

Billy Collins

Billy Collins, former Poet Laureate of the United States (2001 to 2003) is a Distinguished Professor at colleges in New York and Florida. The New York Times has called him “the most popular poet in America”, with his poetry books selling far beyond most volumes of poetry. His poem, The Blues, laced with humor, captures the essence of the blues. Here it is:

Much of what is said here
must be said twice,
a reminder that no one
takes an immediate interest in the pain of others.

Nobody will listen, it would seem,
if you simply admit
your baby left you early this morning
she didn’t even stop to say good-bye.

But if you sing it again
with the help of the band
which will now lift you to a higher,
more ardent, and beseeching key,

People will not only listen,
they will shift to the sympathetic
edges of their chairs,
moved to such acute anticipation

By that chord and the delay that follows,
they will not be able to sleep
unless you release with one finger
a scream from the throat of your guitar

And turn your head back to the microphone
to let them know
you’re a hard-hearted man
but that woman’s sure going to make you cry.

Brilliant, isn’t it? I love the first couple of verses in particular, which point to the repeated first line of the typical blues verse. Take Robert Johnson’s Kind-Hearted Woman Blues, for example: “I love my baby, my baby she don’t love me” – repeated before the resolution of the verse “Really love that woman, can’t stand to leave her be.” Collins suggests that such is the disinterest in other’s pain, that the line needs to be repeated twice.

The point is made with good humor, but the “no one takes an immediate interest in the pain of others” strikes home. Too often we’re too caught up in our own worlds of self-interest, or maybe just the busyness of everyday life to be too worried about the pain of those around us. The blues always have been and always will be a stark reminder of the pain and suffering in the world – it may be at the level of the personal relationship where “your baby left you early this morning” or at the level of injustice in the world (B B King’s That’s Why I Sing the Blues catalogues the injustice suffered by his own community – “It seems like everybody got the blues”).

Ross Douthat in the New York Times recently reported on a Pew Survey on young adults in the United States which indicated that the Millennial Generation is marked by increased individualism – an “increasing absence of local, personal forms of fellowship and solidarity.” It would be unfair to lay this charge only at the door of Millennials, however – our entire society has been characterised by a consuming, self-orientated individualism for a very long time. In fact, the economic basis of our society in many ways is dependent upon this very thing and so the media and advertising industries urge us to keep acquiring, keep consuming, all predicated on our own personal comfort, convenience, development and well-being. Our dedicated self-interest numbs us from neighborly concern with the grief, pain and discomfort of others.

The Christian story, like the twice sung blues line, calls our attention to something beyond ourselves and our own interests. for this is a story of a God who entered in to the poverty, the squalor and messiness of human life so that we might be set free from our self-absorption in order to participate in God’s project of world-transformation, of love and peace, ears attuned keenly to the  insistent cry of injustice all around us – the “pain of others.”

Keb Mo with Robert Johnson’s Kind Hearted Woman Blues

Don’t Give Up On Your Dreams – New Interview with Kaz Hawkins

From Belfast in Northern Ireland, Kaz Hawkins’ star is in the ascendant. With a new, young band and a change of direction musically, she is wowing audiences with her own gospel blues songs, her big personality and incredible singing. It’s all the more remarkable when she tells you about her troubled past, which she has managed to put behind her with a defiant, positive attitude to life.

Down at the Crossroads caught up with Kaz after a triumphant performance recently at the Belfast-Nashville Festival.

DATC: Kaz, I was at your show a few nights ago and it felt very vibrant, very upbeat. People came away feeling that, yes, they’d had a good time, but uplifted, I think, as well. What is it that gives your music this very positive vibe; where does that come from?

Kaz: I think because of the new direction I’m taking. Up until now anything I’ve released has been ballad-y stuff, or my blues rock band, but I’ve got some new guys in now and the musical direction has changed.

I’m surrounded by amazing song-writers and have gone to great song-writing conventions, and festivals and workshops, and I’m aware that it can all get a bit stuffy – not that I want to take away from the integrity of song writing. But I have a kind of fun, quirky, crazy personality and I really want to build that into my music. I try to have a laugh with the audience but also I want people to come away inspired. Music inspires me. I came through a lot of hard times and I always say that music saved my life. All these great divas like Koko Taylor or Etta James, for example, they put everything into their performance. They didn’t walk onto stage and just sing. It came from the very soul of their being.

And that’s what I try to bring to the song writing. And also the stories of my life. But the songs don’t have to be heart-breaking all the time. So when I do a show, I try to do all the meaningful songs at the start and then break out the banter and fun later so that people leave feeling good, because that’s what it’s all about.

DATC: What I’m hearing in your music is a lot of blues and gospel (think of a song like Better Days, for example) – what is it in that music that draws you? And how does this music help you express what you feel you’ve got to say?

Koko Taylor

Kaz: First off gospel – it’s not all about music in a church. In America, gospel music is much bigger than that. And the blues – I don’t know where on earth this feeling of the blues I have in me came from, or where this big gospel voice I have came from. But for me gospel and the blues take me to a place where I feel safe, where I can explore anything. If you’re in pop, you kind of have to work to a sort of format, but with blues and gospel, you can go anywhere you want in a song. You can make it laughter or whatever you want. I know when me and the guys are performing, we don’t want it to end, because we’re feeling the vibe and, you know, three minutes isn’t long enough. It might be in commercial pop. But for me it’s the integrity of the music and for me, blues and gospel gives me that.

I’ve tried to incorporate some contemporary themes into my songs. I love my blues, and gospel and blues gives me a sort of sanity, so I don’t have to write a certain way.

DATC: When you look at the history of the blues, a lot of the songs are not just complaints about life. There’s hope there too – it’s people singing themselves into a better place.

Kaz: Exactly and that’s what saved me, when I had a drug addiction, when I suffered domestic violence – when I listened to the likes of Etta James, Sarah Vaughan, Dorothy Moore, Big Mama Thornton, Janis Joplin, it took me to a place that was mine, my secret place. And that’s where I go when I sing the blues or write my own songs. For me the music’s a really safe haven.

Etta James

But of course it has that kind of dirty edge to it as well, you don’t get that with a lot of genres of music.

DATC: The other thing I’m struck with in listening to you, Kaz, is the sense of hope, of empowerment, of compassion and humanity in your songs – both the lyrics and the music. For you music is entertainment, but it’s more than just that?

Kaz: Oh definitely. I feel like I’m giving back to music for saving me. When you lose everything – and I lost even my own children – the only thing I had left was music. You’ve got to give something back. I call it “blues karma!” If you’re true to the blues, the blues will be true to you! [laughs].

DATC: You’ve an EP available at the moment, but I gather you’re working on a full album. Tell us a bit about it – what can we expect on it and when will it be released?

Kaz: Well, those songs you heard last week are all on the new album. That’s the first time anybody had heard them. Get Ready is the title track and it’s the one we opened up with. It’s the whole ethos of the album and of myself actually. Let’s get ready for peace and love. And that song was written about the riots in Belfast last year, when I got stuck in the middle of it in East Belfast. I wrote this because I thought, if people could really get tapped into music rather than politics and debates about the rights and wrongs – if people had half the passion of songwriters and performers, maybe the world would be an easier place to live in and we wouldn’t be fighting so much.

And on this new album, I wanted to bring back a sense of fun because when people see some of my songs and videos on YouTube, they’re pretty much about the song writing and the message, memories and loss and fighting the fight, and what I wanted to do was give this album a sense of hope – that even though I’d gone through all those hard times, that music had help me close the door to the past – now I have this new vibrant attitude, I have this new band, I have a new message to tell. So half the album is about hope – there’s better days ahead, you can have aspirations, you can have dreams.

So the likes of Soul Superstar – that song  is about me growing up, as a child standing in the wings, waiting for my time to shine. I want to stand as an example to those women out there, who have maybe given up on their dream. That’s why I have this crazy quirky attitude – just because I’m a grandmother now doesn’t mean I can’t have a good time! [laughs]

DATC: On the subject of women, I understand you made a video for Walking on my Own, one of the tracks on your new album which was to celebrate International Women’s Day 2014. Why, would you say, something like International Women’s Day is so important?

Kaz: The fight goes on for women. Guys have come on a long way, but things can still be difficult for women. You notice even the small things. So, for example, when we’re at a gig, I’m running the whole thing, organizing everybody, but then somebody at the venue wants to know who to pay and they go to one of my (male) band members. And they, of course say, “See Kaz.” And I’m standing there the whole time! It’s just so ingrained into men they don’t even know they’re doing it half the time.

For me International Women’s Day is very important. As a women in a male-dominated blues scene I have to fight twice as hard, ten times as hard, as men. It’s taken me 10 years to break the blues scene in Northern Ireland and we’re such a tiny place compared with the rest of the world. But it took 10 years for anybody to take me seriously. So now I tell people, when I made the decision to make blues my life, I was coming through whether anybody liked it or not!

DATC: Good for you Kaz! Now you’re starting a new tour with your band before long? Where will that take you to?

Kaz: All over England and Scotland during September and maybe a bit beyond. And it’s mostly Arts Centre type venues, which is really good. I’ve had good support from some of the magazines, like Blues in Britain, Blues Matters, and Classic Blues is giving away a copy of the EP songs, Better Days, in their next edition. Oh, and Blues and Soul Magazine have awarded me their Rising Star Award for 2014, along with Lawrence Jones.

And it’s great to be playing venues like the John Peel Centre and so on, so that my kind of blues can get played in that type of artistic environment.

DATC: Kaz, thank you. I wish you well in the tour and with the new album and hopefully we’ll get talking to you again before too long.

Visit Kaz’s website

Playing the blues is like having to be black twice – B.B. King

What’s the relationship between the spirituals and the blues? James H. Cone, black liberation theologian and Distinguished Professor of Systematic Theology at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, in his 1972 book, The Spirituals and the Blues, says that both the spirituals and the blues are essentially about the struggle for black survival. He traces the spirituals to ante-bellum slavery in the Southern States in the dehumanizing and brutal experience of the African American community, and says that they were a means of black people “affirming that divine reality which lets you know that you are a human being – no matter what white people say.”

For Cone, “the basic idea of the spirituals is that slavery contradicts God.” They were a means of resisting the white gospel which emphazised the obedience of slaves to their masters. In the Oscar-winning, film 12 Years A Slave, there are two rather chilling scenes where white masters are seen reading the Bible to their assembled black “property,” the one with plantation-owner Epps reading about slaves obeying their masters from the New Testament, being particularly poignant. Cone suggests that songs favoured by black slaves were particularly those that recounted Old Testament stories such as Moses and the Exodus and Daniel and his friends as captives in Babylon. Clearly these stories of deliverance by God of those who are oppressed resonated strongly with a people in bondage, who looked and yearned for a day of freedom.

Cone makes the point that it would be simplistic to see these songs which celebrated passing through the waters of “Jordan” and going to the “promised land” as simply looking in desperation for relief from present sufferings beyond the grave. Such songs often had a double meaning: beyond “spiritual freedom” was “an eschatological freedom grounded in the events of the historical present, affirming that even now God’s future is inconsistent with the realities of slavery.”

Cone traces the roots of the blues to the spirituals, which both lamented black suffering and held out a hope of deliverance. The blues, he says, “are about black life and the sheer earth and gut capacity to survive in an extreme situation of oppression.” As such, the spirituals and the blues “flow from the same bedrock of experience” – the blues are, he says, “secular spirituals.”

Of course, as has often been pointed out, most blues songs are about love, sex and relationships. Son House said the blues were about what happened between a man and a woman. There has, of course, been a steady stream of blues songs which explicitly referred to the evils of the Jim Crow era and have sounded a note of protest – Leadbelly, Josh White, Big Bill Broonzy are prime examples of artists who raised their voices against the social situation in the South. But the blues rise from, and reflect, the context of the oppression of blacks, no matter what their explicit subject matter. They were a means of black people affirming their existence and an expression of their refusal to be destroyed by an oppressive environment. They are, in the words of Charlie Patton, a “Mean Black Moan.” Cone says simply, “the blues is black.”

Does that mean that white people can’t sing the blues? Of course it doesn’t – there is something about the blues that can get under anybody’s skin not matter what color, and something in the words, the music and the whole feeling of the blues that has universal appeal. As Willie Dixon said, “the blues are the true facts of life expressed in song, inspiration, feeling and understanding.” Audiences around the world for the blues are now, probably, predominantly white. And there are many great white blues artists who have a great appreciation for the music and the history. B. B. King said once that “playing the blues is like having to be black twice.” But he went on to say that “Stevie Ray Vaughan missed on both counts, but I never noticed.”

But we can never forget that the blues are deeply rooted in the black experience of oppression and violence in the first half of the twentieth century. As Jimi Hendrix said, “Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.” Ain’t that the truth?