Brooks Williams – caretaking the blues

Brooks Williams has been described – rightly – as “one of the most consistently excellent musicians in roots music,” and his blues-infused Americana has been delighting audiences in the US and the UK for more than 25 years. Rolling Stone magazine once noted his “deft, tasteful guitar chops” – true, for sure, but if you get the chance to see Brooks Williams in concert, you’ll realize just how deft his guitar chops are. He’s a guitar master, guaranteed to make the jaws of any guitarists in the audience drop and to delight the rest.

Brooks, hailing from Statesboro, Georgia, has lived in England these past few years and tours incessantly throughout the UK and the States. He has a back catalogue of nearly 30 albums to his credit and has just recently released a new album of blues numbers. He’s touring the UK this November along with New York blues maestro Guy Davis – a concert with these two will be quite a show, believe me – and the new release, in support of the tour, is simply entitled Brooks’ Blues.

The album is a gem, featuring just Brooks’ voice and guitar  – acoustic, resonator and cigar box, and was recorded live in the studio. The result is a very fine album of traditional and classic blues numbers from the likes of Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Memphis Slim and the Rev. Gary Davis. Given his family background in Stateboro, Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues had to feature – eat your heart out, Allman Brothers!

Down at the Crossroads caught up with Brooks just prior to the UK tour.

DATC: Brooks, you’ve been living in England for a while now, and touring all over the UK. How have audiences here reacted to your music, in comparison with the US, and has your music changed or evolved since moving here?

Brooks Williams: When I moved to England six years ago it felt a bit like I was starting my career all over again. On one level that can be stressful and humbling, but it has also been very liberating. I’ve found the UK audiences to be very switched on about American roots music. They know the movers and shakers. They know the songs. They have an understanding of the tradition. They spotted my connection to American roots music right away and have, literally, applauded the ways I have dug deeper into that tradition both in my writing and in my performing. It’s been like having a mirror held up to my face and being reminded what I look like. There’s a saying in music about performers and writers “finding their voice,” as if it is a one-time thing. I believe that finding one’s voice is an on-going process. Moving to the UK and playing for UK audiences has played a big part in that on-going process for me.

DATC: But you’re still touring in the US as well?

BW: I tour the US quite a few times every year. This upcoming year looks to be the busiest year yet.

DATC: You’ve been very actively recording over the past few years and have just released a new album of blues songs, called Brook’s Blues, with twelve traditional blues numbers and none of your own songs. What was thinking behind this?

BW: I’m doing a month-long UK tour called “Inside The Delta” with American bluesman Guy Davis in November 2016. We’ll each be doing our own sets but also backing each other up. In preparing a set of mostly blues songs for the tour I realized how many songs I know without even digging too deeply into my repertoire. And I realized how much I love these old songs. So in celebration of the “Inside The Delta” tour I recorded all 12 tracks over 3-days, “old school,” with vintage mics, a creaky chair, just my voice and guitar.

DATC: It’s just you and your guitars on the album, Brooks – which puts your guitar work centre stage – always a pleasure! Tell us about the guitars you used on the album.

BW: I used a Collings acoustic with a vintage DeArmond pickup (like Lightning Hopkins had in his acoustic guitar), a National Estralita resonator and my Chickenbone John 3-string cigar box guitar. The amp is a new Fender I borrowed from John Boden. In terms of tunings and slides, I used both glass and chrome slides, depending on the song, as well as a range of tunings from standard to drop-D to open-D to open-G.

DATC: The album kicks off with Robert Johnson’s From Four Until Late, which was famously done by Cream in the ‘60s. You give more than a nod to Robert Johnson in your version, but yours gives us something a bit more sophisticated maybe in the guitar work. How do you go about transforming a song that a lot of people will be familiar with, from the original, into your own interpretation? Particularly with someone like Robert Johnson, who’s a pretty nifty guitar player!

BW: It’s the way I have of transforming a well-known blues song to something else that inspired me to call the album “Brooks’ Blues.” These are the blues as I know ‘em. I’m not even aware that how I know the blues songs is that different to the original. And I don’t really know how I go about arranging the songs. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. Blues songs are just like any other song to me and that means the lyrics are central. Each song has a story. But the extra beautiful thing about a blues lyric is that it leaves the backdoor of interpretation propped wide open while at the same time being exactly what it says it is. We can meet it wherever we happen to be. I’m more interested in singing the lyric than playing the guitar part as it is known on those great classic recordings, which I listen to and love so much.

DATC: You’ve included a Bessie Smith song, Backwater Blues, which features some nice, dark resonator work. Very different from Bessie Smith’s original piano version and it works very well. There always seems to be much more attention given to the early men blues singers than the women – who actually in their day were the much bigger stars. Is there a mine of material there that we’re missing do you think?

BW: Though there are some excellent exceptions – see Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing “Didn’t It Rain” for one! – the blues does seem to be more about the guitar slingers and the men slinging those guitars. However, as you say, that wasn’t always the case – and it shouldn’t be the case moving forward. Early blues was more about the singers and singers in those days were accompanied by a piano. The guitar came to the front later, which is great and has inspired me, but we can’t lose track of the roots of the roots, so to speak. There’s a whole bunch of music we’re missing and some very interesting and nuanced song lyrics waiting to be rediscovered.

DATC: And of course, I suppose Statesboro being your home town, on this sort of album you had to include Statesboro Blues? I guess Willie McTell is an artist you admire?

BW: I had to include Statesboro Blues. It practically says so on my birth certificate! For someone who loves guitar and the blues, what an incredible birthright I’ve been handed. Willie McTell played a mean 12-string guitar and had a beautiful tenor voice. And he traveled the highways and byways of my home state. How he did that as a blind man of colour in the Deep South USA in the 1930s is beyond my scope of understanding. But what isn’t beyond my scope is the fact that all the early bluesmen were first and foremost entertainers. The music is for the people – the community – and it has a place in the community. As such I believe that the blues was just one aspect of their music. It’s the part that’s remained, for sure, but in order to make a living and to sing for and to the people, they had to entertain. That meant doing all kinds of songs – blues, gospel, ballads, show tunes, popular tunes, novelty tunes. My shows are not that dissimilar – nor is Brooks’ Blues – you need a bit of slide, some rock and roll, a gospel song, a ballad, maybe even a country-tinged song.

DATC: The last song on the album is a Rev. Gary Davis song, I Will Do My Last Singing. Of all the Gary Davis songs, that’s an unusual one to choose, but it’s a lovely, lovely version of it – you’d hardly recognize it as a Gary Davis song. Tell us about that.

BW: I was taught I Will Do My Last Singing by the delightful blues duo, Shari Kane and Dave Steele from Michigan USA. I had the great pleasure of doing a couple of tours with them last year. We closed every show with this number. Though I do it quite differently to them, and, obviously, quite different to Rev. Gary Davis’ version, I found the song quite evocative. A bittersweet sentiment that hints at hope. I play it with a slide on my acoustic guitar tuned to open-D.

DATC: Brooks, anyone who’s been to one of your concerts will know how great a guitarist you are. And you run guitar workshops from time to time and you provide tablature and chords for quite a few of your songs on your website. What’s the motivation behind that?

BW: I am more aware than ever that we all need to do our part to see this music lives on in future generations. We all need to tend the fields, so to speak, and plant the seeds. New blues songs need to be written. The old blues songs have to preserved. My hope is that the more of us out there teaching the songs, directing people to both new and classic recordings, and getting people listening to the blues, the more people that will get as hooked on it as I am and will keep it going, either as players, presenters, customers. We need it all. In terms of the players, and why I do the workshops and put tab/chords/lyrics on my website, I’m hoping that maybe they will put their own spin on a Brooks Williams version of an old blues classic. Or maybe even put their own spin on a Brooks Williams song. This stuff isn’t mine, after all. I’m just a caretaker, like everyone else.

DATC: And finally, Brooks, I know you’re a bit of a road warrior in terms of your touring. What’s on the agenda for the next few months?

BW: More touring. Haha! No seriously. More touring. I’m just getting started and I feel like I’m just getting to the good stuff. We’ve got a big tour lined up in the New Year: a month is USA, six weeks in the UK, two weeks in Europe with my band, and on and on. Mine is not an overnight success story. I’ve been doing it too long for that to be the case, but every gig presents the opportunity for me to introduce my music to someone new. I’m winning over fans one at a time and that ain’t a bad thing!

DATC: Thank you Brooks!

Check out Brooks’ website for news, albums, videos and guitar tab.

The “most transcendent piece in all American music” – Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

Blind Willie Johnson’s most famous song is, perhaps, Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground. Of his 29 recorded songs, it’s the one that made it into the illustrious company of Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Stravinsky on the “Golden Record” on board the 1997 unmanned Voyager space probe, intended for the ears of any intelligent extraterrestrial life form who might come upon it. The astronomer Timothy Ferris, who worked with Carl Sagan in selecting the tracks, said, “Johnson’s song concerns a situation he faced many times, nightfall with no place to sleep. Since humans appeared on Earth, the shroud of night has yet to fall without touching a man or woman in the same plight.”

That’s a nice sentiment by Ferris, but it isn’t really what the song is about. In Johnson’s hands, the song, an old sacred hymn, becomes an evocation of Christ’s solitary experience in the Garden of Gethsemane, and, despite the fact that you really can’t hear the words, it is quite graphic. Johnson, more so than on other songs, moans and groans his way through the song as he plays his eerie slide guitar. A contemporary reviewer enthused about the song, referring to “Blind Willie Johnson’s violent, tortured and abysmal shouts and groans, and his inspired guitar in a primitive and frightening Negro religious song.”

Johnson’s guitar playing is generally pretty nifty, and his slide guitar, where he was able to get great tone out of simply using a pocketknife as his slide, is all the more remarkable, given that up to this point there was no slide tradition in Texas where he hailed from, so he must have taught himself – quite remarkable, given his disability. Eric Clapton called his slide work on It’s Nobody’s Fault But Mine “probably the finest slide guitar playing you’ll ever hear.” On Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground, Johnson’s slide is no less assured.Singer-guitarist Jack White of The White Stripes thinks this song is “the greatest example of slide guitar ever recorded.”

Blues historian Steve Calt said of Johnson’s slide guitar: “His tonal control and sense of timing are incomparable: as opposed to other bottleneck artists he varies the speed of his vibrato drastically, often speeding up as he slides into a note. He is also one of the few bottleneck artists with the ability to consistently sound 3 or 4 discreet melody notes upon striking a string once, a skill that … reflects uncanny left-handed strength, accuracy and agility.”

Ry Cooder was impressed with Johnson’s guitar playing generally, “Blind Willie Johnson had great dexterity, because he could play all of these sparking little melody lines. He had fabulous syncopation; he could keep his thumb going really strong. He’s so good – I mean, he’s just so good!”

He went on to say, “Beyond being a guitar player, I think the guy is one of these interplanetary world musicians, the kind of person they talk about in that Nada Brahma book, where the world is sound and everything is resonating. He’s one of those guys. There’s only a few. Blind Willie Johnson is in the ether somewhere. He’s up there in the zone.”

For Cooder Willie Johnson’s Dark Was the Night – Cold Was the Ground is the “most transcendent piece in all American music.” Even without lyrics, the music and Johnson’s moaning are enough to take us right into the Garden on the edge of Calvary with Jesus.

Dark was the night, and cold the ground
on which the Lord was laid;
his sweat like drops of blood ran down;
in agony he prayed.

Father, remove this bitter cup,
if such thy sacred will;
if not, content to drink it up
thy pleasure I fulfil.”

Go to the garden, sinner, see
those precious drops that flow;
the heavy load he bore for thee;
for thee he lies so low.

Then learn of him the cross to bear;
thy Father’s will obey;
and when temptations press thee near,
awake to watch and pray.

The lyrics, as you can see, are sombre and challenging, but Johnson clearly felt that the music and his mournful moaning were enough to take us into that moment of anguish with Christ in the Garden, prior to his impending execution. As in I Know His Blood Can Make Me Whole, Johnson does not shy away from presenting the challenge of what he felt was the central element of his faith.

New interview: Luther Dickinson – passing on the musical tradition

Luther Dickinson is one of today’s outstanding blues musicians, well known for his work with the Black Crowes and North Mississippi Allstars. He’s also got a number of top notch solo albums to his credit – Hambone’s Meditations, Rock ‘n Roll Blues and now Blues and Ballads, Parts I and II. This latest release is a joy from start to finish, featuring twenty one songs from throughout Luther’s career­, new songs, North Mississippi Allstars songs and old favourites – all stripped down, loose and relaxed. It’s the perfect vehicle for Dickinson as carrier of the Mississippi Hill Country blues torch.

Down at the Crossroads caught up with Luther at the Blues Kitchen in Brixton, London, the third of three nights at the Blues Kitchen’s three London venues. Luther played an outstanding set of his psychedelic folk-rock blues, showing why he is renowned for his slide playing and guitar playing generally. Armed with a couple of Gibson Les Paul semis, his Martin Dreadnaught and a guitar he had fashioned out of a coffee can, Dickinson rocked the joint with a selection of songs from Blues and Ballads as well as fuelling Bob Dylan, Fred McDowell and Jimi Hendrix in his own inimitable, captivating style.

He’s a great entertainer, frequently interacting with the crowd and regaling us with stories and comments throughout. Particularly moving was his story about his father, when very ill, suggesting he record Dylan’s Stuck Inside of Mobile, as a one-chord Hill Country blues. “There are things in life which will disappoint you,” Jim Dickinson told his son “but not Bob Dylan.” That’s about right, isn’t it?

Luther, easy-going and relaxed, greeted me warmly as I waited for him before the gig and we found somewhere quiet to have a conversation. We talked about the new album, passing on the musical tradition, the Saturday night-Sunday morning tension in American music and the enduring power of the blues.

DATC: Luther, thanks for talking to us at Down at the Crossroads. First let me ask you about your new album, Blues and Ballads, which has had a great reception and great reviews.

LD: Fooled ‘em again! It’s cool because I realized that the more casual and honest and humble the production and recording experience is, the more people like it. And that’s a good lesson to learn.

It’s very, very pared down, it’s very acoustic and it’s all live. Buddy Miller, the guitar player and producer in Nashville, he really turned me around. He told me –  because we were jiving each other about working together, because he’s busy and expensive!; and I was like, come on, Buddy, just produce this, and he was like, look, just don’t overdub. And it’s so true, just commit to live vocals; and if you need a fiddle player, then call the fiddle player, and if you need background singers, then call ‘em up and wait for them. Get everyone in one room and capture a real performance.

And you know, we grew up with our father, Jim Dickinson, who was a great producer, but he taught us to make the band tracks first and then the vocals being secondary,  And that’s a great way to make records too, but, it’s really been liberating for me to just commit to the live voice. It’s all about the voice.

DATC: You know I thought the vocals in this record were perhaps the best you’ve ever done. Really, really good, really noticeable on this.

LD: Thank you.

DATC: The record’s called Parts I and II. Does this imply more to come in the same vein?

LD: It’s a double album. The inspiration for the record was the song book context. I wanted to make a songbook, because I love songbooks, folk songbooks, hymnals,  whatever. I grew up pre-Internet, I learned from the library, I memorized every book in the Hernando Mississippi library. My grandmother’s hymnals, the early folk songbooks, magazines. I love sheet music, and so I wanted my own proper songbook.

So I re-recorded my favourite songs in a folk fashion befitting a folk songbook, and a handful of new ones, so it’s volumes one and two – and the plan is, my previous solo record, Rock ‘n Roll Blues, I would like to have it transcribed – that would be volume 3, and then have another solo record, Hambones Meditations, [an instrumental album] – transcribed as Volume 4.

And then it starts amassing, you know – it’s not like I’m going to record another Blues and Ballads anytime soon. But the plan is for the songbook to grow.

DATC: The song book is only available with the vinyl, isn’t that right?

LD: Yes.

DATC: And you’ve got a stellar cast on the album. Jason Isbell, Jim Lauderdale, Amy LaVere, Shardé Thomas, JJ Grey, Charles Hodges, Jimbo Mathus. And one of my favourites – Mavis Staples.

LD: Aw, Mavis is the queen! That was the beginning of the whole record.

DATC: She does Ain’t No Grave, which I know is a very personal song. But it’s wonderful what she does with it.

LD: Aw, man. We went to Chicago, she said she wanted to record the song, and I wanted to make sure that happened. If she wants to record one of my songs – let’s make that happen! So I set it up with my band, Amy LaVere and Shardé Thomas, and we go to Chicago and we get the track – first take – band and vocals, first take. And Mavis shows up about an hour later and we get her first take. She sits and listens and reads the lyrics, and it breaks her down. She starts crying.

DATC: It’s a very moving song. I know the context of it. [the song was written by Luther after the passing of his father, producer/singer/songwriter Jim Dickinson in 2009]

LD: My father passed in ‘09. I wrote a lot of songs when my father passed – as he was ill, and when he passed. But that one just came – I woke up one morning, I was on the tour bus and I wrote that song down before I even turned on my light, in my little bunk. It just came out, top to bottom. And at the end of the night, after the concert, I took my songbook and my guitar into the bathroom of the bus and the melody came just as easy. But it was hard to record that song, originally, for Keys to the Kingdom in ‘09. So I asked Ry Cooder to help me with that song. It was so easy to write but I couldn’t figure out the right interpretation. And Ry just played slide guitar – like the master that he is – and I went, of course, slide guitar! And once again there’s another great lesson.

That is another version of the Buddy Miller story, just to keep things simple. And Seasick Steve, he grabbed me by the shoulder and was like, you are the link, you grew up with Otha Turner and R L Burnside, and you are the link, and you’ve got to keep it primitive. He literally shook me and said, “Keep it primitive.”

And you know, my brother and I, we’d fallen prey to, you know, delusions of grandeur and over producing records, but Ry Cooder, just simply playing it on slide guitar and Seasick Steve yelling at me and Buddy Miller saying don’t overdub – these things have formed my new production aesthetic. It’s been really fruitful.

So Mavis came in and she was just first take, and that was the beginning of the record. And every other recording was just as casual. I had a handful of songs. So if I was in Memphis, I’d call my Memphis friends or if I was going to be in Nashville, I’d call my Nashville friends. JJ Grey had always liked Up over Yonder, so I knew I wanted to get him to sing on it . Because we’d been touring together. The songs are like snapshots of who we’re with, when we’re making the record.

DATC: And is Ain’t No Grave a song that you sing often?

LD: Not in night clubs. Unless it’s requested. You know, it’s a sad song about losing a loved one. I don’t want to violate the escapism of having a good time, but if people request a song…but I’m not going to sing that song over a loud crowd, or people who wanna dance.

DATC: There are a number of songs on the album with a gospel feel or theme (Up Over Yonder; Ain’t No Grave; How I Wish My Train Would Come; Let it Roll); we get that coming through in your work over the years, all sorts of scriptural references and echoes, old hymns –  what’s the inspiration for this sort of material?

LD: It’s when my loved ones pass away. I always celebrate them when they pass away. And it started with Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner, and then Lee Baker, my father’s guitar player in Mudboy and the Neutrons – he was murdered, you know. I’m a folk musician, I play loud psychedelic blues rock, but I’m a folkie at heart. And it dawned on me, like, Cassie Jones, Stagger Lee, once upon a time, these were just men that walked the earth,  It was folk songs that made them legends. So I thought, I’m going to start celebrating my heroes, and sing about Kenny Brown or sing about my father, or Otha Turner, and make them my folk heroes, celebrate them in song.

And then the biblical imagery, growing up in the south, my grandmother played piano in the church. And I don’t talk religion or anything, but I love gospel music, it’s just a positive feeling, and I think a lot of musicians relate to it. But once again it’s not right to play it in the night clubs, it’s not appropriate. Maybe slip one in at the end, you know! And then the imagery – funny thing is, I’ve never studied the Bible. I mean I’ve poked around, but when you do pick it up, it’s like, oh my God,  here’s this song, here’s that song. Every soul and R&B song has a biblical reference, and the blues too. To be honest, I’ve learned more from Pop Staples or Blind Willie Johnson about the Bible than I ever did reading it myself – listening to Samson and Delilah – you know what I’m saying?

Thing is, I just love the vernacular. I love the phrases of folk music and blues music and conversation with the elders, and the biblical stuff slips right in there. Bob Dylan’s a master of this, and also Robert Hunter [Grateful Dead songwriter]. Ain’t No Grave – there are multiple songs entitled that, or Rollin’ and Tumblin’ or Let Your Light Shine, or whatever – these phrases, they have weight, when people hear ‘em, they have, like, repercussions, sub-conscious repercussions. All those phrases I’ve internalized over my life, that’s the oral tradition of making it your own, and making it your own story, using the timeless vernacular of our culture.

DATC: So you mentioned Blind Willie Johnson. There’s kind of thread over the last century – from Blind Willie Johnson to Robert Wilkinson to Fred McDowell to Gary Davis to Kelly Joe Phelps, and many others. Why do you think that is, given the other darker side of the blues where some church goers felt it was the devil’s music, and the myth of the crossroads and mojo and all of that?

LD: Well, Robert Wilkins quit playing blues so he could become a preacher and only play gospel music. Son House went back and forth. Fred McDowell, he was a bluesman, but he played in his local church every Sunday. But when he passed away, they wouldn’t bury him there, because he was a bluesman. And that church is in Como Mississippi. Rev Robert Wilkins’ son is the preacher in that church [Hunter’s Chapel Church] now, and even he is a bluesman that preaches. In that culture, it’s a very treacherous line.

And it still goes on. Like, I’ve known Robert Randolph since before he was a professional musician with a career, and he and the Campbell Brothers, they don’t play in church any more. The Campbell Brothers were kicked out of church. Many, many of the sacred steel musicians have been pushed out of their churches for one reason or another. And there’s a new batch of sacred steel players playing in the church, but – they don’t know the tradition or the history, they’re just starting with Robert Randolph. So with sacred steel, the roots have been cut off and the new growth is going to be starting from scratch.

But, it’s just that American experience of church and blues. You know, Saturday night, Sunday morning.

DATC: I saw you talking about that a while back in a video from Grace St. Luke’s church in Memphis.

LD: Yes, I didn’t realize how emotional that was going to be. Interesting thing.

DATC: You started off playing Just As I Am on slide guitar. Took me back to my own childhood, those were the songs I grew up with and nearly had me in tears!

LD: I learned that from my grandmother. That was one of the invitational hymns… My Mom is a huge believer, teaches Sunday School to elderly ladies. It’s very interesting, I could say that I’m well balanced, because I’ve got all the extremes. I just try to navigate it!

DATC: The blues is traditional music, with a long heritage, and were essentially the music of African Americans in the trauma of the early part of the 20th century. Why has this music endured? And why does it have an appeal beyond people whose lives were as harsh as those among whom it grew up?

LD: I think there’s a human quality to it. But as well as blues, there’s also country music, Appalachian music, and music just brings people together. It did for my dad’s generation in the 50s, rock ’n roll, the 60s, music helped transcend segregation… And with the blues, the lyrics and the melodies are ancient and they just resonate, you know, and it evolves. And what I play is not Delta Blues, it’s psychedelic folk blues rock, you know – that’s just where I am – but I grew up in Mississippi, second generation musician studying songs and blues, and I will claim that what I do is modern day blues. But it’s like what Buddy Guy says, I got ten fingers, I got two hands, I can play some blues!

DATC: Thank you Luther.

Postscript: Three quarters way through his set that evening, Luther switched from the Les Paul to his Martin acoustic. First thing he played? Just As I Am on slide guitar. This being a London audience, I was probably the only person there who recognized it. Thank you Luther!