Mavis Staples’ and Levon Helm’s celebration of life and friendship

Mavis Staples & Levon Helm, Carry Me Home, ANTI-Records

Mavis Staples and the late Levon Helm recorded the songs on Carry Me Home at Helm Studios in Woodstock in the summer of 2011. It was to be one of the final recording sessions for Helm before he died the next year.

The pair are icons of Americana and roots music, Levon Helm, the drummer and one of the lead vocalists of the Band, and Mavis Staples, celebrated gospel and blues singer and civil rights activist. Both performed their music for more than 50 years, from the early sixties on through the heydays of rock’n’roll and rhythm and blues.

Carry Me Home is something of a masterpiece, it would not be too bold to suggest, a celebration of friendship, mutual admiration and faith. You can’t help but be moved by both the poignancy of the selection of songs and the pair’s performances, now knowing that Helm was to pass shortly after and that Staples is now in her 83^rd year.

“It never crossed my mind that it might be the last time we’d see each other,” says Staples. “He was so full of life and so happy that week. He was the same old Levon I’d always known, just a beautiful spirit inside and out…

“…we hugged and hugged and hugged. I just held on to him. I didn’t know it’d be the last time, but in my heart and in my mind, Levon will always be with me because I take him everywhere I go.”

But even aside from that, this is simply a great set of songs, a wonderful collection of blues, gospel and Americana. The music, powered by Helm’s and Staples’s combined bands, is compelling, with everyone sounding like they are having a fine old time of it.

The album kicks of with a Curtis Mayfield’s This is My Country, a protest song from 1968, deeply embedded in the Civil Rights movement:

I’ve paid three hundred years or more
Of slave driving, sweat, and welts on my back
This is my country

Staples sings it with considerable gusto and passion, several years in to the Obama presidency with the right beginning to flex its muscles. More than ten years on, the song still sounds relevant for America – more’s the pity. Musically, as the album’s opener, you know you’re in for a treat, with horns, organ and ooh-ooh-oohs from the backing singers ushering you into things.

Photo: Greg McKean

Trouble in (My) Mind is a rockin’ version of the old blues standard, Staples’s raw vocals and the bluesy piano driving things along. After This is My Country, this feels like another defiant assertion that no matter how bad things are and might be in America, there are surely better times ahead – “sun’s gonna shine in my back door some day.”

Staples performs Farther Along, an old gospel song, unaccompanied, apart from some gorgeous harmonizing by Amy Helm and Teresa Williams and others. It’s another poignant one, with the lyric “When death has come and taken our loved ones” coming with slow-tempoed clarity.

It’s a song of faith, however, and despite the song musing on loved ones passing while  “others prosper, living so wicked year after year,” it asserts “we’ll understand it all by and by.” Staple’s faith led her to comment about Helm, “Some sweet day, we’ll be together again.”

Faith shines out of this album. Nothing frothy or glib; but faith that has been tested and tried and remains defiant. That’s been Mavis Staples’s experience – remember, she was once arrested at gunpoint by the police after a racially charged incident at a gas-station in Memphis and has lived the recent history of black America from the Civil Rights movement on.

The songs, even when packing a punch like Nina Simone’s I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free, have a positive, upbeat feel, as if the very force of Staples’s faith and positivity would make all the changes she longs for. The horns, harmonies and Mavis’s vocals, combined with the gospel chords, make for a thoroughly uplifting listening experience.

There are a couple of songs regularly performed by Levon Helm, When I Go Away and Buddy and Julie Miller’s Wide River to Cross have a thoroughly traditional feel about them and fit right in to the set. In the latter, the lyrics seem to have a dual meaning, referring to both the individual journey of life and the struggle for equality that Staples has been engaged in for so long –

I’m only halfway home, I’ve gotta journey on…
I’ve come a long, long road but still I’ve got some miles to go
I’ve got a wide, a wide river to cross.

There’s a great version of You’ve Got to Move. The harmonizing vocals and Larry Campbell’s guitar work is superb and once again the two-sided nature of the lyrics becomes apparent. As a traditional gospel blues song, it’s about the Christian hope of resurrection – “when the Lord get ready, you gotta move,” in, as another song has it, “that great gettin’ up morning.” But whether you’re “high or low”, there’s a hope for the present as well that the Lord might move things in the right direction.

The penultimate song is Bob Dylan’s gospel classic, Gotta Serve Somebody. It’s fitting of course, to include a Dylan song, given Staples’s history with him (she has said Dylan was “the love that I lost”). Staples adds her own faith assertion to the song – he’s (God is) my doctor, he’s my lawyer, he’s my friend.” “Whether you got faith or you got unbelief,” as Dylan might have put it, the song has always been a powerful one, and Staples does it more than justice, making it her own, as she sings convincingly, “I got a royal telephone and the line is never busy.”

Mavis Staples pretty much handles the vocals throughout, with Levon Helm adding colour here and there with harmonies. His drumming, however, is stamped all over things. Helm does weigh in on the final song – fittingly The Weight. Mavis Staples, of course, had shared the vocals with Levon Helm when the Staples Singers accompanied the Band for the song in the Last Waltz in 1968. Staples’s voice is a little deeper and raspier, but it’s still powerful and more than capable of sending shivers down your spine. There’s a quirky, but rather wonderful what sounds to me like a tuba solo in the middle of the song.

This is simply a glorious album of songs to challenge, encourage and inspire. It’s a fine tribute to Levon Helm, and another reminder of the immense talent and force that is Mavis Staples. I saw her perform in London just before the pandemic and it was an evening that left me with a smile on my face for a week afterwards. At 83 she’s on tour again, along with Amy Helm, Levon’s daughter, and if they are anywhere near you, don’t hesitate. And get yourself a copy of Carry Me Home – you won’t regret it.

Oh Mary Don’t You Weep

Bruce Springsteen and his Seeger Sessions Band kicked off their tour on April 30, 2006 at the New Orleans Jazz Fest, with a stirring version of Oh Mary Don’t You Weep. It was a mere eight months after Katrina had devastated the city and, in a performance hailed by a local critic as the most emotional musical experience of her life, Springsteen sought to inject some hope into the city with his collection of spirituals and roots songs.

This opening song is an old spiritual, a slave song, that heralds the theme of liberation and new beginnings. The recurring phrase “Pharoah’s army got drown-ded” recalls the Old Testament story of the children of Israel escaping slavery in Egypt in the Exodus. This was a story that had captured the imagination of people who were enslaved or disenfranchised (it was an important song during the Civil Rights movement). Black slaves resisted the bondage they suffered in a whole range of ways.

One of these was the sort of religion they developed, a Christianity that was not just that of their masters. Theirs was a faith where freedom and liberation were vigorously affirmed and one where black humanity was affirmed, despite everything that slavery and white people said. The songs sung were often coded messages of hope and resistance. Their God was the God of history, who works and intervenes in our world to bring change and transformation. A God who brings life from the dead.

The other recurring phrase in the song is “Oh Mary don’t you weep, don’t you mourn,” which for me refers to Mary Magdalene, who stood weeping at the tomb of Jesus that first Easter morning. She had lost her friend and his body was nowhere to be found. Her weeping and mourning is dispelled, however, by meeting someone she thought was the gardener, but who turned out to be Jesus, risen from the dead. It’s remarkable, that in a world where a woman’s testimony was thought unreliable and not viable in a courtroom, the gospel writers were willing to record the women as the first witnesses of the resurrection – not something you’d do, if you were trying to pass off a story.

The resurrection is right at the heart of Easter, and at the heart of Christian faith. In fact, there’s no point in faith at all, if it’s not. If it didn’t happen, as Paul, Christianity’s first exponent and himself a witness of a risen Jesus, said, then, we might as well just eat, drink and be merry. Christian faith doesn’t make any sense without the resurrection.

But with it, suddenly there are possibilities. Christian faith says that, because Jesus is risen, there is to be a new creation – the evil and the injustice we see in our world is not the last word. Pharaoh’s army got drown-ded all right; the challenge is to find the promised land, to be people who bring life from the deadness around us by living out, and seeking the love, peace and justice of, God’s new creation right now.

Finally, here’s Kenny Meeks’s great Easter song, which draws out the personal hope of Easter, which stretches beyond this life.

Great Blues Albums #1 – B.B. King, Live at the Regal

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B.B. King’s Live at the Regal is on every blues fan’s list as one of the greatest blues albums ever. It’s a live album of ten songs recorded from a concert by B.B. in the Regal Theatre in Chicago on 21^st November 1964, and it captures King, aged 39, at the height of his powers. His singing and guitar work is immaculate and his engagement with the audience hugely entertaining.

I saw B.B. King just a couple of years before he passed away, playing the Grand Rex Theatre in Paris. It was the first time I’d seen him, and it was a great thrill – we really did feel like we were connected to the history of the blues that night, even though B.B. didn’t play his guitar as much or as well as he might have as a younger man. Fair enough! When you’ve reached his legendary status, I’ll take what I can get. His singing was still very good, at times sweet, at times powerful, and his good-humoured interaction with the audience was good to see. I’d have liked one of those guitar picks he tossed into the crowd, but I was too far away!

My daughter bought me a vinyl copy of Live at the Regal for Christmas, and it was a delight to slip it on to the turntable and hear the songs in lovely warm, crystal-clear stereophonic sound. On this album you get B.B. as I didn’t get him that night in Paris, that characteristic, crisply-picked guitar answering his vocals, which range versatilely from tender to gritty to falsetto. B.B. King is one of those rare guitarists you can recognize from hearing just one or two notes.

Was he playing Lucille that night? Well, not one of the black signature models that Gibson brought out – they only appeared in 1980 – but from the photographs on the album sleeve, he appears to have been playing a Gibson 335 sunburst and with a Bigsby vibrato device. Not that King ever seemed to need the latter – he got great vibrato from just his fingers on the fretboard.

Doubtless you’re familiar with the Lucille story – but just in case: when B.B. was playing a dance hall in Arkansas in the winter of 1949, a fight broke out and a barrel half-filled with burning kerosene set in the middle of the dance floor to keep things warm was overturned, setting the place on fire. Everyone, including King raced outside, but in his panic, B.B. had left his guitar behind, so he dashed inside to rescue it. He later found out that the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, so he named his guitar, and all subsequent ones, Lucille as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over a woman!

King, in his biography, Blues All Around Me, said that before this particular concert, he had played the Regal “hundreds of times before,” and felt that he had played “hundreds of better concerts than the one taped at the Regal.” He was surprised at the critical response to the record, but said he was happy to receive the praise. However this particular night rates in the thousands of concerts King has played, the fact is it captures the man in top gear, playing with an outstanding band – Duke Jethro on the piano, Leo Lauchie on the bass, Kenneth Sands on the trumpet, Johnny Board and Bobby Forte on tenor sax, and Sonny Freeman on drums.

Apparently, Jethro’s organ, which he was originally schedule to play, broke down, so King said he should just play the piano. Jethro told B.B. that he didn’t know how to play the piano, only to be told, “Well, just sit there and pretend; that’s what you do most of the time anyway!”

The band that night was in sterling form – B.B., when introducing them, says admiringly, “I think they’re wailin’ out there!”

Recognition of the stature of Live at the Regal has come from Rolling Stone Magazine, which put it at number 141 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time,” and in its addition in 2005 to the Library of Congress’s list of recordings chosen for permanent preservation with the National Recording Registry.

The album kicks off with Every Day I Have the Blues, after broadcaster and music promoter Pervis Spann introduces B.B. King as the “king of the blues.” It’s exciting stuff from the get-go, the brass in tip-top form duelling with King’s timeless guitar licks before the man kicks in with that beautiful tenor voice.

By the time the full guitar solo kicks in the crowd are already whooping and whistling. The crowd cheering throughout the album, actually, adds to the excitement and atmosphere and never seems distracting from the music. It’s just the way a good live album should be.

The album works its way through a veritable collection of B.B. King hits, including the slow blues of Sweet Little Angel (included in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll) and How Blue Can You Get, King’s guitar reaching right inside you and wringing every ounce of emotion out.

The album captures a couple of great moments where B.B. interacts warmly with the audience – at the start of It’s My Own Fault and How Blue Can You Get – doubtless only a fraction of his chat during the evening, but showing that he was a consummate entertainer with a natural rapport with his audience. But for the most part, King let the sincerity of his singing and the piercing quality of his guitar do the talking.

Photo Credit: Solarpix / PR Photos

Obviously you can’t see it with this record, but King used to contort his face when he played his guitar – his wife Martha used to call him Ol’ Lemon Face because of that. King said of himself, “I squeeze my eyes and open my mouth, raise my eyebrows, cock my head and God knows what else. I look like I’m in torture, when in truth, I’m in ecstasy. I don’t do it for show. Every fibre of my being is tingling.” And that commitment to the music is what you’re hearing on Live at the Regal. “I wanted my guitar to connect to human emotion,” he said once. And you can feel that as you listen to this album.

If you’ve not listened to this album – do so without hesitation! If you’ve not listened to it in a while, get it out of your record collection and play it again. And don’t just play a couple of songs – play the whole thing and let B.B. and the band caress your soul. Rock along to You Upset Me Baby and Woke Up This Morning, and soak in the blues feeling of Worry Worry and You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now.

You’ll see what is the very best of modern blues.

Tommy Emmanuel Live: Eight Things We Learned

Tommy Emmanuel Live at the Ulster Hall

There surely can’t be a guitar fan in the world who doesn’t know of Tommy Emmanuel. The iconic Chet Atkins called him a “fearless” guitarist and designated him (along with just 4 others) as an Atkins CGP (Certified Guitar Player), a title Emmanuel is immensely proud of. He has twice been voted “Best Acoustic Guitarist” by readers of Guitar Player Magazine and honoured with the prestigious “Member of the Order of Australia” award. The State of Kentucky recently made him a “Kentucky Colonel.”

Previously a rock n’ roll lead guitarist, touring successfully in the 1970s, he turned his attention to the acoustic guitar and become a jaw-droppingly good virtuoso finger picker, now widely acknowledged as the international master of the solo acoustic guitar. Emmanuel has mastered just about every guitar style imaginable and his albums and shows have featured virtuosic displays of bluegrass, jazz, blues, folk, country and pop and he’s played with a who’s who of top guitar masters from every genre of modern music.

The 64-year-old Australian is a dynamic, energetic performer, who plays to large audiences in prestigious venues all over the world, dazzling them with his skill and enchanting them with his personal charm.

He played the Ulster Hall in Belfast, an iconic venue with excellent acoustics, and which dates back to 1862 and along the way has hosted Charles Dickens reading his stories, Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Dire Straits, Jackson Browne and a host of top classical orchestras. Here’s what we learned:

1. Tommy Emmanuel might just be the best guitarist you’ll ever see, in any genre. I know it doesn’t make too much sense to compare top players, but you’ll rarely see another guitarist with the technique, musicality and flair that marks a Tommy Emmanuel performance. Last night he was playing with an injured finger on his right hand. He never mentioned it and never let it affect his jaw-droppingly amazing playing.

2. It is possible for one man and a guitar to keep an audience of 2,000 utterly enthralled for nigh on two hours. Assuming he can enchant them with wonderful music and dazzle them with consummate skill (I know I’m gushing a bit here, but still…). English fingerstyle guitarist, Clive Carroll, who was the supporting act (go check him out here) more than held his own, both in his own set and the couple of songs he and Tommy played together. His evocation of a Canadian arctic circle white-out, with its masterful use of dynamics, had us right there in the snowy wilderness, while his arrangement of Charles Mingus’s Goodbye Porkpie Hat was a jazzy wonder.

3. You’ll never hear a more stunning version of Amazing Grace than Emmanuel’s. After reminiscing about his first visit to a small, packed club in Belfast many years ago, he commented on the sense of calm and peace he felt in tonight’s venue – then launched into a wondrous, jazzy, bluesy rendition of Amazing Grace.

4. Yes, it is possible to play an entire song in harmonics (crudely speaking, harmonics are “high pitched tones, like a whistle’s, which are produced when the musician lightly touches certain points on a string”). They’re not easy to do, but to do all over the fretboard, fast and with precision and musicality, is only for premier league guitarists. Quite amazing to witness.

5. Tommy Emmanuel can sing. Just a couple of songs along the way, notably Merle Travis’s Sixteen Tons put the spotlight on his vocal ability, though, of course, some guitar pyrotechnics were thrown in for good measure.

6. A few covers always go down well. I’m not a great Beatles fan, but when the songs get put in a medley with the Tommy Emmanuel treatment, I can warm to them. And then when they morph into Classical Gas, well, it’s pretty special.

7. Irish diddly dee music doesn’t have to be dull and repetitive. When you’ve got top-class artists approaching it with musicality and a high level of skill, suddenly it becomes…well, enjoyable. The Donegal and St. Anne’s reels played by Emmanuel and Carroll.

8. Finally, Tommy Emmanuel is one of the most positive of musicians. His enthusiasm for the music and performing oozes out of every pore. You find yourself smiling again and again. Go to his Facebook page and read some of the remarkable posts there about the effect this man and his music has on people.

John Mayer in Concert – 7 things we learned

John Mayer and his band played a sold-out concert at the 3 Arena Dublin to 13,000 adoring fans, who sang along and cheered every song from Mayer’s extensive back catalogue. The band was made up of eight exceptionally talented musicians, including Isaiah Sharkey, Pino Paladino, Aaron Sterling and David Ryan Harris, and singers Tiffany Palmer and Carlos Ricketts. These are seriously fine musicians, who gelled together wondrously and, when given an opportunity to shine, did so with considerable aplomb.

Now emerged from “the lean years,” as he calls them, with the indiscretions and missteps of his earlier, tabloid-filling career recognized and put behind him, Mayer set the scene for the concert with Changing from his latest album, The Search for Everything – “I am not done changing.”

It was the man’s 42^nd birthday, duly noted by the crowd which spontaneously burst into “Happy Birthday” after the first song, and then by the band, interrupting the next song and non-plussing Mayer completely. It was a nice moment.

Here’s what we learned:

1. John Mayer is seriously talented guitarist, coaxing that crystal clear, clean, characteristic John Mayer voice and tone from his PRS Silver Sky guitar. As Eric Clapton has said, “he’s a master guitarist,” and his consummate skill was on full display, effortlessly moving around the fretboard, playing jazzy fills, bending notes flawlessly, moving fast, moving slow, on the beat, syncopated – and all the time drawing you in, charging everything with emotion. Mayer alternated the PRS with his Martin acoustic, and demonstrated with the latter in the likes of Neon you scarcely need a band when you can exploit the full potential of the instrument.

2. He wasn’t the only seriously talented guitarist on stage – aside from the wonderful bassist, Pino Paladino, we had the prodigious Isaiah Sharkey and David Ryan Harris. Sharkey was a revelation, at 29 jaw-droppingly good. He and Mayer had one or two good old guitar duels to great effect, Sharkey giving as good as he got, and a few occasions when they harmonized effortlessly in perfect time. It was a great night for guitar aficionados.

3. John Mayer has great back catalogue. Over nearly three hours, he took us on a tour of his previous albums from the last 18 years and you realized afresh how good a songwriter he is. The songs are musically sophisticated, never same-y, usually with jazzy underpinnings, and yet there’s inevitably a great hook or a great melody. The Dublin crowd sang along to nearly everything, but of course the big hits like Neon, Gravity, Slow Dancing and Waiting On the World to Change went down a storm.

4. The man is a seriously good blues musician. We didn’t get too much opportunity to appreciate this last night, but his soloing during Helpless was sophisticated blues playing at its best. No mindless widdling here.

5. Mayer’s rhythm section is much more than a rhythm section. You don’t have to be called Aaron to be a great drummer, but clearly it helps – Aaron Draper and Aaron Sterling gave it all they had and then some, doing more than just underpinning the band. As did the wonderful Pino Paladino – it was only a pity we didn’t get the chance for some solo work from Mr. Paladino during the evening.

6 .Covers are usually a good idea, and we got two. Mayer took the stage after the break on his own and treated the crowd to Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest, including a little bit of Springsteen-esque harmonica playing. Then the talented David Ryan Harris tackled Prince’s none-too-straightforward Beautiful One, showing off his exquisite falsetto vocals.

7. Waxing philosophical can be dicey. But I think Mayer just about pulled it off, in his pre-song riff about battling anxiety. He then launched into The Age of Worry from the Born and Raised album, which was complemented by a video backdrop complete with lyrics. “Smile in the age of worry.” Good advice.

Setlist

Belief

I Don’t Trust Myself (With Loving You)

Who Says

Something Like Olivia

In the Blood

Waitin’ on the Day

Moving On and Getting Over

Changing

Carry Me Away

Edge of Desire

Tougher Than the Rest

In Your Atmosphere

Neon

Helpless

Vultures

Why Georgia

Born and Raised

Rosie

Slow Dancing in a Burning Room

The Age of Worry

Waiting on the World to Change

Dear Marie

Gravity

New Light

Richard Thompson at the Ulster Hall: 7 Things We Learned

“The finest rock songwriter after Dylan and the best electric guitarist since Hendrix.” Los Angeles Times.

Richard Thompson, looking fit and healthy, gave a rousing solo acoustic performance in the rather grand surroundings of Belfast’s Ulster Hall, getting a standing ovation from the delighted audience. He’s an iconic figure, featuring on Rolling Stone’s “100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time,” winning a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Americana Music Association in Nashville, several Grammy nominations and an OBE.

He was part of the English folk-rock band, Fairport Convention in the late 60s and early 70s before launching a successful period with Linda Thompson and then his solo career, which has seen him release 18 studio albums and play with a who’s who list of major rock artists and his songs covered by artists like Emmylou Harris, David Gilmour and The Blind Boys from Alabama, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt, and Don Henley. His 18^th album, 13 Rivers was released in 2018 to great acclaim.

Here’s what we learned:

1. A Richard Thompson concert is far from old minor key English folk songs and sea shanties. Yes, there’s folk, but with a huge variety of styles and tempos, and some full-blooded rock’n roll too, all peppered with self-deprecating banter and humour. It makes for a fine evening’s entertainment.

2. Sometimes you need more than three chords and the truth. And with Richard Thompson, you get a kaleidoscope of chords, runs, fills, arpeggios, harmonics and more, in a virtuoso display of guitar playing that will have your jaw dropping and your foot a-tapping.

3. Who needs a band, when you play bass, chords and lead, all at the same time, with great attack and panache to accompany your impressive vocal performance?

4. Lowden acoustic guitars “are the best out there, if you ask me,” said Thompson, praising the highly acclaimed Northern Irish luthiers. On the evidence of this masterful display of guitar wizardry, there can’t be much argument.

5. It’s great to have a trademark – in Richard Thompson’s case, his black beret, which he hasn’t taken off since 1984 (just joking!). His other trademark, of course, is his terrific song-writing skills, aptly demonstrated in song after song from each decade of his long career. Musically rich and lyrically clever, with wit, sarcasm, and great story-telling, the songs’ music and lyrics interweave powerfully.

6. Forty and fifty-year-old songs can still be magical. Thompson’s Bright Lights which “brushed the lower regions of the Top 40” in 1974, along with Dimming of the Day and Sandy Denny’s Who Knows Where the Time Goes, all stirred great memories and were warmly received by the enthusiastic Belfast crowd. Songs that stand the test of time.

7. In your 8^th decade, you can still look fit and robust and give nearly two hours of fabulous entertainment, singing and playing your heart out. It helps, clearly, if you play tennis and cricket regularly.

Oh, and the sweet, sweet voice and song writing talents of Katherine Priddy who was the evening’s support deserves a mention. One to keep an eye on.

 

 

 

Aretha Franklin: The Miracle of Amazing Grace

“It’s an act of cinematic resurrection if ever there was one. You might even call it a miracle.” (Washington post)

I watched the movie Amazing Grace last night, which shows the creation of the 29-year-old Aretha Franklin’s gospel album, Amazing Grace, recorded over two nights in 1972 in front of a live congregation and accompanied by the Southern California Community Choir in the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Watts, Los Angeles. The album was hugely successful, winning the 1973 Grammy Award for Best Soul Gospel Performance, selling over 2m copies in the US alone and effectively re-inserting black gospel into the American mainstream.

The film was never released because of difficulties syncing the audio with the video. The film was relegated to the vault at Warner Bros. and despite producer Elliott successfully syncing it and paring it down to 87 minutes in length, Franklin resisted it being released. It was only after her death in 2018, that her family agreed to release the film.

Quite simply the movie is extraordinary – riveting, inspirational and deeply emotional. I felt like I was right there, transported back nearly five decades, mesmerized by the power of the gospel music, the musical talent of James Cleveland, the musical director and pianist, and the young choir director, Alexander Hamilton and the fabulous choir – and, of course, by the wonder of Aretha Franklin’s singing. Jon Landau at the time described her singing as “a virtuoso display of imagination.”

But it wasn’t just her voice – it was the evident feeling she had for the music and the lyrics. Her father, invited to say a few words, related an incident when he took some clothes into the laundry, when someone he met commented on how glad she was to hear his daughter was going back to the church to sing. By this stage, the 29 year-old Aretha had had a string of hits, won multiple Grammys, and was a household name. “Truth is,” he said, “she never left the church.” So much was clear by the passion with which she sang Carole King’s You’ve Got a Friend, now amended to refer to Jesus, which then ran seamlessly into Precious Lord, Take My Hand. Introduced by Rev. James Cleveland, intoning, “And Jesus said, call my name, I’ll be there,” Aretha begins to sing slowly, with a sparse organ and piano accompaniment, encouraging the congregation to “close your eyes…and meditate on him.” As the piano chords segue into Precious Lord, and the choir launches in, it really is the most spine-tingling experience. I admit to the tears slipping down my cheeks at this point.

And then there is the scene toward the end of the movie, where, after a stirring performance of Never Grow Old with Aretha accompanying herself on piano, and a short follow up sermonette by Cleveland, Aretha asks for the microphone and, in a startling moment, launches into an unaccompanied I’m Glad I Got Religion, singing a verse, before proceeding to urge the choir into action and then, in an electrifying turn, sings directly toward the choir, with her back to the congregation. It looked entirely unrehearsed, as if Franklin was truly feeling at home, back in the church, and feeling the Spirit move her.

Atlantic engineer, Gene Paul, who worked on Amazing Grace, said he saw producer Jerry Wexler “looking at her like she was really in her place.”

Franklin herself didn’t seem to think she’d moved away from the church. A year after she’d begun singing in nightclubs in 1961, she had written in a black newspaper, “I don’t think that in any manner I did the Lord a disservice when I made up my mind…to switch over.” She went on to say, “After all, the blues is a music born out of the slavery day sufferings of my people. Every song in the blues vein has a story to tell…I think that because true democracy hasn’t overtaken us here that we as a people find the original blues songs still have meaning for us.”

One song, a particular favourite of mine on the album, which didn’t make it into the movie, is Robert Fryson’s Give Yourself to Jesus. The song was the first single after the release of the album. It closes the first side of the original LP and wasn’t one of the traditional gospel songs Franklin grew up with – it’s got a more modern gospel feel to it, more akin to an Andre Crouch song. It’s an incredibly moving piece, with Franklin reciting the words of the 23^rd Psalm in the middle of the song, as the choir “oohs” in harmony behind her. As you listen to this, it’s impossible to think of Franklin without faith in the words.

The interplay between Franklin and the choir throughout Amazing Grace is a thing of wonder. James Cleveland was the musical director and for some considerable time had been the preeminent name in the production of gospel music. He was a hugely talented musician, a wonderful pianist, soulful singer who could rock churches wherever he went. and had produced a prodigious number of successful gospel albums. Cleveland’s piano playing, much in evidence in the concert, is truly virtuosic, tugging at people’s emotions and undergirding and interplaying with Franklin’s vocals. For Amazing Grace, he worked with the youthful Alexander Hamilton, one of his circle of talented musicians, who prepared the choir with intensive drills. Hamilton had written musical scores at the age of six, studied classical music and accompanied Mahalia Jackson. Along with a group of outstanding backing musicians, the foundations were laid for the precision and musicality needed to underpin Aretha Franklin’s singing.

Throughout the performance, Aretha Franklin said little – the speaking parts come from Rev. Cleveland and her father. Was it her well-documented shyness, or simply a sense that it was enough to speak through her luminous singing? Franklin at this stage was one of the most popular and influential singers in the world, but was content to collaborate with the choir and the other members of Cleveland’s working band. To be sure, at the end of the movie, when all the words have fallen to the ground, Aretha’s glorious, inspirational singing resonates on.

Franklin’s Amazing Grace album has been frequently overlooked in her back catalogue, despite it being the biggest selling disc in her career. In Mary J. Blige’s tribute in the Rolling Stone issue in 2008 that named Franklin as the greatest singer of the rock era, the album wasn’t mentioned. And only one song from it was included in the 4-disc compilation released in 1992, Queen of Soul: The Atlantic Recordings. This movie surely redresses the balance. Amazing Grace actually was a very important album that “touched on social and political changes far outside” the doors of the church in which it was recorded” (Aaron Cohen). A friend of Franklin’s, poet Nikki Giovanni, suggested that the title track, (some 11 minutes long) tied together Franklin’s personal history, the state of black America at the time and an image of composer John Newton’s change from being a slaver and human trafficker. “Aretha is just so key to everything: she too is saying, “We have to change…It’s time to change. We can no longer do what we did. And she’s going to be the person to reach generations. She’s going back to my mother, my grandmother, and she’s going to go forward.”

Amazing Grace showed a black icon at home in that traditional black home – the church. In a recent New Yorker article, Emily Lordi points out that Franklin’s concert in New Temple Missionary Baptist Church ought to be seen in the context of the 1965 riots/rebellion in Watts and other black cities across America, and the numerous black deaths of previous years, of which Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination was the most visible, and that “black people continued to ask whether America could be a home. The black church continued to serve the function it has long served: as an alternative site in which to create one.”

The music – and now the film which draws renewed attention to it – had wide resonance in the black community and beyond, bringing Gospel music into the mainstream, a recognised part of America’s musical heritage, part of the foundation that would eventually give rise to rock ‘n roll. But in watching this movie, there’s more to it than that. Gospel music is both music and lyrics. The chord changes, the musical dynamics, the soaring voices all make it what it is – but so too do the inspirational and faith-filled lyrics. The very word gospel literally means “good news” and that is the essence of gospel songs. “I once was lost, but now am found” – that belonging that Aretha found in the church; “what a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear;” “Precious Lord take my hand…I am tired, I am weak, I am lone.” These all speak profoundly of the human condition – but more than that, to the fact that we need not be alone, because of the presence of God, and the possibility of redemption. In that lies the enduring power of gospel, of Amazing Grace.

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!

The Steady Rollin’ Blues Tour – Brooks Williams & Hans Theessink

Brooks Williams and Hans Theessink are seasoned blues troubadours who play to knowledgeable audiences across Europe and the United States. Brooks hails from Statesboro, Georgia (yeah, he’s got them Statesboro blues) but is now based in England, while Hans is based in Vienna, Austria.

Both are fabulous guitarists, have a deep appreciation for, and knowledge of, the blues and the social history of the blues, and are engaging and absorbing performers. Going to a concert given by either man will entertain you, challenge you, and above all, send you home satisfied with a big smile on your face.

Getting both playing together for an evening, swapping songs, alternating the lead vocals, harmonizing and trading guitar licks would be really something, then, right? Well, the two guys have embarked upon a joint tour of Great Britain this month, playing 21 gigs in 21 days. Not to be missed – check out the schedule for the Steady Rollin’ Blues Tour here.

And, be sure and get yourself a copy of Brooks Williams’ new album, Lucky Star, out in July which features a couple of tracks with both Brooks and Hans playing together.

Down at the Crossroads spoke to Hans and Brooks before their evening in the Core Theatre in Solihull and asked them about their life in the blues and life on the road…

DATC: How do you two know each other and how did this tour come about?

Brooks: Well, I’ve known of Hans since the very beginning of my career. And we did meet at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1996, but we met properly for the first time when we went to Dallas in 2005, at an anniversary concert for a great venue called Uncle Calvin’s. And we have mutual friends and that was kind of the connection. And then a couple of years ago I did the tour here with Guy Davis. And about half way through the tour, it just occurred to me that the audience really like it when we did stuff together – it became apparent that that was the point in the evening when the show just took off. Even though each of us could do our own thing, there was something magical happened then. So, I started thinking that perhaps this could be thought of as something that happens every 18 months.

And the first one at the top of my list was Hans. ‘Cause I just thought our styles would complement each other. And I was really excited about the possibilities. And thankfully when I presented the idea to Hans, he said, yeah, let’s go for it.

Hans: And we also said we’d not do separate sets and then two songs together at the end. Let’s do the whole thing together. So we swop songs, but we’re on stage playing together all the time.

DATC: And what sort of music can people expect?

Brooks: Blues, but a range – some country blues, a little bit of Texas blues, some of the Delta in there, some really nice Broonzy-style finger picking. Stuff that we love, and we bring it together through the process of how we interpret songs.

DATC: And when you talk about re-interpreting songs – how do you go about that, when you pick up an old blues song, and feel, yeah, that might work. How do you reinterpret that from the original?

Hans: Well, you couldn’t reproduce it. So you can only go another way. I try to get the feel of a song, try to crawl into that.

Brooks: For me, there’s usually one lyric in the song that I latch onto. I mean I’m into the whole song, but there’s usually one lyric that’s my cue. So, we’re going to do Backwater Blues and when I was doing the arrangement for that – and there are so many beautiful arrangements, there are some great ones – but the line that caught me was, I think it’s at the end of the 4^th verse, where it says there’s going to be a lot of people with nowhere to go. It’s talking about the storm and the rain, there’s going to be a lot of people homeless. So, I thought, what kind of mood would there be in the guitar part, if that’s the line you’re ultimately going to get to? And so that affected the tuning that I used, the little guitar figure. And then as Hans and I do it, Hans brought this, almost moving bass line – almost like a kind of slowed down blues bogey, like a blues shuffle. It just great. It’s got great power, but it’s got a little edge of desperation. And it was just that lyric that it should all feel like that. Now I know that’s miles away from other versions, but I really like that lyric and where it takes me.

Hans: And I also think it’s good that it’s miles away from other versions! But then we have a song like Deep River Blues, which is pretty close to the original.

DATC: So for each of you – what do you admire about the other person’s playing and performing?

Hans: Well, Brooks has this great thumping guitar style, and beautiful slide playing. We both obviously listen to the same people – Mississippi John Hurt and Fred McDowell and people like that, so even though we come from places far apart, we both have the same kind of general influence. So when we talk about music or listen to records, we obviously know the same things.

Brooks: One of the things that I’ve always admired about Hans’s playing is something I would have aspired to in the early days when I was listening to his Flying Fish record. It’s that way of keeping the bass going – either alternating bass or thumping bass – but doing lovely figures at the same time. So it’s like two or three parts all at once. It moves the way a piano player moves. I like to hear motion. And Hans has a great sense of the songs that he chooses to cover. And a great sense of bringing all this to his own writing, that same feel, that same tradition – so you can put a song from the ‘30s and a song of Hans side by side, and they sit very well right next to each other. The lyrics are poignant and relevant in both cases.

Hans: And even though a song might be slow, it’s all, like, groove oriented. Which is very important, not to lose the groove. And it might be really slow, like behind the beat, or whatever, but it’s still moving and that groove is really important. And Brooks has got that totally.

DATC: And you mentioned Mississippi John Hurt. You get that in a player like John Hurt don’t you?

Brooks: Yeah, that fingerpicking, the way the thumb moves, yeah.

DATC: You mentioned some of the country blues players. When you think back to the context in which they played, the situation they were in, the instruments they played, what do you admire about some of those players?

Brooks: One of the things that grabs me about those early blues players is that they were so far ahead of the curve, so to speak, they were creating something that really hadn’t been created before. When I was learning to play and learning to play slide guitar, there were lots of people I could get ideas from. But with some of the early players, you get the idea there might have been only one other person they possibly could’ve listened to – or maybe in some cases, no one else! There wouldn’t have been the access to records – it would all have happened because they crossed paths with other musicians.

Hans: I’m sure a guy like Charlie Patton had nobody to lean on. They just created their own thing.

Brooks: I know the world has changed many times over. But fundamentally they were trying to make their way in the world and make some sort of living, to make a way in the world playing music, and that is powerful, considering what some of those players would have been up against, socially, economically. Those were some pretty huge mountains to cross, and just the fact that they did it and we’re still listening to it. And it’s still vibrant!

DATC: So both of you play to audiences in Europe and the US – is there still an appetite for this sort of music where ever you play?

Hans: People come and like the hand made feel of things – things happening on the spot, the voice and the guitar and that’s it. And they can see what we’re doing.

DATC: And it’s real music.

Hans: And sometimes we fly off, we get into some improvised bit, and people enjoy that. They can see that its happening here and now and it’s never going to happen again. And that’s the big charm of this kind of music

DATC: What about the demographic – is there a younger audience for this type of music?

Hans: I find that the audience is getting up there! But there’s always young kids in the first row who want to play guitar and want to see what fingering you’re using. But I think the general audience is getting older.

Brooks: One of the things I’d like to see – and I’ve been thinking about this pretty seriously for about a year – how can one expose people to the wonderful flexibility in the blues so that they can see how vibrant it can be for them? It would be exciting to see it moving forward in some way – I’m not sure what that way might be. And the two things that I’ve seen in my travels that keep the blues vibrant in the ears and eyes of people is firstly, blues has such a direct link to rock and roll, so that even some kid who is 13 and wants to play rock guitar, they’ve figured out they need to know how to play blues guitar; that that’s part of the process. So that’s a cool thing. The other thing is that when you find an audience that has figured out that this music – even though it’s set in a time and place and an economic and social situation – that it’s as relevant now for people as it was back then. It’s very alive. Even though some of the language in some of the older songs may be a little bit foreign to our ears, it’s really vibrant music.

DATC: And – unfortunately – increasingly relevant in the world we’re now living in.

Brooks: Yeah, absolutely.

DATC: You’ve both had long careers. What ways has the music industry change for you as a recording and performing artist?

Hans: Well, lots of colleagues complain it’s not working as well as it used to. I must say, on my part, I cannot really complain. For my part, I’m pretty happy, but I guess for new kids starting out, it must be difficult to get your foot in the door.

Brooks: The changes haven’t affected me. I had my best year in 28 years, last year! I’m still travelling that little bit under the radar and so some of the changes that might slow some aspects of the industry down, actually don’t reach me. And because there is less opportunity to hear roots music on the radio, people go online more to listen to online radio and what is interesting is they’re getting turned on to artists they wouldn’t otherwise know of. And so I’ll show up in a little town where I’ve never been and someone will say, oh I heard you on such and such a radio station which you only can get online.

Hans: Or you get somebody from Nepal ordering a CD! You know, I think continuity is really important. To keep doing what you’re doing, so people know what to expect. And if you do quality work over the years, that’s what they’ll expect. Keep doing what you love doing. And if people catch your enjoyment, you being happy doing what you do, that really rubs off.

DATC: So on that point Hans, we’re all getting a bit older – how does touring feel compared with when you were younger, and what is it about what you do that keeps you going?

Hans: I still enjoy playing and playing for an audience. Now this tour is a pretty hefty one – something like 21 days of concerts. So it’s good that we are sharing the stage and swapping songs, so you’re not singing every song! But I really enjoy playing, and as long as the health situation is good, that’s the way to go.

Brooks: You know, for the first 10 or 15 years of my career, I had to constantly just stay on task. I don’t know whether it was just me, or the nature of the travelling, I had a young baby at home, I was married and it just seemed like a lot of burden. But what has been an absolute pleasure in the last decade has been being able to sit back and enjoy – really enjoy – what it is I am doing. And to look ahead at a year and say, “Hey wouldn’t it be great if Hans wanted to come over, and we’d do a tour, and what about three and a half weeks, wouldn’t that be great?” And if we could just dream that? And here’s it’s happening and that’s really exciting. And I feel like, if at all possible, as long as I can keep playing, I’d like to have experiences like the one we’re having now – where it’s fun, it’s interactive, where I’m learning, where I’m loving the music and the audiences. And then, after the tour is over, Hans will do some solo shows and I’ll do some solo shows, and we’ll each play with our bands – but we’ll go back to all of that a little bit richer, and more inspired. It’s like, now, I’m finally at a point in my life I can enjoy it!

Hans: It’s exciting to do things you haven’t done before. Like, when we took off last week, we just said, here’s a list of songs, you pick one, I’ll pick one – and here we go! This is great.

DATC: And this sort of enthusiasm for sure comes across to your audiences. Great, thanks guys and best wishes for the rest of the tour!

 

Jackson Browne in Dublin: 5 things we learned.

Jackson Browne played five sold-out nights at Vicar Street in Dublin. There’s a lovely, intimate feel to this venue, although it does hold about 1,000 people. Down at the Crossroads went on night 2 and here’s what we learned:

1. Jackson Browne, though pushing 70, still puts on an outstanding show, bantering with the audience, utterly at ease with his band and his extensive back catalogue of songs, and able to hold his audience utterly captivated for over two hours. He’s a great musician as well as a great songwriter, showing off considerable piano and guitar chops along the way.

2. Jackson Browne’s catalogue of songs, going back over forty years, is as good as you’ll hear from any other artist. He played songs from every era of his career, many in response to requests from the audience. He basically abandoned his set list after a couple of songs and performed whatever he could hear shouted out to him (or understand, given the broad Dublin accents of some). Most of these songs have a timeless, enduring quality to the music and an on-going relevance in the lyrics. I’ve lived with some of them for most of these past forty years – they are like old, favourite shirts that you just love to pull on. They’re comfortable, they fit you, they’re just part of you. That said, they’re not dad-rock. A young friend of mine who was unfamiliar with Jackson Browne, told me this week he had checked out his early albums after my enthusiastic Facebook posts about the concert. His comment – simply, “wow.”

3. The band Jackson Browne has assembled for this tour is top notch. Of particular note are Val Callum, who’s played guitar with Jackson for some time, and Greg Leisz, lap steel, pedal steel and all round guitar genius who has joined the band for this tour. Grammy award winner Leisz has played with a who’s who of rock, country and Americana artists and is a jaw-droppingly good musician. His slide guitar and pedal steel work throughout the evening was nothing short of sensational. Val Callum is the sort of guitarist who plays wonderfully and tastefully, maybe unnoticed unless you’re a guitarist and realize just how good the understated stuff is, and then who suddenly, when he gets the nod from Jackson, will dazzle with fast, syncopated runs up and down the fretboard. And spare a thought for Bob Glaub, the bass player – another top class musician – who played bass on the song “The Pretender,” back in 1976, but who was never credited. Browne made that right just before the band launched into the song, to the delight of the crowd.

4. He didn’t play “The Rebel Jesus,” despite repeated calls for it from one member of the audience. Couldn’t remember it, he said. Fair enough, it’s a cover of a Chieftains song (which appears on The Next Voice You Hear). But I’d love to have heard it. The song gets to important matters about the person and mission of Jesus:

“Well we guard our world with locks and guns
And we guard our fine possessions
And once a year when Christmas comes
We give to our relations
And perhaps we give a little to the poor
If the generosity should seize us
But if any one of us should interfere
In the business of why there are poor
They get the same as the rebel Jesus.”

5. And finally – Dublin is a remarkably welcoming city. I managed to get myself hopelessly lost driving to Dublin and was starting to worry about getting to Vicar Street in time for the concert. At a set of traffic lights I rolled down the window and asked directions from a taxi driver in the next lane. “Follow me,” he said and led me all the way to my destination. I tried to pay him but he resolutely refused. Then, after the gig I was sitting in my car desperately fiddling with Google to try and find my way out of the city. Then came a knock on the window and a guy said, “Do you know where you’re going?” He then said, “Follow me.” He jumped into his car and I followed him through Dublin until he got me on the main road to Belfast. The kindness of strangers.