Eric Bibb: “Everything can change, if we believe”

Photo: Michael Wall

Eric Bibb – blues troubadour, global griot, as a recent album has it, whose music always seems to arrive at the Needed Time – considers his Dear America album to be his finest work yet.

Bibb, originally from New York, but now resident in Sweden, has been delighting audiences on both sides of the Atlantic for more years than he cares to remember, with his finely honed guitar picking, his honeyed vocals, his good humour and all-round positive vibe. No matter what sort of day you’ve had, when you go to an Eric Bibb gig, the weight of the world disappears and you’ll find yourself with a smile on your face that doesn’t go away for a week.

He’s a Grammy nominated, Blues Music Award winning song-writer and performing artist who is very much at the top of his game, as is evidenced by Dear America, which he says is “a love letter, because America, for all of its associations with pain and its bloody history, has always been a place of incredible hope and optimism.” On this record, he says, “I’m saying all the things I would want to say to somebody dear to me.”

Thanks to the wonders of Zoom, I got chatting to Eric at his home on a farm south of Stockholm where he has spent the last 18 months, like the rest of us, keeping safe. He has, however, been able to work online, performing and giving guitar lessons – “I haven’t suffered like many of my colleagues, so I feel quite, quite blessed.”

I asked him, first of all, about the making of the album and his musical collaborators and guests. He told me that, although he’s proud of the body of work he’s created in the past, both he and his producer, Glen Scott, who has worked with him on many previous projects, agree that “this is our best work.”

The album, on the Provogue label, features a number of well-known guest artists, the result of Scott’s vision, who had said to Eric a while back, “Eric, one day, we’re just going to go to New York and you’re going to have like the best rhythm section in the world, and we’re going to cut some tracks.”

So, the album features top notch players like Steve Jordan on drums, who has worked extensively with Keith Richards and John Mayer, Tommy Sims on bass, “a great musician all around, but amazing bass player and singer and guitar player, who’s worked with everybody from Bonnie Raitt to Bruce Springsteen,” Chuck Campbell of the Campbell Brothers who plays lap steel guitar on Different Picture, Billy Branch on harmonica, and Ron Carter, again on bass.

Of the legendary Ron Carter – the most recorded jazz bassist in history – Eric talked about the first time he’d played with him more than fifty years ago, as a young man of sixteen.

“He was the bass player who had the bass chair on my dad’s television show in the late sixties. My dad [Leon Bibb, the renown folk singer, actor and civil rights activist] had a TV show called Someone New that featured young talent – nine-year-old Yo Yo Ma was on that show. I was sixteen years old and my dad put me in the guitar player’s chair. It was the first time I was in a completely over my head situation. I had to get a union card and there I was with Ron Carter playing bass and I’m trying to read the chart! So it was an amazing reconnection with him.”

Other guests include Lisa Mills, who duets on the album’s last song, the exquisitely beautiful Oneness of Love, and Shaneeka Simon, a gospel singer from the UK – “just a gem of a musician, a great singer, a fine person” – who makes a telling contribution on Born of a Woman.

The songs on the album are quite bluesy both musically and lyrically. None more so than Whole World’s Got the Blues, which bemoans the state of the world – “everywhere you turn you’re looking at sad, sad news.” The song is taken to a new dimension by the appearance of Eric Gales’s guitar, which weaves in and out of Bibb’s lyrics and then breaks into its own protesting, moaning solo, echoing eloquently the sombre message of the song.

“Eric Gales – his palette is so huge, and when it comes to blues, he’s the epitome of the best of old school and modern sensibilities. He’s in a class all by himself and also a fine person to work with, to vibe off. Because he’s spontaneous, straightforward, honest, you know, a heart open-on-his-sleeve kind of guy. I met him on a Joe Bonamassa blues cruise and Ulrika [Bibb’s wife] caught him on film, kind of dancing to a song during my set. And I thought, ‘Oh, that’s a good sign.’ And then I heard him and I was completely blown away, so I went up to him said, ‘listen, would you guest on my album if I could make the thing happen?’ And he said, ‘it’s going to happen’!

Dear America is a collection of thirteen Eric Bibb originals, all testament to his outstanding song-writing skill, ear for a good tune and top-notch guitar chops, but what makes Dear America such a great album – and an important album – is not just the music but the nuanced social commentary and challenge he presents.

Dear America addresses the troubled racial history of the United States and what is still, sadly, going on. A number of the songs are quite explicit and quite hard hitting. In White and Black, he highlights the “crooked thinking, white is good, black is bad”; in Dear America, “on the one hand to be called your citizen, on the other to be excluded because of the colour of my skin”; and in Different Picture, the repetitive nature of America’s racial problems are firmly in view.

I wondered how important it was for Eric to make this record, to say the sort of things that he’s saying here and to ask the sort of questions he poses.

“I think the whole world has been preoccupied with current events in America for some time – the whole Trump era unleashed a lot of monsters that we’ve been trying, as a collective people, to sweep under the carpet. I think that, with that, and with events like the George Floyd murder and so on, things just seem to be coming to a head.

“And it was like everything was conspiring to make the world pay attention to these issues in a new way. This was borne out by the fact that so many young people ended up becoming involved, and not only African-Americans, but others with the whole Black Lives Matter movement. And, you know, this is ongoing. It’s not new, but it’s certainly more in our face than ever before.

“I was very aware going into this project that we were dealing with very uncomfortable issues. But to pretend that it doesn’t exist or minimize its impact on our lives is to end up being much more uncomfortable. And I think the more we understand that, the better off we’ll be. So, I knew I wanted to say something about all of this and say it from a perspective of an American living outside of America.”

One of the very sobering songs on the album is Emmett’s Ghost. The gentle, almost cheery finger-picked guitar introduction belies the dreadful historical event the song refers to. Emmett Till was a 14-year-old African American from Chicago visiting relatives in Mississippi in 1955, who was falsely accused of offending a white woman and then brutally lynched, before his body was thrown into the Tallahatchie River. Outrageously, his murderers were acquitted, but Emmet Till became an iconic figure in the Civil Rights movement.

Bibb sings about his own experience of coming to know about Emmet Till as a boy himself, of coming to realize “from that day on, some hated my kind.” Sadly, this is not just an event from the past – Emmet Till’s ghost still haunts America, “we can’t move on because hate’s still going strong all over this country.”

Events like this still clearly reverberate; another recent blues album, Guy Davis’s Be Ready When I Call You, shines a light on the appalling Tulsa Massacre of 1921 [see our interview with Guy here]. I asked Eric if America has really come to terms with its past, with the brutality and inhumanity of events like these?

“Well, the hatred mentioned in the song refrain is still going on, and one of the reasons for that is because it’s never been properly acknowledged, it’s never been properly taught about in schools. It’s that part of American history that has often been whitewashed. There are people who told me – and I’m talking about educated people, man – they had never heard of this story.

“But African-Americans have been aware of it because it was pivotal in the history of the whole Civil Rights movement. But the number of people who were unaware of this story was quite shocking to me. Emmet was 1955, half a century ago or longer. The George Floyd murder, for example, to me was a very palpable reverberation of the same energy, the same attitudes.

“The fact that the guys who perpetrated the Emmett Till murder got off, the fact that the policemen who murdered George Floyd didn’t get off, tells me something about the evolution of consciousness and that we’re growing. And I also found out the Emmett Till case has been reopened and in absentia could possibly get a guilty verdict. [This Guardian article reviews the re-opening of the case.]

“So, as uncomfortable with this history is, as long as it’s taken to even get to this point and, let’s face it, these are what seem like minimal steps forward, I have a feeling that the process is accelerating.

“And I think being in a position to add my voice to this ongoing conversation is really good for me because this is what I do. I’m a troubadour who is aware of my surroundings and the world that I live in. And if there’s any way this troubadour can influence a conversation and perhaps promote change, that’s good.”

Although Dear America addresses some serious issues, Eric wanted to make clear that “this is not a protest album.” Growing up in the ‘60s in New York, with a father like Leon Bibb, Eric was well acquainted with folk protest songwriters like Bob Dylan and Phil Ochs. And so, although he never considered himself an artist in that vein, “it was impossible for me to not take on board in my songwriting all of these things. It was just impossible.”

“I consider myself some kind of storyteller. Who’s got something to say, with a history that gives me a platform for speaking out and being a voice for promoting certain kinds of conversations that will hopefully lead to change. That’s part of my chameleon background. But I also wanted it just to be a groovy album, you know, that people would get into. I didn’t want to just be on a soap box. So that was in itself challenging, but I think I had help from above in pulling it off, you know?”

That’s a delicate balance to achieve, but I think he has, indeed, pulled it off. Because, like every Eric Bibb album you listen to, there’s a thread of hope and joy that comes through very strongly. And the music is great.

Photo: Michael Wall

I did want to ask him about one other song on the album, which I think is a hugely important one. Born of a Woman, which features Shaneeka Simon, addresses the tsunami of violence against women all over the world.

“Yes, I’m very glad that song came to me because I want to weigh in on this and basically draw attention to something that is really, as you say, global and alarming, to say the least.

“Again, to me it is indicative of the fact that we’re in a time right now, where it seems that all of the issues or whatever trauma that is holding the human community back from becoming this loving family – the misogyny, racism, all of that – seems to just being pushed to the front of our awareness in dramatic ways, and people are taking sides.

“And young people, fortunately, are kind of getting it and stepping up in more numbers than ever before. But the pushback is also quite intense right now, there are people who are really resistant to looking at all of this and coming to terms with it.”

While Eric, rightly, points to the hope lying in the younger generation, a thread of hope is never far away in an Eric Bibb album. Take the first song, Whole Lotta Lovin’, where we find Eric giving thanks for the simple things in life. “A whole lot of thank you, Lord, for all you provide.” It’s a wonderful way to start the album and we get threads of this thankful attitude right the way through. I wondered how important gratitude is to him and how important gratitude is in the midst of all the difficulties we’ve be talking about?

“It’s essential to me personally, and I think it’s an essential attitude and emotion for the healing of all of us. I’ve written a couple of songs, even one with the title Gratitude [On Roadworks, 1999]. It’s central to my way of going forth in the world. And it’s really helped me, I think. Without that the possibility of tipping over into the lane of cynicism and bitterness is quite huge. So that’s the antidote to that.

“And it’s funny, you mentioned the first song. This album is called Dear America and I call it a love letter. If I can think of one or two things about the American experience – speaking personally, but I think it’s also a universal feeling – it would be the food and the music, you know, because there’s something poetically and cosmically fitting about a music that spans so many different kinds of expressions – jazz, calypso, blues, gospel, whatever, music born of a history and a people who have been really hard done by. And this fascinates me.

Photo: Michael Wall

“It’s like, it tells me something about the creator. Giving the gift of a certain kind of irresistible music that not only makes the whole world joyful, but makes whole world connected in its love of it, makes the whole world want to play it, sing it, understand it, know about it.

The fact of where it’s come from is a beautiful, beautiful comment on life in general. And I want to make it clear that this gift from the African-American tribe to the world, that has basically brought so many people together in so many ways, is the way I want to think about America when I think about what’s great about it, you know, what it’s given us. And I wanted to start there because I knew I had to go other places, but I really wanted to start there. And I’m glad you mention that.”

In similar vein, Love’s Kingdom, strikes that same note of hope and thankfulness – “Everything can change, if we believe,” and “Let’s start with being grateful for being alive.” There’s a defiant hope here against all the darkness, hope which almost goes against the grain.

“That song, really, I guess you could say, summarizes my philosophy. I really think at the end of the day this is the way. And I think it’s not a simple path, getting there is not simple, but it is a simple solution. Making that decision to step into Love’s Kingdom, to basically really follow the great teachings of all the great teachers, whoever you want to follow, that was the message. And we have that possibility and I just felt like saying it as simply as that – if we can step into Love’s Kingdom, you know, turn it over and really trust in some kind of loving higher power, however you want to frame it or put it into words.”

It’s a fabulous song, though not a typical Eric Bibb arrangement. A collaboration between Eric, Glen Scott and Tommy Sims, it’s got a kind of retro soul feel to it, which lifts you up and carries you along. Right into the closing song, Oneness of Love, a beautiful, gentle song, with a simple accompaniment, graced by the sweet voice of Lisa Mills added to Bibb’s own. It’s a fitting way to complete the album, where a letter that is painfully honest, but never hopeless or cynical, is sandwiched between notes of thankfulness, hope and love at the beginning and end.

Eric Bibb’s is a voice we need to hear. In a world where there’s so much aggression and hatred, a voice for peace, for unity, for humanity is one that needs to be heard. And Dear America is especially timely – shining a light on much of what is pulling people apart and giving rise to bitterness and division, but never giving up on the possibilities that love can bring.

[See our extended comment on Born of a Woman here]

From Sharecropping to Soulful Singing – Jack Ward’s Remarkable Story

Jack Ward was a successful Stax recording artist, but, remarkably, has never made an album – until now. At a lively 83 years old, he has released a fabulous album of bluesy, soulful gospel songs, Already Made, on Bruce Watson’s Bible and Tire Recording Co. label.

“I was born in the country,” says Jack, “and I would hear Elmore James, John Lee Hooker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, all of them guys — and I used to patronize them, and sing like them a little bit, but I came back to my roots. I used to do a lot of blues singing but I broke from that and got into the gospel.”

Jack was the lead vocalist in a 1960s group along with Isaac Hayes on piano and had several hit records with both Stax Records and Peacock Records. He retired from professional singing to concentrate on being a church pastor in Memphis, and although his outstanding singing voice has been heard often in his church, this outstanding release from Bible and Tire gives the rest of us the opportunity to appreciate his considerable songwriting and vocal talent.

Elder Jack Ward’s re-discovery comes as a result of Bruce Watson working with Juan D Shipp on the old D-Vine Spiritual’s back catalogue. On finding some of the artists still alive and active, Watson has had them in the studio, with brilliant results. Elizabeth King’s Living in the Last Days was released to considerable critical acclaim and now we have Ward’s Already Made. [Catch our interview with the remarkable Elizabeth King here.]  Produced by Watson and Sacred Soul Sound Section leader Will Sexton at Memphis’s Delta-Sonic Sound Studio, the ten song program features the warmly-recorded winning ingredients that are becoming a trademark of Bible and Tire’s patented Sacred Soul sound, from Ward’s spirited vocals to the crack studio band laying down the grooves behind him.

I was delighted to get the opportunity to chat to Elder Jack Ward about the album, his music and life. I found him justifiable proud of his past singing career, performing and recording in the 1960s.

“I did a recording with Stax, Don’t Need No Doctor. It’s been so long, man, fifty years, but that’s what put me on the top. It was all just about for two years a hit. The Christian Harmonizers, we were with Stax and we went out on the road. I did a lot of writing myself, my own songs. And then I put a group together called The Gospel Four. That’s when we put out, Look Down the Lonesome Road and Change Gonna Come. And that put me in the spotlight.”

When you listen to Jack Ward sing, you hear a soulful tenor voice, with great range and a sweet falsetto. I asked about choosing gospel music rather than blues or soul.

“My mom, she was a singer and, I used to hear her – see, I’m a country boy – she used to pick cotton in the country and drive tractors and mules and she would sing songs. She was the one that kept me in the church whenever I was a lad of a boy. I was the only son and I had two sisters.”

Jack was singing from a young age, better, he said, than the “white boys” he knew, who would get him to sing for them in Moorhead Mississippi. “They heard me sing and I was I think about 10. I’d say, ‘Come on, who you want to hear?’ I used to do Earnest Tubb’s Walking the Floor Over You, Hank Williams and all of that. And they would give me a dime, fifteen cents.”

Jack left his home on the farm and came to Memphis when he was 18 – “I had it in mind to make me a hit record.” He went back and forth for a couple of years, but settled, he told me, when he was 21 and has been in Memphis ever since.

“And I had my mind set to come to Memphis to sing blues or rock ’n’ roll.” But some school friends said to him, ‘Look, man, we need you to sing gospel,’ so he joined the Christian Harmonizers, making a number of successful gospel records before going on to form the Gospel Four in 1968. The Gospel Four had an altogether different sound and style than the Christian Harmonizers, as exemplified by the gripping testimonial The Last Road and the mid-tempo, minor-keyed A Change Is Gonna Come.

“That was something that I enjoyed in my heart,” Jack told me, “and maybe this stopped me going to rock and roll and the blues and I’m glad that I turned around and got into the gospel.”

He earned the moniker “Jumping Jack Ward” around this time, “because, you know, I had a little jump from the singing. It was no outstanding thing, it just made me feel good. And I just do my little thing and they called Jumping Jack Ward.”

For the last fifty years, though, Jack has been Elder Jack Ward. He had started pastoring before his professional singing career finished –  “I was doing evangelism and so on” – and went on to found the Earth Temple Holiness Church, which he has led for the past 57 years, although he started to “pass things back” a while ago.

Jack is clearly – and justifiably – quite delighted about the new album and the opportunity to get on the road. “Now this would be my first album [as opposed to 45 singles]. So this is where I am now at this time. I plan to do some traveling as soon as we get everything lined up. I’m an 83-year-old man!”

Watson feels that Already Made is one of the best albums he’s ever produced – given some of the albums he’s worked on at Fat Possum, that’s saying a lot. It is, indeed, very, very good, with Ward’s soulful vocals beautifully backed by both his daughters and Bible and Tire label mates the Sensational Barnes Brothers. Guitarists Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang add a little magic to the mix, adding variety to the songs, from the distortion on He’s Got Great Things to the cool reverb of Shout Trouble’s Over to the shimmering vibrato of God’s Love.

God’s Love is a lovely song, with Ward’s tender vocals giving a great sense of somebody who has personally experienced God’s love and care over the years, despite life’s difficulties.

“When you weak, he will make you strong, when you’re lonely, he would never leave you alone. So that was a comfort to me a whole lot. I didn’t drop out. I just kept doing what God had gave me from birth. I love that one, God’s Love.”

Other songs, like Someone Who Is Greater Than Me, Lord I’m In Your Care and God’s Got a Hold of My Hands, all convey the same positive message of Ward’s experience of faith in the nitty gritty of his own life and those of the many people he has pastored over the years.

He’s someone who knows about hard times – not that he’ll be forthcoming in complaining in any way. I asked him, for example, about his early life, and he told me about life in a family of sharecroppers in rural Mississippi in the first half of the last century. Life wasn’t easy, to say the least.

“We was raised up on a farm. I had to work on the farm, my family and I, and my two sisters. And we had to chop cotton, pick cotton. When I turned 17, I was working with my father and some men that he had hired. And we cut wood for cross ties that goes on the rail road. So I was working, doing, the job that men was doing. I was pretty apt to catch on.

One Row Planter

“And, as I just come up through the years, I applied to use a one row planter. You had to put the mule on the row with the planter, and you had to walk on the top of it, one road planter, and man, it was hot. We was in the sun. 85 or 90, sometime they would get up there to 105. My head, it was black in the sun! I’ve done some bogus work. I’ve done everything, drove tractors and drove mules and baled hay.”

Sharecropping is a system where the landlord allows a tenant to use the land in exchange for a share of the crop. Mississippi tenant farm families were often kept severely indebted. The landlord would extend a line of credit to the sharecropper while taking the year’s crop as collateral. The sharecropper could then draw food and supplies all year long. When the crop was harvested, the harvest was sold and the debt settled, but with no added benefit for the sharecropper.

“Sharecropper,” Jack mused. “But you would get nothing out of it. You wouldn’t get anything out of that because the boss man, he tell you, ‘Well, Jordan’ – that’s my daddy’s name – he said, ‘y’all just come out, outta debt.’ And so daddy said, outta debt? He said, ‘well, we’ll loan you some money and go through the winter.’” Jack chuckled as he recounted this.

Remarkably, he remembers the good things about those days. His family never went hungry – “because, we raised vegetables and water melons, sweet potatoes, corn, popcorn. We hunted rabbits and stuff like that. And we never did get hungry.”

“I mean, back in the old days, it was pretty good, because, we didn’t have no responsibility like, lights and all of this, ‘cause we didn’t have lights. During that time we had to use kerosene, paraffin, stuff like that, and when the boss man put lights in our house, man, I tell you, I was just so happy.”

“You know, you was in the country. You didn’t have nothing too much to worry about. You had to work hard and they pay you little money. So from that point, yeah, it was tough. But, people was not sick. Like a lot of people now. See, we had chickens, geese, mules and all of that and hogs. Getting close to wintertime, dad would kill a hog. We was in the field and didn’t get sick because you would get out in the heat and sweat all that stuff out. You didn’t have no high blood pressure. They didn’t have no headaches and diabetes.”

Jack remembers being able to dress up once in a while, putting on his best shoes and a suit. “Looking back, we was taken care of. We just did so much hard work, bogus work. I call it like that. You didn’t get no pay amount to anything. I’ve chopped cotton for a dollar and a quarter a whole day. We moved on from that, but, you know, I thank God for how he kept me and I didn’t get sick and a lot, but I just thank God for this time.”

Elder Jack Ward has an incredibly positive attitude to life, and thankfulness is clearly a mark of the man. You just have to listen to He’s Got Great Things Waiting You, to get a sense of the way his faith gives him confidence in God, no matter what life throws at him. “Dry your eyes, and don’t you cry, your blessing is so nigh.”

At 83, Jack knows the road ahead is shorter than what’s behind, but his sense of gratitude, his faith and his enthusiasm for life as inspirational. “I know we all got to leave here, but a whole lot of my friends, they are gone. So I’m thankful. I thank God for just keeping me alive. And I’m doing pretty good and my ministry and then my singing career – I love both. I love singing. I love preaching. I love teaching and that’s me.”

The album finishes with Ward’s favorite, I Feel Better Since I Prayed. When I asked him about it, he got on the theme of thankfulness again.

“We do pray the prayer of Our Father, but perhaps you want to thank God for what he has done and how far he has brought you. And you look back and you see a lot of your friends and your school mates in the singers, they are gone and we are blessed to be here. Now, I’ve got a song called You’re Blessed to be Here, with the Sunset Travelers. You’re blessed to be here. And I tell people without God, we are nothing because he wakes us up in the morning. We have a lot to be thankful for.

“And I thank God every day. You know, you don’t have to be screaming, hollering, you can just pray in your spirit. When we leave home and go places, when we get ready to get out of drive, my wife prays and I’m driving. God has brought us through a lot of things. So I just take a step every day. I don’t worry about what tomorrow would bring. The Bible tells us that the morrow will take care of itself. And, we just go one day, when you wake up, you’re thankful that you are alive. I tell people when you wake up, you sit up and you get up!”

“You can give God praise, you got to tell him, thank you for another day, you kept me, you kept your arms around me.”

He may have just recorded a terrific album in Already Made, but there’re no sense of Jack Ward resting on his laurels. He’s looking to the future with a thankful heart and an optimistic spirit. “I tell people there’s a whole lot to be done and a little time to do it. So I got a message. I got a message I’m going to do on that. It’s a whole lot to be done, but a little time to do it.”

We hear you Jack.

[Check out our interview with Bruce Watson, telling the remarkable story of Bible and Tire here.]

The Unique Talent that is Mark Harrison

“Rapidly becoming a British national treasure.” Blues Blast Magazine

Mark Harrison’s sixth album, The Road to Liberty, showcases his adept story-telling and clever lyrics, his knack for composing a catchy tune, and his never-less-than-engaging performance as a singer and guitarist. He’s hard to pigeon-hole, not quite blues, but blues never far away, somewhere in the folk-blues-country continuum.

That’s not a bad thing, given the unique talent that he is, able to write songs that transport you to another place, to make you contemplate the world around and, as well as that – most importantly – to entertain you.

Harrison is an English singer songwriter, who plays a nifty acoustic guitar, who has been delighting audiences over the last ten years with his carefully crafted songs and witty banter. He was a late starter as a professional musician, not picking up a guitar and singing until his fifth decade, but he’s made up for lost time, touring the country and supporting such artists as The Holmes Brothers and Doug MacLeod, along with major festival and radio appearances. He’s also released now six albums, all of which have been eagerly received and critically acclaimed. If you haven’t come across him as yet – put that right straight away and grab yourself a CD or download.

You could start with The Road to Liberty, a double album of 21 songs, featuring Harrison and his two bandmates, Charles Benfield on double bass and Ben Welburn on drums and percussion.

I got chatting to Mark about the new album and his musical journey. His previous albums, he told me, had been the “standard studio procedure of layer upon layer,” but that the band had felt that this album ought to reflect much more Mark’s live performances – “this business of singing your songs, standing up in a booth with headphones on, when do you ever do that in real life?”

A double album is a little unusual these days, and I wondered how that had come about. Mark said that he’d a lot of songs in the bank, so to speak, and, although he thought they’d only choose the standard 12 or 13 songs, the band like the lot of them, “so we thought, well, let’s just record them all. So, I’ve actually cleaned out everything I’ve got now!”

I remarked on the quality of the album’s cover and artwork – so often you get flimsy, pared back packaging these days and you wonder why you didn’t just buy the download. The Road to Liberty, however, feels quite luxurious.

“Well, it’s Andy Hall, who’s done everything for me from the very beginning. He and Rick, his business partner, ran a website called Blues in London when I got started, which was a sort of central thing for the blues scene in London. That’s how I met them, doing jams down at the Green Note in Camden. So when it came to do my first album, they said they’d like to do the cover. And so, it’s gone on from there and Andy does really wonderful things that make everything look great.”

The album has more of a band feel about it than some of Harrison’s previous albums. Charles Benfield and Ben Welburn, Mark’s two band members, are very talented musicians, whom he met on the blues jam scene at the very beginning of his career. They’ve been playing as a settled trio since around 2017, and sound a very solid and tight little outfit.

Mark does some solo gigs as well, depending on the venue and the promoter’s budget, but increasingly, it’s the trio. “I’d say it’s more fun when it’s the three of us.”

The album’s title, The Road to Liberty, is intriguing and one reviewer rather poetically suggested that it describes a “set of observations set to the heartbeat of humanity which exemplify the struggle of narrative freedom being taken seriously.” The phrase occurs in the song Restless Mind, a clever, jaunty number, with the band in full flight, which takes an ironic look at what happens when you let your mind become too restless.

“Well, I always take a phrase from a song, not a song title. So all the albums have a phrase or a word that is in one of the songs as the title of the album. I felt that I wanted a title that reflected some upbeat message because, in my opinion, the music generally speaking has an upbeat message in the words, even if it might not appear that at first glance.”

For sure, the tunes in the album are very upbeat, very optimistic sounding. At times they almost seem to belie the lyrics, a deliberate ploy by Harrison: “I’ve always felt that the music itself is uplifting or is meant to be, so you have perhaps a contrast between what is often a jolly tune, with what might be called slightly acerbic lyrics. And I think that’s probably where I’m at.”

As you listen to the songs, you’ll find yourself in turns amused, intrigued and puzzled. I asked Mark about one song in particular, which is great fun and had piqued my curiosity, Don’t Let the Crazy Out of the Bag (Too Soon).

“A woman friend told me a little while ago that if she was in a successful relationship that was going well, she would often find that the worst possible thing she could say would pop into her mind. And yet knowing that, she would find herself saying it! And then there came a point where she got engaged. But later I noticed on social media that she was no longer engaged. So I asked her about it. And she wrote, ‘I think I let the crazy out of the bag too soon.’

“And that one does have a happy ending by the way! It’s like a lot of things, you come across a phrase and you think it has a much more general application perhaps than the context in which you’ve heard it. And so, as well as that being a bit of fun, I thought that was a suitable subject for a song.”

Mark Harrison’s songs typically address a wide variety of situations and snapshots of life – on this album, you’ll find a song about the life of Skip James, Skip’s Song, a song about working in a factory in an economic downturn, Toolmaker’s Blues, and one about a poor guy on trial before the judge, All Rise. As you listen to this set of all-original songs, you can’t help but pick up echoes of blues music. Harrison plays a National resonator and has a cool kind of bluesy, picking style. You might expect him to throw in a few old blues songs, but that tends not to be what he does.

Mark told me that when he first got started, he tried to work out a few old blues tunes on the guitar, but found he couldn’t do it. The second song on the album, Everybody Knows, is a nice guitar-driven song in a Mississippi John Hurt style, but Mark said it was actually the first song he wrote using the 12-string and he had thought at the time he was working out Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues. “So the short answer is, I don’t do covers of them because I’m not capable!” (Unlikely, Mark is an accomplished guitarist.)

Mark’s back story as a musician is a remarkable one. He’d played guitar seriously in his youth, but only returned to it much later in life, about eleven years ago.

“I got this guitar shortly before I started in 2010. And that transformed everything. I had absolutely no intentions at all of launching it into anything. I didn’t expect to make an album or do a gig, and so for a little while, I just went and played a little bit at jams and it was a social thing. But the London blues jam scene is pretty good – a bunch of really good people and very high standards. So then, I’d written some songs and I thought I’d commit them to posterity and that was the first album [the acclaimed Watching the Parade]. I had no inkling of what would happen. It sounded okay to me. I put it out there a little bit cautiously and I got a few gigs and it built from there. So it’s a rare case of something in life that’s just taken on its own momentum. And it hasn’t been a big struggle!

“One of the advantages of the changes in society in my lifetime is that it doesn’t matter what age you are with music. In fact, the acts most likely to sell tickets and do main stage at festivals probably have an average age that’s pushing 70! Most theatre listings of music and festivals are all about nostalgia. So, the idea that you couldn’t be doing this at a relatively older age, that doesn’t exist. Which is pretty good.

“And people with my musical background would tend to be what you call old school, which is that you’re not going to go out there and inflict yourself on people then unless you’ve worked out something that’s of a really high level professionally. So I carry that sort of attitude with me.”

We chatted a bit about the economics of being a musician and how embarking on a career or going out as a professional musician is a pretty uncertain enterprise.

“It’s pretty obvious to anyone involved that the demise of recorded music as a commercial enterprise has had an enormous effect. In the past you could shift a lot of albums, but by the time I got started, that ship had sailed. So you need to form your plans realistically with that in mind. I do really pretty well for someone that wasn’t established many years ago. But in terms of making money, nobody is.

“I used to listen to radio when there were a limited number of radio shows and I would buy albums straight off hearing people on, say, the Paul Jones show and others. Now I’ve been on those shows subsequently, and I think in the past, if you got played there, let alone did a session, like we have, that would have led to very significant sales of your albums. But these days it doesn’t. So there’s no point complaining about that. That had already kicked him by the time I got going. So it’s a question of understanding the environment you’re operating in and being realistic. There’s no point being in music if you’re going to complain about not being famous.

“For me, it’s going out and playing, the audiences, the people that come up and talk to you, the places that you go, the experiences that you have.”

Part of Mark’s story is acquiring a guitar previously owned by Eric Bibb, whom he admires a great deal.

“I started to listen to music again about 2000 after a long time of not listening to anything. I saw in the gig listing of one of the papers, “Eric Bibb, Sublime Bluesman.” I thought, I didn’t know there were any sublime bluesmen still alive. So, I went to see him several times and I thought what he was doing was great. And it showed you that you could get a really great big sound with a band that had an acoustic guitar leading it, not an electric guitar and someone pulling faces.

“Years later, I went to a shop in London – it doesn’t exist anymore – The London Resonator Centre and I thought I’d buy one of these guitars. They got me trying out some of the new Nationals, which are great. And then the guy running the shop said, ‘Ah, the way you play, you might like this that’s just come in.’ And he said that Eric Bibb had just brought it in. So I ended up getting that and subsequently I’ve met Eric numerous times, and he always hails me whenever I go to one of his gigs – “Mark!” from across the room.”

If you like acoustic blues music, you’re almost bound to appreciate Mark Harrison, even though his music can’t be pinned down to simply that genre.

“I think that I’m in the tradition of those guys that called themselves songsters. Back in the twenties and thirties, they would do a whole variety of stuff. I mean, if you listen to the full output of Robert Johnson, very little of it, actually, is what would now be called blues. Variety and entertainment were the key factors. So I’m in that tradition.

Entertainment is certainly what you get with a Mark Harrison performance and with a Mark Harrison album. But it’s not just entertainment. He’s a thoughtful artist who appraises life’s peaks and valleys and converts this into stories with wry and incisive lyrics, but never short of compassion. He’s a unique talent and one you ought to be familiar with.

Maria Muldaur wants us to get happy with her

“You have a choice every day, you can be bummed out or you can be happy.”

Having a tough week? Feeling a bit down? Here’s a sure fire-remedy – click on the video below and catch Maria Muldaur singing with New Orleans band, Tuba Skinny, and feel your cares slip away as your smile gives way to a big grin and you suddenly find yourself on your feet dancing.

If you’re a roots music fan you’ll know Maria Muldaur from her many albums of blues, jazz and roots music over the last five decades; if not, you’ll surely know Maria’s big hit song from 1973, Midnight at the Oasis, with its sand dunes, camels and cactus. She’s still going strong, as upbeat and positive about life as ever, and has blessed us with a new album, recorded with Tuba Skinny, a group of traditional jazz musicians, entitled Let’s Get Happy Together.

Recorded in New Orleans last October during the dark days of the pandemic, but released as some semblance of normally seems to be returning (at least to America and Europe), Let’s Get Happy Together captures the note of hope we’re all looking for, not only in its title but in the exuberance and joy of the songs.

Maria Muldaur has had a stellar career, with a back catalogue of 43 albums, six Grammy nominations, multiple Blues Music Award nominations and a Lifetime Achievement Americana Trailblazer Award from the Americana Music Association in 2019. And that’s before we get to the hordes of fans all over the world.

The new album is one of the best you’ll hear this year and features twelve songs from the 1920s and 30s that Holger Petersen, the album’s executive producer and founder of Stony Plain Records, its label, says “is a historic project that pays reverence to many of the early New Orleans women of blues and jazz.”

Muldaur says that she hopes listeners “will be inspired to look up these wonderful artists yourself on YouTube and start exploring and enjoying the endless abundance of incredible music they left us.”

I got chatting by phone to Maria at her home in California about the album and about life in general. She was a breath of fresh air. I asked her, first of all, how the album came about, and she told me this remarkable story.

“Well,” she said, “a few years ago, I was shopping in a store in Woodstock, New York, and this wonderful, exuberant, toe-tapping music came over the speakers and it just sounded like the most wonderful vintage jazz. So, I remarked to the shop gal how cool it was that the local radio station would be playing this hip jazz. And she said, ‘Oh, that’s not the radio. That’s a band. That’s Tuba Skinny.’ Well, you know, I’ve studied that kind of music all my life, really immersed myself in it, since I was in a jug band back in the sixties, and I’d never heard of them. She said, well, they are a young band from New Orleans and they play on the streets. And I couldn’t believe that they were young because they were playing with such soulfulness and such authenticity. So I just was immediately smitten with their music.

“Long story short, she knows some of them. So she hooked me up with five of their albums and I became an ardent fan. It was like they were channeling not just the music itself, but the very atmosphere and aura and rhythms of life from that bygone era. It’s almost like going back in a time machine to a time when things were not as mechanized and digitalized and, you know, industrialized.

“It just makes you happy to listen to it! Well, anyway, I was making my last album two years ago in New Orleans where I was paying tribute to a wonderful New Orleans blues woman named Blue Lu Barker, who originally wrote and recorded a tune that’s been in my repertoire for almost 50 years, called Don’t You Feel My Leg. So I made it my business to go see Tuba Skinny every chance I got, whether they were playing on the street or in clubs. And eventually the washboard player recognized me. I didn’t go up and talk to them or anything – I just was there as a fan. And he said, is your name Maria? Maria Muldaur? I said, Yeah. And he couldn’t believe it!

“So I ended up sitting in with them a couple of times. And then in January of 2020, I was invited to come to New Orleans and do a special guest showcase of the International Folk Alliance, and I wondered if Tuba Skinny would play with me. So I got in touch with them. We had one quick rehearsal, and it immediately felt like going home because it just was a natural fit. Even though they were several generations younger than me, it’s clear we’ve all been drinking out of the same musical fountain.

“So anyway, we did the gig, it was wildly received and an old friend of mine, Holger Petersen happened to be there because he was getting a lifetime achievement award for having had a roots music show on the radio for 50 years in Canada. And over lunch the next day he asked me about doing an album with them. And I loved the idea. So that’s how this album came about.”

The album has songs originally done or written by Lil Hardin Armstrong, Louis Armstrong’s second wife, Dorothy Lamour, Frankie “Half Pint” Jaxon, Sweet Pea Spivey (sister of Victoria Spivey) and the delightfully named Goofus Five. The music is infectious and upbeat and the lyrics are clever, at times funny and uplifting. It’s music, I suggested to Maria, that stands the test of time.

“I would say that these songs were written in a time when things were more kind of heartfelt and genuine. And I go out of my way to choose songs that have relevance for me. Now, I figure if they resonate with me a hundred and some odd years later, then there’s a good chance they’ll resonate with my listeners. The very first day when Holger took me out to lunch. I got really excited about the project, and we said, well, what kind of songs will we have? And he started scrolling around. And we had the idea that a theme of the album could be paying tribute to women artists from New Orleans.

“And he came across Lil Hardin’s Let’s get Happy Together. Which we both found immediately appealing. I said that it should be the first song on the album – in fact it should be the title of the album. But little did we think that barely a month or two later, we’d all be locked down and put into hibernation? And so for the album to come out in May like it did it, just as people are starting to be vaccinated and come out of hibernation, it couldn’t be a more timely title.

“But that song was written over a hundred years ago, and it’s got very hip lyrics and is very lighthearted. I think people didn’t take themselves too seriously back in those days, because there’s all kinds of lighthearted, goofy songs. People weren’t expressing their inner anger. All my life I’ve gone for songs that have some kind of uplifting message.”

As you listen to this album, there’s a lot of positivity throughout. From talking to Maria you can’t help but suspect that these songs are reflective of her as a person.

“I’m disgustingly positive, some might say! The kids in the band say to me, ‘You’re always so upbeat, so cheerful!’ Why live here on this planet, if you’re not gonna at least attempt to be that? You have a choice every day, you can be bummed out or you can be happy. My motto is ‘No problems. Just solutions.’ That’s who I am as a person. And I always choose songs that reflect who I am as a person.

“After Midnight At The Oasis, they realized they had a possible hitmaker on their hands, and Warner Brothers were trying to duplicate that success, trying to figure out how to get that to happen again. So they brought me a song called You’re no Good [which the Swinging Blues Jeans had had a hit with in 1963]. And I listened to it and said, ‘Why in the world would I put that message out over the airways? Husbands are telling their wives they are no good; parents are telling their kids, they’re no good. Why would I amplify that message?’

“Well, my dear friend Linda Ronstadt had a huge hit with that about a year or so later, and took that all the way to the bank! But I never regretted it because I’m all about putting out a positive message.”

One of my favourite songs on Let’s Get Happy Together is Valaida Snow’s 1935 Swing You Sinners. Snow was a virtuoso jazz musician known as “Queen of the trumpet,” and hailed by Louis Armstrong as the “world’s second-best trumpet player.” The song celebrates faith as being something joyful and upbeat.

“If you’re going to have faith in God,” said Maria, “it might as well make you happy, right? Rather than, you know, cowering and graveling before some angry father God, just looking to punish you at every turn. That’s one kind of religion, but my religion is let’s get happy together!”

She told me she’s attended an African American church in her neighborhood for the last forty years where she enjoys the kind of worship that is always joyful and full of music. “And that song, I think, puts that across. It’s just swinging so hard for one thing, and without saying anything too religious, it basically says, when those old blues come around, you don’t have to wear a frown, just swing out, boys, and let the sweet tones ring!”

Even the blues, for which Maria Muldaur is well-known, shouldn’t be something downbeat and depressing. “The blues is always about surviving by the time you get to the end of it. ‘Trouble in mind, I’m blue but I won’t be blue always, the sun’s gonna shine in my back yard some day.’ That could sum up the theme of so many blues songs. It’s not about wallowing in self-pity. It’s about expressing your sorrow or your disappointment, but finding a way to transcend it. And that, to me, is the magic of the blues and why the blues will never go out of fashion.”

Photo: Alan Mercer

Talking to Maria Muldaur is a ray of sunshine. Like Rory Block, whom I spoke to a while back, who told me that at 70, she was “just getting going,” and whom Maria referred to as “her little sister,” Maria told me that, “I certainly don’t feel like I’m slowing down very much.” She’ll keep on making great music “as long as I can find some kind of music that interests me.”

I wondered as she looks back over her career, all the albums, all the awards, all the accolades, what stands out for her, what is she most proud off?

“Well of course I just always followed my passion or philosophy – Joseph Campbell used to call it following your bliss. That’s what I’ve done without ever thinking about the commercial success that might or might not be involved in a particular endeavor. It’s been all about the music. When I look back, I’ve been so blessed to work, to record, and to perform with so many of my own musical heroes. Everyone from Doc Watson to Ry Cooder to Dr. John, to Mavis Staples, to Bonnie Raitt. Working with Benny Carter in an all-star big band was certainly the thrill of a young singer’s life, as was singing a duet with Hoagy Carmichael. And singing a duet with Ralph Stanley was an out of body experience.”

And then Maria told me this great story about her 2008 album Yes We Can! for which she had formed a “peace choir” of women’s voices.

“I had originally thought of it as a protest album about the issues that were going on in the day. Then I remembered that I actually didn’t like protest music! I liked the causes they were espousing, but I didn’t like the music itself. So I quickly changed the idea to turn it into a pro-peace album. And the first song I thought of was Yes, We Can, which was an Allen Toussaint song that had been a Pointer Sisters hit around the same time as Midnight at the Oasis.

“So I formed a choir of women who have raised their voices for peace and social justice. It included Bonnie Raitt, Joan Baez, Odetta, Jane Fonda, Phoebe Snow, Linda Tillery and the Cultural Heritage Choir – and that names just a few. And so I put together this really cool album, and someone who worked in the studio where we were mixing said, you know, there’s a guy running for president and he’s using, ‘Yes we can,’ as his slogan, you should send him that song. I said, ‘yeah right, some guy running for president is gonna listen to my song!’ And then two weeks later, someone else was in the studio and said the same thing. But I wasn’t interested – because I was planning to vote for Hillary – this was early in that election year.

“But I ended up sending the album through someone I knew who could get it to him and expected nothing at all. A week later I got a handwritten letter from Obama himself thanking me for the song and saying it perfectly fit the spirit of his campaign. And he was going to have it played at his rallies and speeches. I thought, you know, I have mail on my desk I haven’t answered in four years and this guy took time out personally thank me! I ended up voting for him of course. So that’s something I’m really, really proud of.”

Now you can’t talk to Maria Muldaur without asking about that song – Midnight at the Oasis. Does she still enjoy performing it?

“I do. That song put me on top, not just in the States, but all over the world, for some strange reason. It’s a song about a camel! But, first of all, it’s a very hip song musically. A lot of jazz artists have covered it over the years because it has really hip jazz chord changes. And it’s a song that’s enjoyable to play. It almost kind of plays itself and I can improvise on it every night. God forbid if my biggest hit had been some three-chord song! So I’m just grateful every day for it; it’s a delightful song to sing.

“And as if that weren’t enough, when we get to that song, which we do almost at the very end of set, we see people in the audience, couples grabbing hands and giving each other knowing looks. Because for some reason, that song, so I’m told, was the soundtrack to many a love and lust, and it brings back hot sexy memories! So I’m happy to have provided something like that; it’s a song I’ll forever be grateful for.”

Having said that, we’re all grateful that Maria Muldaur hasn’t rested on her laurels – not at any stage over the past fifty years. And here she is, still making great music that entertains and uplifts. Quite rightly she’s very proud of Let’s Get Happy Together, which may be her best work yet. Her good friend Bonnie Raitt certainly thinks so.

That being the case, she says, “I must be still slowly but surely improving my skills as a singer. So, I’ll just keep doing it until nobody wants to hear it anymore!”

As long as Maria Muldaur keeps on making music, we want to hear it.

Guy Davis hits a rich vein of creativity

“Guy Davis is an authentic and spell-binding bluesman, with an incredible voice and a great sense of humour.”  

Guy Davis is a hugely talented blues artist, who delights his audiences with his snappy guitar work, gritty vocals, humorous monologues and impressive stage presence. He’s been on the road and making records for more than forty years and is a Grammy nominee, an Emmy-winning actor and author, a multiple Blues Music Award winner, and a past winner of the Blues Foundation’s “Keeping the Blues Alive Award.”

He’s a talented guy who has at times juggled several careers, including author, teacher, and actor on Broadway, film and TV – but it’s as a musical artist and exponent of the blues that he is best known. Although he was raised in New York City, Davis grew up hearing accounts of life in the rural South from his family, especially his grandmother, all of which has inspired his music making which is rich in story-telling. He taught himself guitar and learned by listening to and watching other musicians, becoming a fine country blues acoustic guitar picker.

He’s just released his 19^th album, Be Ready When I Call You, released on the M.C. Records label. In some ways it’s what you’d expect of a Guy Davis album – great songs, featuring Guy’s distinctive, growly vocals and rhythmic guitar work, good humour and engaging stories. In another it’s quite different, both musically and lyrically, most of the songs having a strong social commentary.

I was delighted to catch up with Guy to ask him about the new album. How different does he think it is from previous Guy Davis albums, musically or otherwise?

“Well,” he told me, “it’s more World music and more Americana than it is strictly blues. Blues is, I guess, what I specialize in, but some of these other songs were in me and they had to come out! Musically you’ll hear, well, some of the same instrumentation I’ve been using with Professor Louie and those guys, but my arrangements, some are almost orchestral, some have a little Middle Eastern something to them.”

You can definitely notice the blues influence here and there in the album, but as Guy says, it’s musically quite varied. Looking back through his extensive back catalogue, his previous albums have been mostly Davis on acoustic guitar, playing his own style of country blues, but on Be Ready When I Call You, there are songs with a full band. I asked about the band and recording with the other musicians.

“The reason I choose to record so regularly with the guys that I use is that I trust them. I trust them for the way they handle my music, even when I go beyond the blues. I’ve played with them on stage, of course, which is the best way to play with a band. But a lot of the music I created on my own, and when I brought my creations into the studio, I didn’t know all of what these gentlemen were going to do. I would say, I have this idea for so-and-so, and that idea for this song, but they brought something of their own to it. Ultimately, I would approve or not, but more likely I did than not. It made me feel so good.”

Davis wrote all the songs on this album, apart from Howling Wolf’s Spoonful. That suggested that the last year with the pandemic and all of that had been conducive to Guy’s writing process.

“Oh, yes. I have been writing and writing and writing. I have no excuse not to! At the moment I’m down with my daughter and with my girlfriend, but I’ve spent most of the time up in the Bronx, New York, and I had no excuse to not write. So I’ve written a bunch of things that are not on this CD, I’ve got newer stuff than is on here.”

Which sounds like we can look forward to much more good stuff from him before long.

The album has a very interesting range of songs, a number of which address issues in the United States and indeed around the world. One of the stand-outs of the album is God’s Gonna Make Things Over, which addresses the Tulsa Massacre, a horrific incident that took place which took place from 31^st May 31 to 1st June, 1921.

In one of the worst incidents of white on black violence in US history, a white mob, many of whom had been deputized and given weapons by city officials, attacked the vibrant and prosperous Black Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma, reducing it to rubble. In an unspeakable orgy of violence, residents, homes and businesses were subjected to machine gun fire, bombing from the air, arson, looting and beatings. Hundreds were killed and thousands left homeless. Shamefully, there was a news blackout about the event, followed by decades of deliberate cover up – the history was hidden, distorted, and deformed by conspiracy theories or attempts to both-sides it.

It’s the hundredth anniversary of the Tulsa Massacre, so Guy’s song is fitting. The song focuses on the story of a doctor who was accosted and, despite raising his hands up high, was shot dead. Guy told me that he had been at the Greenwood Cultural Center in Tulsa, and had read a moving account of this doctor who was saving lives. I asked him about the song and the need to deal with the past.

“Well, yeah, to deal with the past, but there is a message from the past, which is that people need humanity, that is, to be treated as humans in order to live. And that is a message for all people. And this particular example shows the tenuous lives of so many black people, especially back then, and it reflects on them now. Humanity is not exclusively an African-American proposition or any one group of people. So hopefully in the midst of pointing out this piece of history – and all of our pieces of history need pointing out – people will recall that this is for all of us. American history in a black perspective.”

The song seems to become personal. The lyrics say, “watch my body, burn me from a tree.” And I wondered if that reflects a sense of the ongoing trauma that African-Americans feel to this day?

“There is indeed a sense of ongoing trauma – the past continues into the present. That was a deliberate choice to switch from the third person to the first person. I decided not to restrict myself in this song and in other songs on this album – they were my impulses and I’ve become willing to take more chances. I am exercising a quality I don’t exercise enough. That is, courage to stand up and say what’s in my heart honestly. And in this song, it was to point at it in an objective historical sense and then to bring it into us.”

That begged the question from me about how important Guy thinks it is for artists to be aware of, and to reflect upon the stuff that’s going on in the world today. How important is it for musical artists to do that?

“I believe it is of paramount importance. But art is informed by the facts of historical reality, and then artists are free to bend it, to stretch it, to do what they need to do. You take, say, Garrison Keillor or even William Shakespeare. What they wrote about was fictional, but just because it wasn’t “true” did not mean that it did not tell the truth. It is an artist’s job is to be able to take the truth and find a new way to express it. That might not be just stating the facts.”

The last song on the album Welcome to my World, which sees Guy in rapper mode, is pretty hard hitting and explicit about America. “You’re rotten to the core, took all we got and you still want more than is due to you.”

He told me that this was how he was feeling at the moment he wrote the song. But, he admitted, “a person my age shouldn’t be involved in rap music probably! Nonetheless I will, because this modern rap has been around for a long time, making up rhymes about what’s going on around us. So welcome to my world! There’s some bitterness in the song, there’s some sarcasm. It’s my attempt to expose things that are true, at least true as I perceive them.”

The lyrics go on to say, “no more, you’re running out of time. You’ve got to toe the line or we’ll make you”, and “you made the movie, but we’re making the sequel,” which is a line I loved. What, I asked Guy is his sense of the possibility for change and for things improving?

“Oh boy, change is a very touchy kind of subject! The one thing I know about human nature is that men and women do not learn from history; we say we do, but we don’t. So, I have to chalk up change as an evolutionary process. Real change happens incrementally with struggle over time. It is the 2020s and we still have to make sure that there’s voting legislation that is in place and that is constitutional – and it’s still a struggle. There are always people who will choose just what is expedient. So, it’s going to take time and a lot of struggle. Change is on the way, but it’s an ongoing process that is slower than it looks like.”

Having said that, as we look at what happened during 2020 with the George Floyd and other murders, I wondered if Guy thought that had accelerated any sort of change?

“It has accelerated all of our recognition of the need for change. There are some people still who are intractable and they think what’s important is money and conservative ethics. Change takes a lot of nurturing, but now our knowledge that change is needed is greater. And so that makes me feel good. And this new generation coming up. They are much more about change, much more willing to change.”

There are a wide range of important issues in Guy Davis’s sights on this album – there are songs addressing refugees, asylum seekers, the poison water in Flint, unemployment, and poverty. He wasn’t holding back!

“No, I’ve never really held back, but these things are so much at the forefront of my consciousness, as well as what’s going on in the world. These are the kinds of issues that would be discussed when I sat at the supper table with my family – the political injustice, the racism, all sorts of things that the world needs to deal with.” Guy went on to say that the music reflects this expansion of his lyrical horizons, in that it goes beyond his normal boundaries in the blues to World music and Americana music.

In terms of World music, there’s a song on the album with a Middle Eastern musical feel to it, Palestine Oh Palestine. Listening to this at the moment is very poignant because of the flare-up of the conflict there. But Davis does the song quite sensitively – important, because obviously that’s a conflict where opinions can be very polarized and there’s been a lot of suffering. He told me that the song was arranged so that the voices representing the two enemies sing on top of each other in such a way that it is ultimately harmonious.

“And that’s my way of saying, everybody needs a voice in this process. The one voice I’m not hearing is from the Palestinians. I want to hear from Palestinian people. And even my song is not a real Palestinian voice. It is just my voice interpreting the situation.”

There is one traditional blues song on the album, is Spoonful, written by Willie Dixon and first recorded by Howlin’ Wolf in 1960. It’s a great version with Guy and the band rockin’ their way through it. He told me that it’s a song he really likes, and although it’s a Howling Wolf song, it kind of reminds him of Muddy Waters and has a good feeling to it.

Once Guy gets out playing again, it’s a number that is sure to down very well. I asked him about getting out and playing these songs at some stage.

“I’m looking forward to it. I’ve done a few minor outings in the past weeks. But I’ve forgotten so much about the automatic way I do things when I go somewhere! I don’t know which wire to put where, which box to put here. I have to recreate all of this. People who are my dear friends, we’ve all been vaccinated, but when I went to hug them, I automatically turn my face to the side. I just don’t know what to do anymore!”

Be Ready When I Call You is on the M.C. Records label, the fourth record they have released together. His previous release on the label was the 2017 Grammy-nominated record with Fabrizio Poggi, Sonny & Brownie’s Last Train.

Long Time Comin’ – but more than worth it

Paul Cowley upends everything you might expect of an acoustic country bluesman. He’s never been to Mississippi and says he has no desire to go; he’s a white English guy living in the French countryside; he heard the blues for the first time when he was about 40; and he started playing the guitar late in life because an uncle had left him on in his will.

And yet…Paul Cowley is an outstanding musician, a fine guitarist, has a deep appreciation for the acoustic blues tradition and has become an outstanding exponent of that tradition, whether it’s re-interpreting songs from the past or writing his own.

He has five albums behind him and we thought his 2018 Just What I Know was outstanding. He has now released Long Time Comin‘, with twelve acoustic blues songs, five traditional songs from the likes of Charlie Patton, Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Willie McTell and seven originals. This one’s even better.

I review a lot of albums, some of which I like, some not really so much, some of it very worthy, great musicianship, maybe important lyrically – but it’s always good to listen to something that is just…well…enjoyable. And that’s what you’ll find with Long Time Comin’.

I got talking to Paul in his home in Brittany about his music. I asked him first of all about the album’s title – in the title track he sings, “I’ve got my mojo, I’ve found my voice.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “For many years I’ve questioned what I do, how I sing, how I play. Should I do something different? But over more than a 20-year period I’ve now arrived at this point with age, wisdom and all the rest of it. And actually, it’s just me being me, and I can’t do any more than that really. I’ve always wanted to be authentically me. I don’t want to study John Lee Hooker for ten years and become a fantastic interpreter of John Lee Hooker. I’ve done what I do long enough that I have my own unique style and take on this music. So over a period of time, it’s become a sort of definite style. The songs I write, you can recognize it’s me.

“But I’m most pleased this time, because this time in the recording process I found a new level of certainty. So yeah, long time coming, I do feel I’ve got my mojo and my voice and I’m happy!”

Paul is the most refreshingly unassuming professional musician you could meet, but I put it to him that what he does in taking a traditional song that everybody knows, like Louis Collins, which appears on the album, and reinterpreting it, not playing note for note John Hurt’s version, say, seems to me, takes quite a bit of skill and ability.

“When I begin with a song, I almost always start trying to play the original, the “proper” way, but it’s never right. So, somehow it kind of gets massaged and changed and I think, well, it’s nothing like Mississippi John Hurt anymore, but it feels right for me. I’m not a technical musician, it’s all by feel and instinct. But over the years, there’s a bit of experience built up as to how one can flesh out a very simple arrangement. If you can move the chords up and down the neck, you get these different dynamics, I’m never stopped learning. I’m more interested now than ever in learning things that can just expand my options.”

In Cowley’s hands Louis Collins isn’t the rather jaunty version you often hear, which maybe doesn’t do justice to the song’s terrible story. He slows it down and adds some very cool slide guitar, and it becomes, fittingly, a bit more sombre, but at the same time, it never gets morbid. It’s a great version.

There are a half a dozen Paul Cowley originals on this album. As with all the songs, it’s mostly Paul singing and accompanying himself, picking acoustic guitar and adding some delicious and judicious slide here and there. I asked him about the song writing process.

“The first album I recorded here in France was a hundred percent original songs. I don’t have a problem coming up with original songs, and I love the album and I’m proud of the songs, but I think my audience likes a little bit of something they recognize as well.

“But the song writing process – I’ve got a studio across the yard in the barn upstairs. I never think I’ll go and write a song. I play guitar generally speaking, twice a day, couple of hours in the morning, a couple of hours in the evening. And almost without fail, I will find something on one of the guitars, just a simple phrase, two notes or two chords or some chords other people don’t tend to use, but there’ll be a feel or a timing to it. I do that frequently and often it goes no further than that. But sometimes I come up with that little phrase or whatever it might be, maybe three words that suggest the lyrical subject or topic, and that’s how they come. I can’t predict when that will happen, but when it does happen, very rapidly the song comes together.

“With the guitar part, that hook thing or whatever it was, there’ll be this period of embellishment, maybe I play it for two years and a few more bits and bobs come in, so songs are constantly changing and evolving. So – simple!”

One thing you’ll notice when you listen to the album, is the sound quality. It sounds like Paul is sitting right in your living room playing for you. It’s crystal clear and the instruments and vocals are perfectly balanced. On the album liner notes. Cowley says that, although he recorded the album in his barn/studio, he’s “low tech.” Yet the sound on the album is superb.

“Well, my background is I’m a builder, so there’s a little bit of understanding of buildings and shapes and materials. I’ve got this studio over in the barn upstairs with sloping ceilings, oak rafters, beams, chestnut flooring – all cobbled together from materials left over from renovating the house. Think of the Robert Johnson thing where he turned his back and played into a corner. and the sound was remarkable.

“I’m comfortable here at home, fleshing out these ideas on my own, nobody around me. If I was in a studio, however nice the engineer might be, I’d be wanting to play the song again and again because I’m not quite sure whether that was the right take. And he’s looking at the wall. I don’t like any of that.

“But the stroke of luck that I’ve had is called Pascal Ferrari. He’s a musician from Marseille, really high calibre. He’s a guitarist, a bass player, and he’ll pick a trumpet up. His musicality is quite remarkable. I met him five years ago, and we’ve done some gigs together and he’s fantastic in the studio. So I did the recording here straight, no effects whatsoever, into a fairly dated Korg mini recording machine. And then I physically carried that across Brittany to Pascal’s house. He then, transferred this into his computer and he’s a really very talented mixer. And then he sends that to his friend and they listen to it on some big, serious equipment, and tweak it from there. So I feel very fortunate that I’ve stumbled across Pascal!”

Southern Brittany

It’s pretty unusual to find a traditional blues picker living in the French countryside, instead of in a big city or somewhere in the Southern United States. I wondered how that worked for Paul in terms of performing his music – granted that the last year has been more than a bit unusual. He told me how he’d been building up his gigs across France and then popping back to the UK for small tours – and along the way discovering that French hospitality for the traveling musician is so much better than what he often gets in England.

I wondered also what attracts Paul to this traditional country blues music. Here he is, an English white guy based in the French countryside playing the blues of African-Americans from a hundred years ago – it all sounds a bit unlikely. But perhaps it says a lot about the universal appeal of the blues. Paul began to tell me about his own journey.

“I discovered this music relatively late in life. I’d had a few Spanish guitar lessons in my early teens and I love the sound of an acoustic guitar. But my teacher didn’t inspire me and I stopped playing music for 20 years. I became a self-employed builder, but I never stopped listening to music. But when I was 40 my wife Diana bought me for my father’s day present from the kids, Clapton’s Unplugged. And I remember, I was decorating the room and I put the CD on and Signe and Before You Accuse Me came on and it was instantly like, “What’s this?” And there was this lush interpretation of Walking Blues, just a beautiful sound and Clapton’s softer kind of vocal style and I thought, this is marvellous! And then I thought, well, I wonder who is that Big Bill Broonzy bloke that does the song. Hey, Hey? Well, I looked into that, and it was a delight.

“And then I was given a guitar. My uncle died. I probably wouldn’t have bothered to go out and buy one, but I got this steel string guitar. And I got a very basic blues tutorial book with the tab and I thought, I can play this – it wasn’t fantastic but it was delightful to me. And I’ve never looked back.

“The Clapton album made me want to get some proper old blues to listen to. So one Saturday I went into Cobb Records – an old-fashioned record shop – to the blues section, maybe 20 CDs in all, if that. And I leafed through and I didn’t know any of those names at all, but on the one towards the front, there was this picture of a very cool looking black guy, hat on, guitar in hand, looking exactly like what I expected a blues player to look like, and he was Lightnin’ Hopkins.

“Coffee House Blues was the album and we put this on in the car on the way home and played it for two years. He’s important to me because it was him that got me into this…fantastic voice, proper steel string, acoustic guitar. I just love that and still do to this day.”

Paul has worked hard at honing his guitar chops over the years and explained that one formative stage in his development as a guitarist came at a Woody Mann workshop he attended in Liverpool.

“Woody Mann gave us a general philosophy about how to go about getting better. He talked about keeping the repertoire relatively small but well played, and effective use of your time. And because I went home on the train alone, I made all these notes of the key points. You don’t get good at anything without applying yourself hard to it. And to this day, I’ll get up, I have breakfast and I go and play for maybe two hours. I try and pick the guitar up again during the day for a few minutes. And then I’ll play a couple of hours in the evening, But that’s nothing compared with some guys – we had Steve James staying here, and he plays six hours a day – for the past 50 years!”

To start with, Paul never thought he’d perform publicly, but from first steps playing in the round with friends at his local blues club back in Birmingham, he’s developed into a fine acoustic blues artist and song-writer with serious guitar chops. Ever self-deprecating, he told me, “I’m quite surprised that I do it, but I love it!”

As well as Paul’s own songs, Long Time Comin‘ has songs by Blind Boy Fuller, Mississippi John Hurt, Charlie Patton, Blind Willie McTell and Ray Charles. But I wondered if Paul has any artists that he’s particularly fond of?

“I love Lightnin Hopkins. I find Mississippi John Hurt songs come into your repertoire, whether you want them to or not. His music is so playable, they’re great songs and I love his music. I like Blind Willie McTell, I’d like to do more of his. A long time ago I heard his Love Changing Blues on the radio played by John Hammond and I never in my wildest dreams when I took my sandwich that lunchtime listening to that, thought that one day I’ll be able to play that kind of stuff! And I love Fred McDowell’s stuff – there’s just something about him.”

It’s fair to say that Paul Cowley’s been smitten with the blues. And if you get yourself a copy of his Long Time Comin’, you will be too. This album is one of the best acoustic blues albums you’ll hear this year – check it out www.paulcowleymusic.com or Bandcamp.

And if you’re in Southern Brittany sometime when this pandemic has passed us by, listen out for the sounds of the Delta where you least expect it.

“A glorious awakening of music tradition” – Music Maker Relief Foundation’s Tim Duffy

Tim Duffy is a breath of inspiration, and what he and the Music Maker Relief Foundation are doing and have been doing for the past 30 years deserves widespread attention.

Music Maker Relief Foundation, based in Hillsborough, North Carolina, was founded in 1994 by Tim and Denise Duffy to “help the true pioneers and forgotten heroes of Southern music gain recognition and meet their day-to-day needs.” In addition, it wants to preserve these traditions and help them flourish by presenting them to the world.

Over the years, Music Maker has helped over 500 artists who were struggling, and in many cases, impoverished, get paying gigs and back onto their feet. It has produced over 200 albums of music from these artists, and recorded thousands of tracks. It is keeping an entire tradition alive.

“It’s like a glorious awakening of discovery of all this music you’ve never heard of,” Tim Duffy told me. “These guys stand in front of me for 45 minutes and change the world. You know, they have a body of work and want someone to document it, and they do this because they want the next generation to know about it. They know it’s important work but they don’t have the means to buy a tape recorder or get into a studio. And when I tell them about the Foundation and they’re open for it, it’s a tornado. It’s just locked down. There it is, lightning in a bottle!”

Our chat began by me asking Tim what Music Maker is all about. He told me that it’s a nonprofit organization, founded in 1994, that “tends to the roots of American music.” He described the deep poverty in which he has found many artists living in – “from outside the US, it’s hard to understand what extreme poverty is like in the United States.” Just getting by is hard if you’re trying to live on the $7,000 to $12,000 a year that Music Maker regularly finds artists subsisting on. So, says Tim, Music Maker provides small amounts to help get bills paid and get prescription medicine, and then, “when we get them working and get them gigs, that can easily double their annual income.”

Music Maker has been doing this work for many years now, and I wondered if the levels of poverty amongst aging artists had improved any.

“You know, I hate to say it, I think it’s worse. I think poverty gets worse in America. It’s always bad, but prices of food go higher, access to medical care was always tough, and I think poverty in housing is about impossible.” Some people, Duffy told me, are still living in cheap trailers that were built in the 1950s for elderly people, trailers that had a shelf life of five years. So, he said, “Over the years I’ve been doing it, I think the times are harder. Food insecurity is hard, but there are even food deserts. There’s not even access to healthy food.

“And rent – these artists used to be able to have rent for $100-$300 a month. After Katrina, little Freddy King was renting for $300, but now rent for not even a nice place in New Orleans is $1,500 or so. But their income hasn’t gone up.”

Add to that the decreasing number of places for these artists to play, whether it’s churches or the Chitlin circuit, and you have an increasingly tough situation. One that, Tim suggested, was felt by more than the artists he deals with – “we have a huge problem of starving children in America.” His view is that these problems are fixable – if there really was a will to do it. Sadly, “there doesn’t seem a public will to help our fellow man, the really impoverished people.”

Older models of charity have often ended up with wealthier people sweeping in as benefactors in a way that robs those they are trying to help of their dignity. How, I wondered, does Music Maker avoid this?

Tim was clear that the artists he has dealt with have not been asking for a handout, rather they need a hand up. “Number one thing they want is a gig, a place to perform. They can earn their own money. That is the greatest thing. And then it’s a slow process because we can only do very little by our sustenance program. We don’t have billions of dollars, we can’t hand out $20,000 a year to hundreds of artists. I wish I could, but I don’t have that kind of resource.

“So, there are other things that we do because people are disenfranchised. Like community building. We have a social worker who writes every month to the artists and introduces them to one another. And they meet and when they play together, they exchange phone numbers. It’s like joining a little congregation, like a guild, so that now a very remote Mississippi blues man is friends with a gospel artist in North Carolina; and they’re friends with a blues man in Detroit; and they all talk to each other, and they stay in touch. So, it’s community building. Everyone needs someone to talk to someone who understands them. Building those friendships is one of the interesting things that we do.”

So that’s Music Maker’s sustenance programme. Then, says Tim, “we have professional development where we help make CDs and get artist’s music released, get bios written and make them known – from being unseen artists, to known artists, a known quantity. And then we have an education program where we educate the world through exhibits. We have photo exhibits that go to a lot of cultural institutions. Over the last six years, we’ve done over 50 of them. So that is the essence. We’re trying to let the world know.”

Tim pointed to the uniquely African-American experience at the root of the blues. This music, he told me “was born in the South. It was born from very disenfranchised people and those conditions still exist today. And if you go into these small communities, there are literally the great, great, great, great grandsons and granddaughters of the artists that created this music that have held dear to the older traditions. And they are very special people because this music really isn’t popular within their communities, but they keep it alive. And so, we try to amplify their voices and after they pass, keep their voices amplified. The greatest gift that America has given to the arts is our American musical traditions, largely rooted in the South. So our focus is going back within that culture and promoting what Alan Lomax would call cultural equity.”

Tim Duffy clearly has a deep respect for the music, its tradition and the artists who keep that tradition alive. He was never into pop or rock music, and from his days as a folklore student at the University of North Carolina, he has been seeking to record and promote the music he has found in the American South, especially the Carolinas. He spoke warmly and admiringly of artists he had worked with, like Cootie Stark, John Lee Zeigler, Wille Mae Butler, Drink Small, Macavine Hayes, and Adolphus Bell.

“You know, those are a bunch of names most people have probably never heard of, but I would say is they’re just as important American artists as anybody you know. I’m a folklorist, I like going to the most real rooted, unknown thing – a lot of people like going to big concert halls and big festivals, but I’d rather be in someone’s living room. That’s what gets me excited.”

These living room recordings – “field recordings” – are what Tim Duffy has done since the early days of Music Maker. What has been important for him is trying to replicate exactly what he hears in front of him, without filtering it. He mentioned Mark Levinson, renown audio system designer, who “fell in love with my work and taught me about biaural recordings, gave me these extremely expensive, beautiful, rare microphones, and a way of recording where it’s like replicating what you hear in front of you.”

Duffy recalled the example of Alan Lomax, noted ethnomusicologist and recorder of folk music, who could “change the world with one mic and 500 pounds of recording gear.” The music Lomax recorded in places like Angola Prison in Louisiana or Haiti “is still as fresh and vibrant today.”

What, I wondered have been the milestones along the way, as Tim looks back over the last nearly thirty years?

“Well, there were a couple. Meeting Mark Levinson was great and then meeting Taj Mahal in 1995 and him reaching his hand to help me and the elder artists has been huge. And then we went on tour with Taj, did a 42-city tour in 1998 and ’99, and my wife had the great idea to collect email addresses and we collected thousands of addresses.

“And then in 2000, I looked at Fat Possum records and I thought they were just so incredible, but I knew we couldn’t do what they were doing. I couldn’t sell records. So my wife and I decided we were going to really focus on being a nonprofit, instead of trying to be an independent record label. And that was a keystone moment. And here we are, 20 years later, still doing it.

“And I think the next key thing was meeting Freeman Vines. And when I got out of my car the first day I met him and saw his yard, I knew. When I had met Guitar Gabriel and a few others, I knew I was in the presence of a genius. But I didn’t have all the skills that I have now. And so when I met someone as smart as Freeman, that first day I could envisage the book and an exhibition. I talked to him about it and we had a lot of dialogue and then we spent five years putting it together.

“And I’m glad we did that. I don’t know what the next big idea I’ll come up with, put that kind of resources to. But that decision, to work with Freeman, was not a real popular decision in my organization or my board. And when we released the book [Hanging Tree Guitars], a lot of people were thinking, what the heck are we doing, going into a pandemic, releasing a book. But, we sold out of the first run of the book in five weeks. And so that little book has kept Music Maker going for the next year.”

Along the way, Music Maker Relief Foundation has caught the attention of some big names in the music industry, who have been prepared to lend a hand. Mark Levinson introduced Tim to Eric Clapton in 1995 which helped him to get a record deal with GRP records [a jazz record label founded by Dave Grusin and Larry Rosen in 1978].

“And then through Taj Mahal, I met his friend and producer, John Porter, who was recording B.B. King’s Deuces Wild record. Then, in LA, Taj introduced me to Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. B.B. introduced me to Joe Cocker and took me over to England and which resulted in me spending time with Eric Clapton again, and Jeff Beck and Van Morrison and all these people.

“B.B. King wrote the introduction to my first book, Portraits and Songs from the Roots of America. He thought the idea of Music Maker was fabulous, and I spent a lot of time traveling with him, and he helped me form the ideas of the foundation. So, Taj Mahal opened that door for me and Taj lends his helping hand to a lot of people.” In the foreword to this first book of Duffy’s photographs, B.B. King wrote, “By documenting the faces and the deep, soulful eyes of the people who make the music I love, these photographs preserve a dimension of blues culture that could easily be lost forever.”

Beyond his work with Music Maker, Tim Duffy is also a master photographer who has documented the artists he has worked with over the years, and used unusual and very effective photographic techniques to do so. His latest book, Hanging Tree Guitars, a collaborative effort between himself, Freeman Vines, a luthier-artist and bluesman, and Zoe Van Buren, a folklorist, features stunning photographs of Vines’s work, documenting the guitars made by Vines out of wood from a tree that had been used for lynching. The photographs utilize collodion wet plate processing, an early form of photographic processing which gives them an aged look, and seems particularly suitable for the sombre subject matter.

“When I wanted to present Freeman to the world, I knew if I just took straight colour photographs of the images, it would’ve been nice, but it wouldn’t reflect my 25-year journey of looking at artists and how I see them. And I wanted people, when Freeman talked about parallel universes and the root of the lynched man and the wood, I wanted them to see something horrifying. I wanted to express the horror that I felt in Freeman felt through my art. And I worked for five years at that. And I think it did.”

If you’d like to know some more about this project, start by reading our interview with Freeman Vines here.

Tim Duffy began his work with Guitar Gabriel, who had been inactive in the music industry for many years, had received no royalties for his music,and was impoverished. He required almost daily assistance from Duffy, who provided transportation to medical appointments, money, and food for Gabriel and his wife. When I asked Tim what was the motivation for that, he was much more interested in telling me how his encounter with Guitar Slim had changed his life, how he had learned that there was no place in the music industry for elderly African-American artists, and how amazing Guitar Slim and all the other artists he had subsequently met were.

His focus is clearly on recognizing the worth and value of the artists he works with, sensing that when he grants funding, he doesn’t have to be prescriptive, because they know what they need to do for themselves. “And so we set up what I thought was a whole new model of folklore, of dealing with traditional artists – supporting them, recording them, and professional development and education. And we really haven’t veered very much from that. You know, it’s kind of like a church in a sense, it’s a family organization. We feel like a family.

“And then you connect fans with the music, like-minded people that have extra income that can support the foundation. And I have donors that have been donating to me since 1994, that haven’t missed a year, and they do it because they say it’s made their life a much better. So, it works on both sides. It’s just like when you go to church and a good preacher is talking to a whole congregation, but you feel like he’s talking directly to you and you leave feeling uplifted. And I think that the experience we create both for our donors and for the artists is an uplifting situation.”

The whole Music Maker enterprise is an uplifting one. As was my conversation with Tim Duffy. If you’re reading this, you’re a music fan – so scoot over to https://musicmaker.org/ and learn more about the fabulous work the Foundation does. And while you’re there, do your bit and buy some CDs, a book of fabulous photographs or just donate.

Photo Credits: Drink Small by Jimmy Williams; Hands on guitar by Axel Kustner; Others by Tim Duffy

Elizabeth King’s Living in the Last Days is a gift for us all.

“Her words have a clear message, but her deep feeling could move anyone.”
VICE Magazine

Photo: Houston Cofield

Elizabeth King is a remarkable woman. She was the female lead of a successful, previously all-male gospel group, The Gospel Souls, in the 1960s and 70s, which had a significant gospel hit on the D-Vine Spirituals label, I Heard the Voice.

She quit singing professionally to raise her children, and now, after a hiatus of nearly 50 years, she has gone into the studio to record a fabulous new blues-tinged gospel album, Living in the Last Days, on Bruce Watson’s new Bible and Tire label. [check out our interview with Bruce here]

Her powerful vocal performance on the record, reminiscent at times of Mavis Staples, is supported by a top-class band assembled by Watson (Will Sexton and Matt Ross-Spang (guitars), George Sluppick (drums), Mark Edgar Stuart (bass), and Al Gamble (organ)) and features the excellent harmonies of Christopher and Courtney Barnes from The Sensational Barnes Brothers. It’s a funky, blues, soul-filled pot of rich gospel fare.

Down at the Crossroads called Ms. King at her Memphis home, and asked her about making the album. She said first of all that this album was her debut solo album and it’s been forty-seven years since she stopped singing professionally. She told me that she was “just sitting at home one day,” when Pastor Shipp, the founder of the 1970s D-Vine Spirituals label, who had recently started collaborating with Bruce Watson, called her up. “And he asked me, did I want to record again? I told him, yeah. That’s how it came to be.”

From initial call to getting into the studio was very quick – “Yeah, no time for rehearsal or nothing,” said Elizabeth.

I asked her about the songs on the album, all terrific, positive songs. She told me that there are some that she has been singing for many years, and some that Bruce Watson brought to her. “And then there are a couple of songs on there I did myself that I have been singing from when I was, you know, a child growing up. The song Walk with Me, my mom used to sing that to me. And then, I got a song, Blessed Be the Name, I kinda got most of that out of the Bible.”

She sings this song unaccompanied on the album, a quite spine-tingling performance. The song tells the story of Job, perhaps a story that not a lot of people are familiar with these days. Job is a character in the Old Testament book of the same name, who suffers tremendous loss, including his family and all his possessions, but somehow is able to say, “God gives and takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”

“To me,” she told me, the story “means that we can be blessed, in that God gives us a thing, and he has a right to take it away. And, I take the role of Job to just be patient. And when things are going good, or going bad, you just have to be patient.”

That’s a lesson that Elizabeth King has learned through the ups and downs of life. “Well, I kind of learned it mostly through my lifetime. And when I was a child – because my mom, you know, would tell me she gonna give us something, but you got to wait for it. So, as I got older. I found out that if you really want something, just wait, it’ll come.”

Elizabeth King was born in 1944 and grew up in Charleston, in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. Life wasn’t easy, with the young Elizabeth having to help the family pick cotton before going to school each day. Positive person that she is, she had nothing negative to say about that.

“Well, to me it was fun, I guess, because that was all I knew. And we had to walk a long way to school and I would get tired walking, so my brothers would carry me because I was younger than they were. But it was a lot of picking cotton and chopping cotton. I loved to chop cotton. It really wasn’t so hard for me because I guess I was the only girl in the family and my brothers kinda spoiled me a little bit.”

I mentioned one of the songs on the album to her, Testify, which is a rocking, upbeat number. I wondered if, looking back over the years, this song of a testimony to God’s goodness and God’s guiding hand, reflects her own experience?

She told me that she had recorded a version of this song back in 1970, but was keen to have it on this new album, though rearranged somewhat. “It’s been a part of my life, because I’ve gone through quite a bit. I got fifteen children, and I’ve gone through three accidents. So, I do have a testimony.”

Elizabeth King quit recording music in the mid-seventies to concentrate on family life. She told me she has fifteen children, 57 grandchildren and 33 great-grandchildren. And she is proud of every one of them, including some of her grandchildren who are now recording artists in their own right.

“When my children were small, I stopped. Let’s see, what year was that? It’d be around, 1970, maybe 1972, and an opportunity for travel overseas came. But my children, my older two, were small and I didn’t want to leave them. So, I stayed at home to raise my children. Everybody said ‘you won’t get a chance to do your dream if you have to wait until your kids get grown.’ But I still have an opportunity. I just still believe I would have an opportunity to sing, you know?”

And here she is, all these years later, having just made this wonderful album. Not that she had quit singing entirely – for many years she has been singing in her church choir and singing solos. But “the only music and singing I know is a spiritual song and they call it a gospel song.” She was never interested in sing the blues or R&B.

“I guess because my heart just wasn’t in it. I didn’t like going to parties and stuff like that when I was young, I just didn’t like it because I always was afraid of drunk people.”

I asked Ms. King why music is important to her, and in particular, why gospel music is so important to her. She told me that it was her way of communicating with God and the source of God’s power in her life – to help her “be a better person. That’s what inspires me.”

And what does she think is at the heart of gospel music? The music, the feeling, the words?

“The words mostly would count for me. The music is good, don’t get me wrong. But it’s the words that carry the message for me. Because you know, you got some songs that they call gospel songs but they really don’t have too much of a meaning. But when you sing songs like Precious Lord or Amazing Grace, when you sing songs like that, it touches people’s heart. If you do it from your heart it’s going to reach the heart of any man, whether he’s saved or unsaved, and you can connect to that spirit.”

She had mentioned the accidents that had affected her life and I asked in particular about the one back in 1969, that was very serious.

“That one was a serious accident. I worked for a florist at the time, and a man hit me head on. I stayed in the hospital, I think, around 17 days. I really couldn’t remember anybody coming to visit me, but there was this one priest in the hospital that would come in every morning and ask me, ‘My child. Can I pray with you today?’ I would say, Yes. And so, when I came to myself, I was asking the staff, you know, the nurses about him. And they said that they didn’t have anybody on their staff like that. So, I said, who was this? Now I never could see his face, so I just described his body and what he had on and all of that. And they said, ‘we don’t have anybody like this on the staff.’ So, I just started praying and I just knew it was God. I knew I was in bad shape. I really was; I had to learn to walk all over again.”

With her remarkable recovery, Elizabeth King said she “dedicated my life to God, to my singing and to try to encourage people. My job now is just try to encourage people…when you’re going through something, just turn to God. If you don’t know him, get to know him.”

I wondered how Ms. King had got on with the musicians when she’d gone into the studio to make this record, and how had she learned the songs so quickly.

“Oh, they had the music all lined up for me and I don’t know, I just sing to the music! I used to be real fast learner when I was young, but the process of learning now is quite a bit slower, as I get older. But it wasn’t hard for me to adapt to the music because, you know, I never stopped singing. I’ve been singing all the time. I just hadn’t recorded.”

The album finishes with a very cool, bluesy version of one of my favourite songs, You Got to Move, famously recorded by Mississippi Fred McDowell and then, of course, the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album. I’ve always thought of that song as a resurrection song. When the Lord gets ready, you gotta move – it always reminds me of Ezekiel’s valley of the dry bones. Elizabeth agreed and said, “I would say no matter what nobody tried to do to keep you here, when it’s time for God to say you got to move, you got to move. I just love it.”

I asked her about another song on the album, A Long Journey, another one about Christian hope which talks about going home to get your crown. Elizabeth said, “My mom used to sing that to me when I was a child. Now that was a long time ago because I’m 76 years old! And that song has been with me all these years, but she used to tell me that I’m gonna leave you one day. I’m going on a long journey and I won’t be back. And I tell you, that song, it has stayed with me in the heart, and anytime I record an album, A Long Journey going to be on there.”

We finished up our conversation by talking about Elizabeth’s faith, which is clearly central to her life and being. She told me, “It’s been important to me because of the things that I suffered, things that happened to me, a lot of things that I had to go through. My faith made me strong about suffering, that’s what made me strong.” Life has not been easy for her, but she is certain that it was God that kept her going in the hard times and it was her faith that sustained her. “I believe in God, God gives me strength. And that would keep me going.”

Elizabeth King is a remarkable woman. She is positive, upbeat, ready to take on the next challenge and opportunity in life. She is a breath of fresh air. Here’s what she finished our chat with:

“Every day I get up, I thank God. Just let me be able to just take care of myself you know, and I just thank him. And I’m going to keep on trusting him until the time comes when he says that you gotta move!”

Living in the Last Days is testimony to Elizabeth King’s remarkable spirit and faith. Not only that, it’s a top-notch album, full of great songs, music that touches you, and Ms. King’s powerful vocal performance. It’s a gift for us all.

Meet the Music Podcast: Down at the Crossroads’ 7 recommendations for getting started with the blues

Check out this episode of Meet the Music: A Capella to Zydeco.

If you happen to be new to the blues, then here’s your way in. Seven classic songs to get you started on what will be a life-ling appreciation!

“Dr. Burnett shares a little history of the Blues and his deep love for the Blues.  In our conversation, we discussed the impact of women blues singers like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Memphis Minnie.  Listen as Dr. Burnett lists his suggested artists and songs for new listeners.”

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And here are my seven recommendations for getting started in listening to the blues:

Robert Johnson: Kind Hearted Woman, recorded in 1936, just a couple of years before he died as a young man of 27, poisoned, it seems by a jealous husband. Johnson was a jaw-droppingly good guitarist and a fine singer. He only recorded 29 songs, but Johnson has probably been the most influential blues artist on the whole of rock and roll. Eric Clapton says Johnson was his most formative influence and he has a great version of Kind Hearted Woman on his Me and Mr Johnson album from 1996. Keb’ Mo’ who is one of today’s great blues artist also has a fine version on his 1994 Keb’ Mo’ album.

Blind Willie Johnson: The Soul of A Man recorded in 1930. Willie Johnson was an exponent of gospel blues, and his slide playing, which he did with a penknife, was just outstanding. He’s a remarkable singer, at times a sweet tenor, at other time utterly raw. His music is making its way around the universe on the Voyager space probe launched in 1977 on a golden disk containing a sample of earth’s music. Quite what aliens might make of Johnson’s eerie slide playing and moaning on his song Dark Was the Night, is anyone’s guess! (Check out Tom Waits’ version of Soul of a Man on the 2016 tribute album, God Don’t Never Change, with various artists including Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Lucinda Williams, and Luther Dickinson.)

Mississippi John Hurt: Louis Collins John Hurt was a sharecropper who recorded some songs in 1928, which were not terribly successful. He was then rediscovered in 1963 and recorded a number of albums and performed on the university and coffeehouse concert circuit before he passed away. By all accounts he was a lovely man, and his guitar playing is just delightful. (The version here is Lucinda Williams with Colin Linden on guitar on a tribute album called Avalon Blues. Check out also Rory Block’s tribute album – just her and her guitar, also Avalon Blues)

Memphis Minnie: In My Girlish Days. Before the men began playing the blues, it was the women who were the big stars – women like Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Victoria Spivey. Memphis Minnie was a performer, a guitar player and singer, mostly in the 1930s and 40s. The poet Langston Hughes described her electric guitar as “a musical version of electric welders plus a rolling mill” – but she was quite a talent. I’ve gone for her In My Girlish Days. You can hear a great version of this on Rory Block’s 2020 album, Prove it on Me, where she plays tribute to the women of the blues. Rory Block is an outstanding acoustic guitar player, and check out also her tribute to these women in her 2018 album, A woman’s Soul: a Tribute to Bessie Smith.

B.B. King: The Thrill Has Gone. This is B.B. King’s signature tune. King was a great singer, but an outstanding guitarist – one of those guitar players where you can tell who it is from just hearing a single note. The song is on a number of albums, but you can find it on a 2006 album of the same name, along with other great B.B. King numbers.

Muddy Waters: Hootchie Cootchie Man. Recorded in 1954. Muddy Waters is known as the father of Chicago blues. He was a Mississippi sharecropper who moved to Chicago in the 1940s and popularized electric blues. He has been a hugely influential figure on rock’n’roll, and the insistent riff that drives Hootchie Chootchi Man is one of the most famous in all blues music. Eric Clapton has a great version on his 1994 From the Cradle album.

Allman Brothers Band: Statesboro Blues on At Fillmore East from 1971 is an old Blind Willie McTell song. Bob Dylan has a famous song which says, nobody sings the blues like Blind Willie McTell. The Allman Brothers’ version has become a classic version of the song and rightly so, featuring Duane Allman’s fabulous slide guitar playing.

Larkin Poe: God Moves on the Water, on  2020’s Self-Made Man. Larkin Poe are two exceptionally talented sisters, Rebecca and Megan Lovell, both amazing guitarists and wonderful singers. They really bring the blues up to date with their own compositions and the way they cover old blues songs. And they are one of the most exciting bands you’d see live. God Moves on the Water is an amended version of an old Blind Willie Johnson song.

 

Joanna Connor: “The blues is honest music. There’s no pretense involved and that’s appealing.”

It’s time for everyone to sit up and take notice of Joanna Connor. And with her new album, 4801 South Indiana Avenue, produced by none other than Joe Bonamassa, it feels like an already successful career is opening up in new ways.

Those in the know have seen the YouTube videos that have gone viral, with her incredible slide guitar playing – check out Walkin’ Blues, 8m views and counting – and have listened with pleasure to some of the thirteen albums she’s released over the past 30 years. But 4801 South Indiana Avenue ought to bring her much wider attention.

Joanna Connor has been paying her dues for many years, plying her trade in the blues clubs of her adopted home town, Chicago. She moved there in 1984, and has played with, and learned from, the likes of James Cotton, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells. Shortly after arriving in Chicago, she began playing at the premiere blues club, Kingston Mines, where she has continued to perform three nights a week until the advent of the pandemic. She’s been a regular at major blues and music festivals worldwide, and those who know her music will hail her as one of the world’s best blues rock guitarists, with her innovative, jazzy, funky approach.

Of her early days in Chicago, she has said, “It was my university. I went out every night of the week. Within a month I had my first gig with the legendary Johnny Littlejohn. A few weeks later I became a part of Dion Payton and the 43rd St Bluesband. We were the house band at the Checkerboard Lounge, on the south side of Chicago, then owned by Buddy Guy. That’s when my schooling kicked into overdrive. I played with Buddy, Junior Wells, Otis Rush, Sammy Lawhorn, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Magic Slim, Son Seals, Lonnie Brooks, Koko Taylor, just to name a few. I was blessed.”

Her new album on Joe Bonamassa’s new independent blues record label Keeping The Blues Alive, follows 2019’s excellent Rise, and was produced by Joe Bonamassa and Josh Smith at Ocean Way Recording Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. It’s an absolutely top-notch set of blues rock that clearly has a Chicago blues heritage, yet sounds completely fresh and modern. Connor’s killer slide guitar and vocals are augmented by some characteristically fine guitar work by Bonamassa and a tight-knit top-class band, consisting of Josh Smith (guitar), Reese Wynans (keyboards), Cavin Turner (bass), and drummer Lemar Carter (drums).

It’s superbly produced, but at the same time, it’s packed with raw, high-energy musicianship.

Down at the Crossroads got chatting to Ms. Connor about the album. I congratulated her on such a fine piece of work, and asked, first of all about the record’s title.

She told me she had been very pleased about the way it had turned out: “I mean, the whole time we were doing it, it felt special and it felt wonderful. So, in the whole process, I thought, Oh, this is going to be good! And now I’m very pleased that people love it.

“As for the title, 4801 South Indiana Avenue was the address of Teresa’s lounge, which went away in about 1986. I did actually play there a few times, but, you know, Teresa’s had Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, and it’s really a historic place.”

Theresa’s Lounge was one of the best of the bars that had opened on Chicago’s South Side to showcase the emerging sound of Chicago blues after the Second World War. African Americans from rural Mississippi had begun to migrate north, in the hope of a better life, and the musicians amongst them adapted the Delta blues they had played to a new form of blues reflecting their new urban environment.

Theresa Needham

Owner Theresa Needham regularly booked people like Junior Wells and Buddy Guy, and quickly established the venue as one of the best places to see and hear the blues played. Over time its faithful local clientele was joined by people from all over the world attracted by the calibre of music being played.

Choosing to reference this iconic Chicago venue in the album’s title nails its colours firmly to the mast. Connor said it was the most bluesy record she’s ever recorded. I asked about the songs chosen – they are mostly covers of obscure blue songs.

“Well, Josh Smith, Joe Bonamassa and I sat there, and just went through maybe fifteen or sixteen songs and then kind of narrowed it down to the ones we chose. We all know a lot about the blues in terms of the history and the artists, but Joe is like a walking encyclopedia! So he really knows how to dig into some of the deeper catalogues.”

You do get the impression with Bonamassa, a self-confessed guitar and technology nerd, that he’s likely to dive deep into the history and background of any music he’s involved in. Just watch his recent movie, Guitar Man, where, at one point he claims not to really be a blues musician, but then later on he’s travelling around Mississippi looking for the roots of the blues. You can well imagine the man getting deep into the detail.

I wondered if there was any song that Joanna particularly likes on the album?

“It’s hard to choose because they all bring something different to the table. Some have got that Hound Dog Taylor boogie-type thing, some have great energy and some have got that slinky horn thing. But I do like the single a lot, I Feel So Good, I just feel like it’s got a lot of fire to it and I’m pleased with my playing on that too.”

I Feel So Good features some incendiary slide playing by Connor, taken at a tremendous pace with deadly accuracy. And as she says, her singing is fiery. It’s a song you can’t help moving to, or smiling as you listen. And it’ll be sensational when played live.

I also love the Albert King one, For the Love of a Man, where the horns give it huge sound. With horns and guitars blasting you might wonder about how the vocals fare – no problem for Connor, whose singing on this album is stellar. We expect a Joanna Connor album to blow us away with the guitar work, but her vocal performance here is maybe the best we’ve heard of her. On songs like I Feel So Good and Please Help, she sounds like she is really cutting loose. That, apparently, came with Bonamassa’s encouragement.

“Joe told me, people know you can really play the guitar, but the vocals are gonna surprise everyone. And that was Joe just pushing me, you know, pushing me to the limit of what I could do with my voice. So, he knew what he was doing, I think.”

Photo: Marty Moffatt

Bonamassa’s stamp is clearly on the album. So, how did it come about that Joanne and Joe started working together?

“He saw some of my videos – people post videos of me online, and Joe put one of my videos on his sites, on social media and he said something about my talent and that I deserve to be recognized – something like that. So I reached out to him through direct message. I’m like, Hi, this is Joanna Connor! And thank you. And this is my contact information, if you ever want to get in touch with me. And he did immediately. Like within few hours. Then it just started rolling. That was in May of 2019. And then, Joe said, we gotta get into the studio, I’d like to record a record with you. And so that’s how we started the conversation.”

The way the album has turned out, with such an evident definition, I asked Joanna if she and Joe had a clear vision for the record at the outset.

“I had no clue. He asked me, but then he said, listen, I have a vision for this record. I want to make a record – I’m being selfish – that I want to listen to. And he said, I want to bring out all your best qualities throughout the whole record. Then he asked me, could I trust him in the project? I’m like, sure, you have a great reputation and done so much. So I let him take control and I just tried to do the best that I could.

“Joe brought a lot of humor, a lot of very dry humor, which I like; a little sarcasm, which I can totally relate to. And so that helped. And he was just a straight shooter, you know?

“With the guitar stuff, basically we’d just try to get a sound. He would give me an idea like, Hey, why don’t you try to do a Hound Dog Taylor type thing, be real raw. And the other times he’d just let me play and wouldn’t say anything. But with the vocals, he was much more hands-on.”

In the liner notes, Joanna says that Joe painted pictures for her with each cut, and then she “fleshed those stories out.” I wondered what that really means?

“It was kind of like Joe was a movie director. Most of the songs are about men and women: so Joe painted a scenario to try to get me in the moment of the song – ‘it’s like you walk in the club and your man is there with another woman.’ Every song he’d make up a scenario for me.”

In working with such a top-class band and Joe Bonamassa playing guitar, I asked Joanna if – despite being a very seasoned professional, and successful, performer – she was at all nervous in that environment to start with?

“Oh, extremely! Beforehand, as the whole months would go by, I was like, is this really going to happen? I was thinking, Whoa, I’m walking into a huge platform here with these legendary players and top-notch studio people. Of course, I’ve done it, I’ve played with some legendary people along the way, but still, this was something brand new for me. And I kinda had to coach myself down the aisle when I was on the plane, you know! But you got to give it your best and let go of these nerves and just let it happen. But I’m kind of nervous about new situations anyways. People always say, Oh, I can’t tell that you’re nervous. Well, if you were inside my brain, it’s a zoo in there!

“But once I started laying down those grooves and playing, they were all such nice guys, they were very down to earth. You never know, because people like that might be condescending, but they were totally cool. And we just had a blast and we were all in one room so it was kinda like being on stage.”

I wanted to know a bit about Joanna’s blues background. As she told me, she’s played with some legendary blues artists and spent her career playing in Chicago blues clubs. What, I asked her, is the continual drawing power of the blues? Why is this music so powerful, and why does it still attract people?

“Blues is the music of the soul. It’s the music that came from pain, sorrow and suffering. But also joy, from a group of people that had to deal with the harshest of harsh things. And I think all great music, unfortunately, usually comes from that kind of suffering. I think it really just speaks to the human emotion. And then, you know, there are the rhythmic qualities. But I think what draws you in is, when it’s played right, it’s honest music. There’s no pretense involved and I think that’s appealing.”

We’d all agree with that. And that’s why I suppose, the blues have transcended its original context, and people all over the world and in different situations can respond to it. What drew Joanna Conner to the blues when she was younger?

“My mother was a huge music lover. She wasn’t a mainstream person – she loved jazz and blues and rock. My mother had me when she was 32 – in those days, kind of old. I was her first kid. She was born in 1930, and by the time I was around she could have been listening to show music or something really corny, but she was really up on everything. And she brought that to me and I heard it my whole life. So it was part of what I grew up listening to.”

The young Joanna Connor starting to play guitar, was also down to her mother. “I woke up one day and she’s like, there is something for you in the living room, you’re going to play guitar. Really? I never had asked her for one!

“I had a strange journey with the guitar because I started off playing classical. Then I played acoustic. I had a teacher that taught me ragtime, Piedmont blues, Delta blues, and then the slide. After that I switched to electric and started singing in a band. But I really could never solo, that escaped me, although I was always a very good rhythm guitar player. So eventually when I was 22 and moved to Chicago, I said, listen, I gotta really focus on how to solo. It all came in stages, but I think I always had a good feel for music. I was always playing an instrument and singing. It’s just in my DNA in some way. But I worked hard at it too.”

When you listen to Connor’s previous album, Rise, it’s much more varied musically than this latest one, quite jazzy and funky in places – you’ve got all those musical influences that she imbibed from she was a child coming through there. So although 4801 South Indiana Avenue is an out and out blues album, Joanna Connor is not simply a blues artist, she’s a musician capable of adapting her playing to a range of genres, when the need arises.

She’s had a long career and a successful one. I wondered how it has been for here as a woman operating in what is often a genre dominated by men?

“My younger brother and I were talking and he said, well, you know, you have a strong personality! I guess I do! So that was one thing that carried me through. I wasn’t timid about things – not that I don’t get nervous, but I feel like I will stand up for myself, no question about it. But it was kind of lonely, because it’s mostly men and you’re never quite in the boys’ club. So, you’re definitely walking a path by yourself. And especially when I started, there was really just less than a handful of women playing an instrument like that.”

Joanna Conner is an incredibly hardworking professional musician, playing around 200 shows a year. Before, of course, the pandemic stopped everything in its tracks. And she’s been doing that for an awfully long time. She clearly loves what she does. What is it about performing at this high level that excites her?

“You know, the first time I ever really played with a band when I was seventeen. I was freaking out for a few days before the gig, but as soon as the lights on the stage went on and the people were there and the band started playing, I swear, I said, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life! I absolutely fell in love with it.

“First and foremost, it’s playing with a great band that brings me the most joy. And then if the audience is there with us, then it could be really transcendent and special. But it’s first the band, that interaction of musicians that really brought me into playing music.”

Not having that over this past year, though, has clearly been a frustration. Although she and her band played a few outdoors, private-hire shows last year, it’s basically been over a year without performing.

“It’s been strange. I haven’t not played music for more than three weeks at a time in forty years. I’ve been through a multitude of emotions. Sometimes I play my guitar now and I want to cry. And then other times I’m like, well, it’s good to take a break. The thing that’s kind of disconcerting is there’s a lot of famous clubs that are not going to reopen all around the States. I mean, when you become a musician, there’s no guarantee of anything, you’re always living on the edge. And so that part I’m sort of used to, but I’ve never been in any situation like this. There have been economic downturns, there was nine-eleven and so on, but for all of us this is an unprecedented time.”

And it’s a great pity that Joanna doesn’t have the opportunity to take this record out on the road for the time being. These are songs that, with Joanna’s energy and commitment, will fire up audiences for sure, creating an electric atmosphere. But hopefully, with vaccines and good sense prevailing, we’ll get through this, and we’ll get to experience the exhilarating energy of a Joanna Connor performance. Until then, just get the album, turn up the volume and let these classic-but new songs bring the blues to life for you in new ways.