“Shemekia Copeland is one of the great blues voices of our time” Chicago Tribune
Photo: Mike White / Alligator Records
Shemekia Copeland is a blues powerhouse, with a stack of blues music awards to her name (Blues Music Awards, Living Blues Awards) and several Grammy nominations. She burst on to the scene in 1998 with Turn the Heat Up and has been lighting up stages and recording studios with the force of her personality, her incredible vocals and song-writing ever since. She’s opened for the Rolling Stones, and graced stages with B B King, Buddy Guy, Bonnie Raitt, Eric Clapton and Carlos Santana, and played for President and Mrs. Obama at the White House.
Her new album, America’s Child, produced by Nashville’s Will Kimbrough, is a compelling piece of work that sees Ms. Copeland branch out beyond the blues in which she’s made her name. To be sure there are great blues numbers here, but there’s rock and country too – overall it’s a great piece of Americana.
When Down at the Crossroads asked Shemekia how she would describe the album musically, she replied, “It’s rootsy. All American music is based on the blues, so I felt free to borrow from other genres like country and bluegrass.”
The album has a stellar cast of collaborators on the album – John Prine, Mary Gauthier, Emmylou Harris, Rhiannon Giddens, Steve Cropper and others. Shemekia clearly enjoyed working with each of them and told us, “Each one was incredibly generous. John Prine was so much fun to duet with, and Mary Gauthier is a wonderful person who happens to be one of the best writers in America.”
Gauthier has returned the compliment by saying, “America’s Child is a ground-breaking, genre-bending work of beauty. Shemekia is one of the great singers of our time…Her voice on these songs is nothing short of magic.”
Shemekia told us: “Rhiannon’s banjo took our song to a whole other level. Emmylou has the voice of an angel. I was so honoured. And Steve Cropper is my old friend and happens to be one of the greatest, most soulful guitarists in the history of music. I was blessed to have each of them.”
When asked about the background to the album – why this set of songs and what she was setting out to achieve with it, Shemekia said that last year she had given birth to Johnny Lee Copeland and that the album is her vision of the world she is bringing him into – “my vision of life in America today, and my hopes for the future.”
Shemekia Copeland is no stranger to biting social commentary in her work – in her 2015 album, Outskirts of Love, she addressed victims of date rape in Crossbone Beach and of domestic violence in Drivin’ Out of Nashville, the homeless, in Cardboard Box, and those living in poverty in Lord Help the Poor And Needy. And no less in American Child, she offers a social commentary and critique of the way things are in the United States at the moment in the songs I Ain’t Got Time for Hate, Americans and Would You Take My Blood. When asked how much it matters for artists and musicians to comment and make people think about what is going on, Shemekia said that for her it was important. “Music,” she said, “reaches people in ways that speeches and politics cannot. It’s emotional.”
There’s no shortage of emotion on this album, driven by the conviction and clarity of Ms. Copeland’s vocals, which range from tender in the closing lullaby to playful in One I Love to sassy on The Wrong Idea to earnest in In the Blood of the Blues, and everything in between. Although it’s not an out and out blues album, there’s a fine bluesy feel throughout, driven by the excellent guitar skills of Will Kimbrough and Steve Cropper. The song arrangements and tight band work combine with Ms. Copeland’s voice to make this an authentic and memorable album.
Would You Take My Blood written by John Hahn and Will Kimbrough directly addresses the problem of racism. “All I want is some respect,” sings Shemekia, and then pointedly asks someone who’s a racist if they’d be willing to take your blood if they were dying and needed it? It is appalling that these sorts of attitudes still seem to be so ingrained in the fabric of American life, and it’s sometimes hard to see how the problem be addressed. “An incredibly difficult question,” replied Shemekia. “A good start might be if people actually lived according to beliefs espoused by their religion. The golden rule would be a good place to start.” Ain’t that the truth?
Terry Abrahamson’s and Derrick Proce’s In the Blood of the Blues, is an outstanding blues song, with great guitar work from Kimbrough, who has played guitar with Emmylou Harris in recent years. It’s a stark reminder of the way the blues is rooted in the suffering of the black community – in slavery, sharecropping and Jim Crow injustice.
“I’m the twist in the wire tying every bale of cotton
I’m the shout in the field that echoes across the sea
I’m the newsprint walls in a one-room shack in Stovall
And the blade on the knife that cut my brother from the tree.”
Despite every week’s dispiriting news cycle seeming to confirm the need for the United States to properly come to terms with its past with respect to African Americans, when we asked Shemekia if, as she looks around at America today, does she have cause to be hopeful, she replied, “Totally, it’s still the greatest country on earth. I love it and it will always be my home.”
As well as the serious side to the record, there’s a sense of playfulness and joy here too. Shemekia told us, “Now with the birth of my son (born just two years ago), I’m a more joyful person than ever. And grateful.” She said in a previous interview with Forbes that, in fact, America’s Child is completely about Johnny Lee, who had changed her life. “You immediately become frustrated with the world you live in but you’re also hopeful for your child and hopeful that things will get better for him. That’s kind of what America’s Child is about.”
“Whether he’s wailing a Freddy King inspired blues ballad, stomping out low down and dirty blues, or getting down with a super funky New Orleans groove, Bryan Lee is gonna grab your soul and squeeze it till you scream in blues ecstasy.” – Duke Robillard
BMA Award winner and Grammy Nominee, Bryan Lee, has had a lifetime in the blues. In his mid-seventies, the bluesman, who lost his sight at the age of 8, is still playing consistently and has just released a new album, Sanctuary. His vocal and guitar playing powers are still very much in evidence in a very fine collection of unabashed gospel blues. A long-time resident and performer in New Orleans, with a Chicago blues guitar style which channels Luther Allison, Albert King and Albert Collins, Bryan now resides close to the beach in south Florida, but his musical enthusiasm and passion for the blues is undiminished.
The new album Sanctuary is a top-notch blues album, well produced, recorded and mastered by Steve Hamilton, and, as well as a classy band, features the wonderful, gospel vocals of Deirdre Fellner. There’s a detectable funky, New Orleans feel throughout, from the opener Fight for the Light onward, and Lee’s and Marc Spagone’s guitar work sparkles. Lee lays out his stall pretty early, telling us in Jesus Gave Me the Blues, that the blues is a gift from his saviour – even though he’s “getting low down and dirty.” There’s humour as well – in U-Haul which gets materialism in firmly in his sights, he sings, “I never saw no U-Haul behind a hearse.” You gotta hold on to things lightly. He follows this them again in Mr. Big – where the guy has the big house, fancy car, a Fortune 500 company – “but you ain’t happy.”
The album concludes with two songs recorded with the Adam Douglas band some time ago, but which make a fitting inclusion in Sanctuary. The Lord’s Prayer is as you’ve never heard it before in church – a blues version, but with a distinctive gospel feel, and reverently sung by Lee.
Down at the Crossroads chatted to Bryan about his life in the blues and the new album. He was upbeat, excited about the release of Sanctuary and about life in general.
DATC: Bryan, congratulations on the new album. I’ve been listening to it these past few days, and it’s great, catchy tunes, great musicianship and arrangements. We’ll have a chat about it in a minute. But first of all, Bryan, you’ve had a lifetime in the blues. Tell us about how you got started all those years ago – who inspired you?
BL: I guess in the beginning, the early 50s when I was about 10 years old, I started getting into my folks’ music. I heard Chuck Berry and right away, it was like, “if I could play guitar like that!” And then I heard Little Richard, and I was, “man, I wanna sing like that!” And that kind of drew me into the blues a little bit, but the thing that did it completely – I was 17 years old, and we were getting a new drummer into our band, and we went over to his house. And he played Freddie King’s Hideaway, and we were just knocked out! And then we listened to the B side and it was a slow blues called I Love the Woman. I just fell in love with it and I said, “man, that’s where I wanna go.”
So I went down to the record store looking for Freddie King and found a couple of 45s, and the guy working there sold me an album with Hideaway on it. And I really got into that record – that first song…[breaks into song]…man I was hooked. I’ve heard Wolf and BB and all these guys, but Freddie King is the one that connects to me.
Along the way I got to be good friends with Albert King – he was always nice. I recorded an album way back in 1984 that had four Albert King songs on it, and he came to New Orleans, so I went to see him and gave him a copy of the album. And he listened to it and appreciated what I had done with his tunes. That’s really cool.
But through my 20s my shows were getting bluesier and bluesier and I started getting into trouble with the club owners, who only wanted to hear Top 40 music. But then we had that era when the Allman Brothers hit, and it kinda helped for the blues guys to get their foot in the door.
But, you know, I travelled that old lonesome highway, because that’s what I wanted to do. If you love it, man, you do it.
DATC: What is it about this music that has keep you playing it all these years?
BL: As I get more into the music, the blues gets better with age. It’s the understanding of it. It’s not the devil’s music. You can go to, say, Sao Paulo, Brazil, a very large city, and you get 40,000 people answering you with “hey, hey, the blues is all right”…The blues is a universal language. B B King said it’s places, people and things. It goes to our make up in our soul. You can’t just sit there, you gotta move!
And some guys have that knack. I could listen to T-Bone Walker all day. And probably one of my favourite guitar players of all is Matt Guitar Murphy. I got to be friends with him over the last years of his life. I met him back in 1976 when I opened up for the James Cotton Band and Matt was the guitar player. And he was such a gracious guy. Same with James. James and I were really good friends. There’s something in these people, It’s their soul, that’s what it’s about. You gotta feel it, it’s in your soul.
And you can overcome so much in your life with the power of the blues. And that’s why I made this album, to try and make people understand – Jesus gave us the music. It’s pain, it’s sorrow, but it’s also laughter and success. You gotta fight for the light, you can’t just let darkness break you down. God gave you your life and you gotta respect that. To me, music is the thing that will lift you and will bring you to church and will bring you through stuff.
DATC: And of course, Bryan, your new album, Sanctuary, is an album of gospel blues. And you pull no punches – you’re very explicit about your faith. You say in The Gift, “I’m an old bluesman.” And then you say “Jesus has straightened me out.” Tell us a bit about your journey in faith, how this bluesman found faith.
BL: Well, there was a short time in my life, probably about two years, when I rejected organized religion completely. But I was raised as a Catholic, and we were working in a bar in New Orleans in the early 90s, and we’d have a lot of conventions in the city, there were always people in town. And every evening after dinner, they’d be looking for entertainment. So we would fill the house. Anyway, I met this woman one Friday night, and she was from Seattle, Washington. And she said, Bryan, “I’ve been in town since Monday and I discovered you on Tuesday, and have come every night since” – and she told me she was going to go to the St Louis Cathedral on Sunday and she invited me to go with her.
So we went to church and when I walked up to communion, I knew that was where I was meant to be. And I was like, “Jesus, thank you for not forgetting me.” And she and I had dinner and had a wonderful discussion about things, and we became friends. But she was the one that brought me back to church.
But you don’t just be a good person on Sunday. You gotta be a good person 7 days a week, 24/7. But that’s hard to do, with all the trials and tribulations you might have to go through. Even the rich man has got lots of problems.
DATC: You lost your eyesight when you were a boy. How difficult was it for you to get started playing guitar and start performing and then forge a career?
BL: Well…like most young people I was fearless. So, I’d be up on stage, and to me the place was always full, and people looking at me in a funny way, I don’t see it! I had an advantage!
I remember one night I was walking home. And I had a three-piece suit on, with a fancy tie, and I’m walking home, with a cane in my right hand, and all of a sudden, somebody yells at me, “Stop, stop! Blind man, stop!” So I stopped, and this woman comes up to me and says, “Where is your bucket?” I said, “My bucket?” And she said, “Well you’re blind, you have to have a bucket, I want to put something in your bucket.”
So I said, “Ma’am, that’s all right, give it to the Salvation Army, or the church. I don’t need it, as you can see, I’m working, I’m a musician.” And then she was like, “Aw, shucks.” She’d seen this blind man and thought she better do this man a favour. And I got helped across streets I didn’t want to cross, and up steps I didn’t want to go up. But things like this just always used to make me smile. I think now that people are more aware, it’s not so much like that now.
DATC: You’ve a song on this album Don’t Take My Blindness for a Weakness – you don’t downplay the difficulties, but you sound as if you’ve become very strong through it.
BL: Yes. You got it Gary! It might take me a little bit longer than you, but I will get there. I’ve been playing music since I was 13 years old, and I’m 75 now. I’ve travelled all around the world. I got a chance to play the Montreal Jazz Festival this year – 5th or 6th time I’ve done it – and oh, it was so much fun! People say at my age you shouldn’t do a lot of travel – but I want to get my message out.
This is what I’ve discovered through the years – if we were all blind, we wouldn’t have all these prejudices, we wouldn’t have all this hatred and stuff. Human beings would have to come together and help each other. So, who’s blind? For me, if I’ve got a choice between eyesight and insight, I’ll take insight every time.
DATC: Bryan, tell us about The Lord’s Prayer. How did that song come about?
BL: I was doing a festival in Norway in an island called Svalbard. This week is their dark season festival, it’s basically a blues festival. It was a 5-day festival, with quite a few bands. On the last day, the woman who organized the festival picked two groups to play in the church to close the festival. So she asked me if I would work with the Adam Douglas group. So we got together, and they were just a killer band – they could take a Michael Jackson song and make it sound like the blues! Well, the night before the rehearsal, I went to bed, fell asleep and had a dream about the Lord’s Prayer, the arrangement, the chords changes and all. And when I got up the next morning, it still was in my head – lot of time, that doesn’t happen – normally you dream a song but when you wake up you don’t remember it. So I went to the rehearsal and they asked me what I wanted to do. So I went through the chord changes with the band and they said, that’s great, let’s do it.
So we did it in the church, and we also did the other one, Jesus is My Lord and Savior, Then after the festival we went back to Oslo and we had about two days, so Adam said to me, “we should record those two songs.” So we went into the recording studio and we did ‘em! And we hugged each other afterwards and said, you know, we’re gonna have to finish this some day. And we all hoped we could get back together somehow in the future – but that never happened.
So in 2017, I just decided that if I don’t record this record, I’ll feel like I cheated the good Lord. Because I had promised him this album, for all the good music he’s put in our soul, and the ability to entertain people and to communicate with an audience. I can rip up an audience, you know! I tell stories, but I don’t think about what I’m going to say. I call the first three tunes and then after that, it’s what happens happens!
DATC: It’s a great album, Bryan – the arrangements and the musicianship are all wonderful.
Bryan: Out of my brain and out of my soul! And I’m not through – I’ve an idea for another album, and another album beyond that. And I used to do 300 dates a year, now, not so many as that. But it’s quality, not quantity!
It’s a day at a time, one step at a time. And Jesus is there – we just need to go to that place of sanctuary, where it’s real still, it’s real quiet, where you can really touch the good Lord and find answers to your problems.
Ana Popovic, virtuoso guitarist, singer and song-writer has just recorded her 11th studio album, Like It On Top. Recorded in Nashville, and produced by four-time Grammy winner Keb’ Mo’, it features guest appearances from Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robben Ford and Keb’ Mo’.
Popovic, born in Belgrade, now living with her family in the United States, was called by Bruce Springsteen “one helluva a guitar-player” and has been nominated for six Blues Music Awards. She was the only continental European artist to be nominated for the WC Handy Award (now Blues Music Awards) for “Best New Artist.” Her albums typically reach the top of the Billboard Blues Charts and along the way she and her six-piece band have shared stages with B.B. King, Buddy Guy, Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamassa and many others.
A child prodigy on guitar and a student of jazz guitar, Ana Popovic is widely acclaimed as an outstanding guitar player, evidenced by her being the only female to star on the Jimi Hendrix tribute tours, and NPR hailing her “fiery technique on the Stratocaster.”
Her new album is terrific piece of work, featuring some beautiful and truly exceptional guitar work, and funky, bluesy arrangements. Popovic not only excels in the instrumental department – her vocal performance on the album is very strong. And thematically, the album is important. Down at the Crossroads was pleased to chat to Ana about the record:
DATC: So, Ana, congratulations on the new album. It’s terrific, a really great piece of work, catchy tunes, sophisticated music, the sort of outstanding guitar work we’ve come to expect from an Ana Popovic album – and it’s had a great reception. We’ll come on to the theme of the album in a minute. But maybe you could tell us a bit about the making of the album and working with Keb’ Mo’, who appears on a couple of songs and whose presence you can feel on the album.
Ana Popovic: I’ve been a fan of Kevin’s for many years and obviously know his songs, and we’ve been talking about doing something together for many years. Finally, we met on a cruise and I said, I’m ready, I’ve got songs that I’ve started, so we said, let’s just get together and write some songs. And he came over to my home in Los Angeles and we spent a whole week – we would start at 9 o’clock and finish around 6 or 7pm. We would cook dinner with my family, and he was just like part of the family. And it was really a wonderful process, and maybe my favourite part of the process was that writing. I had some songs that I’d started and he would come up with something, and really, we were both very open minded. And that song,
Lasting Kind of Love was the first song we wrote and I think it was done in a matter of an hour or two. It went so smooth.
And then I went to his home studio in Nashville and we recorded there for two sessions of about ten days each and we recorded with Nashville musicians. It was wonderful to work with him and see how he works, which is very different from how I work, but we would meet somewhere in the middle. It’s a very dear record to me. It’s a really good subject, it’s got good stories. It’s very different from what I did before, which has always been the number one thing I go after – because I’ve been around for 15 years, and my fans need a reason to go out there and get a record. One of the reasons is a high-quality record, which I think I’ve done so far, and the second reason is it’s different from what they’ve heard before.
DATC: How would you describe the musical direction on this record?
Ana Popovic: I try to put out a new sound to Ana Popovic with every record. Obviously Trilogy had a lot of that, also the previous one, Can You Stand the Heat? And this one is following the same path, which is, pick out a little different sound and surprise people, and have them hear another sound, another style of Ana Popovic.
DATC: And you have guest appearances from Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Robben Ford. Tell us about working with those guys.
Keb’ Mo’
Ana Popovic: Well, it was wonderful, Of course, I have known both of them for many years, and I see Robben from time to time on the tour. I really love his style – I was sitting for hours, when I was learning to play the guitar, back in the day, with his guitar solos and I absolutely love his style of playing, he is one of a kind. So, it was wonderful to see him and have him play on a few of the songs. Kenny Wayne as well – he lives close by, so it was easy to schedule that. Kenny, of course, is a fantastic guitar player, and a different style to Keb’ Mo’ and myself and Robben Ford. He’s on the rock side, and it really fits the record and the song. He wrote that song, Sexy Tonight, so it was a nice addition to have him play.
DATC: Tell us a bit about what this album is all about and what you are trying to do with it.
Ana Popovic: The theme of the record is female empowerment. More females in the corner offices, more females in politics, in business – that’s the overall theme. I’m one of the women who does sort of a male job, right? Back when I started to play guitar, there were just a few female guitar players out there – Bonnie Raitt…but just a few – and I was wondering how other ladies juggle their work, how they convince their male colleagues that doing a male job is OK for a woman!
And obviously this comes from the whole movement right now, where women should have equal pay and equal benefits, so it would be a fair choice over who’s gonna stay home with the kids and who’s gonna go out and support the family. So that’s what I stand behind. And of course, I’ve got a band to take care of and an agency and management, but some of these ladies are in huge corporate offices with hundreds of employees, and how do they tackle family life and kids. Obviously, you need a strong partner who supports that or otherwise you have no choice. So, it’s more of a shout out to those kinds of situations, and more and more you see and hear about those families where the husband stays home and the woman goes out and makes money, and that’s just the reality, there’s nothing crazy about it. It’s just the new world.
Yeah, this is the overall theme, but there are different stories – about passions, about longing, about doubts, even about domestic violence in one of the songs and how a woman can actually overcome that, how some of them are strong enough to put a stop to that, which I think must be extremely difficult.
DATC: Some of the songs are quite hard-hitting, aren’t they? I’m thinking of the one you’ve just mentioned, Matter of Time, which is a terrific traditional sounding acoustic blues song with resonator/slide guitar. But it deals squarely with domestic violence. Which is a huge on-going problem for women all over the world, whether it’s the US & Europe or the developing world. I was reading recently that the UN says that 35% of women worldwide have experienced either physical and/or sexual violence.
Ana Popovic: Yes, it’s a problem everywhere. And when I write a song, I really have to find lyrics for dramatics. And blues is all about something dramatic, it’s got to feel real. And that song is very real, and putting it in that old school blues form felt right. Yeah, that’s one that I’m proud of.
DATC: And there’s a nice balance with this song, because some of the very old blues songs – you know, you go back to Robert Johnson and others, where the songs have terrible misogynistic lyrics – “I’m going to beat my woman until I’m satisfied” and so on – I mean it’s just awful. So, to get a song in that genre and style that is completely the opposite is really good.
Ana Popovic: Thank you! And we have Slow Dance, of course – I always try to get some sort of slow blues in there. I had Johnny Ray on Trilogy which is sort of a B B King style, but this is more soul-blues, something I haven’t done before. Slow Dance is a wonderful song and fun song to play live as well.
DATC: Yeah, I really enjoyed that one. But with it and Funkin’ Attitude where you highlight men who don’t keep their hands where they’re supposed to be and get “nasty, evil, mean” if they don’t get what they want – it struck me that you’re tapping in there to the problems that have been highlighted by the #metoo movement and the move to making life safer for women.
Ana Popovic: I guess so! But both songs are also really fun. Funkin’ Attitude is really about some huge, macho egos that I came across, and I’m thinking, how many other women come across this?
But the record is not about men hating, I adore men. And we need men to be on our side – so that’s why I chose my male colleagues to come and play. They all have strong women at home and they very much respect women, which is a wonderful thing. So, it’s really just about equality on this record. It’s that we both need to have the same chances – equal pay and equal benefits. Just the mindset that any job can be done successfully by a female or a male.
I adore working with men – I have a great band and wonderful fans that really support me, I have an incredible partner at home. I think it was just the right time, with the #metoo campaign and all the rest, with the actresses pushing for the equal pay, which I think is really fantastic. So, it was just the right moment to address that, in a nice way, musically.
DATC: And you’ve got that lovely song, Honey I’m Home which reverses the traditional man-woman roles and has the man welcoming the woman home after her day at work.
Ana Popovic: It’s a nice closure to the album. Kevin wrote that for me, for the record, and I thought it was wonderful. And it says to everybody that it’s OK to have things reversed like that, and it’s more and more happening. It’s progress, it’s the natural thing, and more and more people are OK with that. So yeah, I think it’s a good closure of the record.
DATC: And you’re touring the album at the moment – the US and then Europe?
Ana Popovic: Yes. We are touring here in the US in October and then November in Europe, and part of December. So, we have new songs to play. And we don’t even get to play all of Trilogy, because Trilogy gave us 23 songs in different genres – blues, funk and jazz. So, we got plenty of material, and it’s just fun to work the songs on stage and make them alive.
“Smither is an American original – a product of the musical melting pot and one of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world.” (Associated Press)
Chris Smither has had a performing and recording career for nigh on fifty years and has just released his 18th album, Call Me Lucky. It’s a terrific piece of work showcasing his skill and experience as a bluesman, guitarist and songwriter.
His songs have been covered along the way by artists like Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Emmylou Harris and John Mayall, and he’s renowned for his rhythmic acoustic fingerpicking guitar. Long-time producer David Goodrich worked on the album with Smither, along with Billy Conway, Matt Lorenz, Keith Gary and Mike Meadows, to create a fine, bluesy album of Americana that features eight Chris Smither originals and a three nicely conceived, but surprising covers. It’s effectively a double album, the second CD consisting of a cover of the Beatles’ She Said, She Said and a reworking of five of the songs on the first.
As you’d expect on a Chris Smither album, the lyrics are sharp and laced with wry humour, without ever being cynical, the new songs demonstrating once again the importance of Chris Smither as a songwriter and artist.
Chris is touring with this album throughout the US and UK through until the Spring of next year. Be sure and catch a show! Down at the Crossroads chatted to him about the album:
DATC: Chris, Tell us about the idea behind the album, is there an overall thrust or theme of the album? And maybe a bit about making the album.
CS: At some point along the line I decided it’s time to make a new record and that means I need to write some new songs. Because I don’t write all the time, I write for specific projects. Having said that, of course, most of the songs are written within a nine months period and that usually means that they are thematically related, because they’re about what I’ve been thinking about lately. They tend to resemble themselves in some respects, but there’s no intentional feeling to the entire thing. If you’re looking for a theme, I’d say the idea behind the record is to get a new record out! [laughs]
The making of the record itself was what has become very standard for me…my producer makes suggestions…he has insights into what’s going on with me that I don’t even have yet. And at one of our meetings – we’d usually get together for a couple of days at a time – we started talking about covers, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do any covers of other people’s songs on this record. And I said well, I haven’t thought about it.
But then we were also having a conversation about Chuck Berry, who at the time was still alive – not for long unfortunately – and he had just turned 90 and made a new record. And we were wondering what Chuck Berry sounded like at 90! And then Goody [David Goodrich] says, hey, play Maybelline in a minor key – see if that sounds like a 90 year old! [laughs] So we started fooling around with it and we said, oh man we gotta do this. Because it changed the song so dramatically.
DATC: Yes, it’s fantastic. It’s like a new song…it’s like a Chris Smither song!
CS: Yes I know! And that kind of sums up this whole subject of covers. We had this on-going conversation about cover songs, and when we were down in Texas working on the record – those guys I was working with, well they stayed up a lot later than I do! I’m an old man, I go to bed at like, 11 or 12 o’clock, but they’re studio rats, they stay up until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. And they started playing around with stuff that we had just recorded. They’d take a song we had just recorded and totally re-imagine it, the whole arrangement. I remember the first one they did, it was the punk version of Down to the South and I walked in the next morning and they said, hey listen to this, do you think you could sing to this?! And I said, yeah, I’ll give it a shot. And it was just a goof, just playing around. And so I did it, and the next night they did another one. And I walked in the next morning and they said, sing this, this is a slow version of a fast song. So we started playing around with it and by the time we had about three of them, we thought, you know this sounds pretty good, we should just include this with the record.
DATC: So these are the alternative versions on the second CD?
CS: Yeah, those are all the alternative versions. It was just sort of playing around in the studio and then saying, hey this is interesting, we should let people hear this.. And then the only song on that disk that isn’t mine is the Beatles’ She said, She said. I had learned the song when I was asked to participate in a John Lennon tribute concert about 3 years ago, and I started working on that arrangement of the song. But then I had to cancel, because I had to have a heart operation, so I never got a chance to play it! And I was fooling around with it one afternoon in the studio and Goody said, What is that? And I said, She Said, She Said, and then Matt Lorenz [The Suitcase Junkett] started in on some harmonies, and we said, yes, we should do this, we should record this.
DATC: That’s interesting, Chris. Of course, you’ve a long history as an interpreter of songs. You’re not afraid to take on classic songs that are very familiar to people. When you decide on a song you’re going to cover, how do you go about that process of re-interpretation, of putting your own stamp on it?
CS: You know, I don’t really think about it that much. First of all, I don’t really think about covering a song unless I’m really familiar with it, where I’ve listened to it a hundred times at least. So basically, I just sit down and start playing around on the guitar, and I don’t ever go back to the original. I want to depend on my own memory of what it was like, because that’ll tell me what it was about the song that impressed me the most.
DATC: With something like Dylan’s Desolation Row, of course, it was probably very difficult to get the original out of your head!
CS: It was, but, you know, even on Dylan songs, when I hear them, I tend to sing harmonies along with them, and more or less the way I think it should go [laughs], and so basically, what happens is what I remember is my own harmony of it, as opposed to the way he does it.
And when you talk about covering Dylan, when I did Visions of Johanna, that whole tune – I do it in 3/4, instead of 4/4 – because that’s just the way I hear it. All the significant lines in that song make for a perfect waltz time – it’s actually 6/8.
DATC: I read in Acoustic Guitar Magazine that they said the album was about the big things – life, love, loss. And I’ve listened to it a lot over the past week or so, and as I’ve listened to it, I get the sense that a lot of it is about just getting older, considering the ups and downs of life, distilling a bit of wisdom that comes with age. Is that about right?
CS: I think you’re right! [laughs] Yeah, I would agree with that! I can’t help it – I’m almost 74, and you start thinking about things, you know? You’re starting to get towards the end and it occupies an increasingly large share of your thoughts. So it’s maybe not surprising that that is what comes out.
DATC: Yes, in Too Bad So Sad, there are a number of lines about this process of getting older, but I love the bit where you’re kind of complaining – “yes I have taken all my meds!” I can relate to that!
I read your essay on turning 60 that you wrote a few years ago for a book on that subject. I’ve not long passed that milestone myself and it seemed like a terrible thing to happen to me, so I thought there might be a bit of wisdom in there! I’m trying to be a bit more philosophical about it now! And one of the things you said was, “I’ve got less energy than I once did, but more than a lot of people half my age” – which I thought was a good attitude. Is that still the case for you, Chris?
CS: Yeah, I think so. People find it hard to believe I’m as old as I am. Of course, when they get close, they realize! But for some reason I haven’t turned grey yet. And that’s the thing that fools people the most! They think, he can’t be that old! And you know, I keep moving – I take good care of myself, I get a lot of exercise and I’m doing well.
DATC: Chris, you’ve had a 50-year career – what keeps you going as an artist, especially the touring, which presumably doesn’t get any easier?
CS: In some ways it doesn’t get easier, but in some ways it is easier, because I can afford nicer accommodation! It’s not too bad. I have slowed down some – I’m doing just under 100 shows a year these days, which is half what I was doing at my peak. But to tell you the truth, I would go crazy if I weren’t doing this. The last few years, we’ve not booked too many dates in January or February, just because it’s too hard to get around – we live in New England and you never know whether you’re going to be able to fly out or get back home at that time of year. But – at the end of those two months, I’m going crazy! I can’t wait to get out there and play! And then sometimes I’m at home for a week and I think, oh no I’ve got to get out again, but as soon as I get on stage I realize, this is what I do, this is what makes me happy.
DATC: Is it just that interaction, that feedback, that dynamic with the audience that does it?
CS: It’s not just that. It’s a place that I go to in my head when I play. I sort of dissociate from myself and I become…not another person, but a different avatar of myself. And if I’m out of touch with it for too long, I start to miss it. And I have countless people who come up to me after shows and say, please don’t stop what you’re doing – and it’s very hard to resist that kind of response!
DATC: Going back to the album, Chris, one of my favourite songs on the album is Nobody Home, which is a kind of wry, slightly caustic take on the current state of the world. You’ve got a few things in your sights here, including social media & disconnectedness. And in one of the verses, you have a preacher just staring at his phone – getting the news or on FB or twitter, I guess – but his mouth is shut – “there’s nobody home.” And it made me think that the very people who ought to be saying something meaningful or critical of the way things are, are just silent.
CS: You got it! I got through to you! But it’s basically a song about a person looking for help, and he’s looking at all these places and he isn’t able to find it. But I’m not too cynical. But if the mid-term elections here in the United State don’t remedy things, I might get more cynical, because I find what’s going on politically almost unbelievable.
DATC: Yes, on this side of the Atlantic, we kind of watch, with jaws on the floor, each day’s new developments. And you mention quite explicitly in that song the big White House. And the “clown with a comb over, tweeting on his phone.” Again, there’s nobody home. How does this go down with audiences?
CS: You gotta understand about my audiences – nobody would come to my show being totally ignorant of where I stand on some issues. That verse is usually greeted with a huge roar of approval!
DATC: You’re busy touring the US for the rest of the year. And then you’re coming to the UK and Ireland in January. And you’ve been coming over here for a long time. You find get good responses in Ireland?
CS: Oh yeah. It’s a joy. People ask me, what’s your favourite place to play, and I always say Ireland – people there know how to get the best out of you.
Dana Fuchs’ 4th album, Love Lives On, drips with emotion, honesty and passion. Recorded in Memphis, the songs are soaked in traditional American soul, along with a huge dollop of blues, and yet sound bang up to date. Born out of the pain of family loss and also the birth of her baby, Dana Fuchs sees the album as something of a new beginning for her. It is, she says, “all about hope and perseverance.”
Photo by: Franco Francesconi
Down at the Crossroads talked to Dana about making the album and the background to some of the songs.
DATC: Congratulations on the new album, Love Lives On. It’s got a great classic feel to it, great arrangements, great vocal performance – we love it! Tell us about the background of making the album and what you were trying to do with it.
DF: Thank you! I decided to get out of New York City and go to the root of the music that inspired me to follow my passion. The southern soul of Stax/Volt, Hi Records and Sun Studios. From Otis Redding to Al Green to Johnny Cash. All huge musical influences.
It’s a way of paying homage to these great artists who inspired countless others. All roads pointed to Memphis. I wanted less heavy guitar and more space for the vocal. So, in
February and March 2017 we wrote songs with that direction which was so much fun because we only wrote with acoustic guitars and we would sing the horn lines we imagined creating with Memphis horns. Then I took a European tour that April trying them out live and then I went to Memphis to record my faves in May 2017.
DATC: Musically, it’s very rich – you’ve really got a great Memphis soul sound going, Tell us a bit about the musicians you worked with and the process of making this album.
DF: The core band was:
Charles Hodges – Charles created the soul rock organ! At one point I had a steady diet of those Hi Record recordings of the Reverend Al Green. I never really knew much about the Hammond organ until I discovered these records as a young girl. That warm enveloping syrupy church sound that just makes you swoon. Charles Hodges created that as far as I’m concerned.
Steve Potts is the drummer – I wanted a seriously rooted drummer. A guy who had as much power as he does soul. A guy that defies all genre. That is Steve Potts. Almost 70 years old and plays with the strength of a 20 year old but with the wisdom and finesse that comes from his years of experience playing with so many legends of these genres.
Then there is Glenn Patscha – Glenn has played on every album I’ve made except my very first. He’s truly a musical genius. He brings a flare and style to the piano, Wurlitzer and organ that is so unique. It’s incredibly unpredictable. He plays as if he’s a string or horn section and literally sings the parts for both before they even exist. He can make keyboards sound like guitars, strings, horns, bells and go from dark and moody to happy and hopeful in one measure. It’s other worldly.
Jack Daley is the powerhouse bass player. He’s got such a feel and focus that just glues together every song. He’s also been on most all of my albums. Not to mention he’s just a Prince of a human being. Jack is such a strong presence on bass yet at the same time can totally adapt and go with any flow. He’s like that personally, as well.
And then, Jon Diamond – Jon is the person I began my real musical pursuit with. He is the one who turned me on to Otis and Al Green. He puts the music under my words and knows where I’m going with something, sometimes almost before I do. It’s a real songwriting partnership. He’s been in the trenches with me since day one. For better or for worse…hahahaha!
These guys were the live tracking band and made the songs come to life. We’d listen down to the acoustic demo of each song once or twice and Steve the drummer would say, “Let’s cut it!” And we’d go in and usually they’d nail it in the first or second take.
It was seamless. After that we brought in the horns. Marc Franklin and Kirk Smothers.
They are the main studio guys down there and I see why! They were lightning fast.
I’ve never worked with a horn section before, but it was amazing to be able to say, “Hey guys, can you make that part a little more…sad?” Sometimes I’d say “lonely” or “desperate” or “hopeful’ and they’d just nail it in one take. The singers were also just unbelievable. Reba Russell and Susan Marshall. Again, lightning fast and this style just pours from their bodies and throats! Felix Hernandez was another gem we discovered down there. We kept hearing congas on a few of the tracks and I finally asked the producer Kevin Houston if he could find someone. We were almost out of time, but he delivered Felix and Felix more than delivered!
All of the musicians were chosen by Kevin Houston our producer except my NYC guys who’ve played on most of my albums: Jon Diamond, Jack Daley and Glenn Patscha.
DATC: The album has a very positive, uplifting vibe. How much does that reflect your approach to life? Because as I understand it, life was pretty difficult for you at one stage.
DF: Yes, life definitely threw some tough punches my way and knowing that this is what life tends to do and many others have had it far worse, I was able to make the choice to use it as a way to grow and maybe even benefit others by sharing through music, or to just shut down. There were times when I wondered if I’d ever be able to find joy on stage or in music again, but music never let me down. (The business might – but the music doesn’t!). As a Dutch friend of mine who works with refugees, addicts, orphans and autistic kids likes to say “we can go bitter or go better”. I love that. So, the album became about hope and perseverance. Hopefully for anyone struggling who listens to it they’ll know they’re not alone.
DATC: Tell us about Callin’ Angels. It sounds like a call to be defiant in the face of difficulties.
DF: This is a song that has a verse for each family member who I lost. The idea came about when I arrived at our Harlem studio at Jon Diamond’s place to write and he was playing the chords and saying “Come on all you angels.” Which struck me as odd because he’s an atheist and Jewish! He had no intention behind the words and was just thinking “gospel” style. I immediately recalled a message someone sent me after my mother passed saying that with all the family loss I now had a lot of angels watching over me. I was struck by the sweet sentiment and then reflected on how many of us have gone through loss already, so it has become a song of conjuring our lost loved ones in our hearts at every show. But, I love that you see the defiance because it’s definitely there. There are times when I just speak to my brothers, sister or parents and say: “where the hell are you and why did you have to leave too soon?” Sort of telling them “ok, if you’re angels watching over me, give some clue as to what the heck I’m supposed to be doing!”
DATC: And then there’s the gospel feel of Faithful Sinner, with the invitational church organ at the outset. What’s the background to that song?
DF: This song is about my father who went into the hospital with pneumonia and then was sent to a rehabilitation center to get his strength back. He never did and died there hours after the family left him for the night. I know that he knew he was going and I could see how scared he was. He was a very tortured soul who had one of the most brutal lives of anyone I’ve ever known. Severely abused by his own father & mother. His father’s beatings only stopped because his father took his own life. My father found him. With all that pain he was most certainly a flawed parent. Yet he tried so hard to do what was right. A young man with 6 kids of his own struggling to keep his family running, he still always made sure we had a Christmas tree with toys, Easter baskets, bicycles he taught us to ride and he even made Halloween costumes every year for us with scraps of things around the house. He could also be very angry and scary – especially when he drank. That’s when the pain would overcome him, I think. Still we knew he loved us. He’d go to schools battling for us if we were wronged. In the end, I know he felt so much guilt for where he failed as a parent. He was raised Catholic and convinced God would never forgive him. After he died my brother had a dream where my father told him that he thought “God set him up to fail.” This floored me, and I thought about my dad being once a beautiful little baby with so much hope and promise only to be neglected, abused and then try still to be a good person and father. Which in many respects he most certainly was. Hence, Faithful Sinner. Ultimately, aren’t we all just flawed beings who are trying (I hope) to do the right thing?
DATC: Have you a particular favorite song on the album, one that’s particularly meaningful for you?
DF: It changes around. First it was, Love Lives On, because that song was written for my mother while she was passing away next to me and I had just found out I was having a child. Then it was Faithful Sinner and lately Sedative because it’s such a fun one to do live. Plus, everyone initially thought it was about sex and a relationship gone wrong but it’s about panic attacks in the middle of the night from a mind that’s gone wrong!
DATC: You’ve included a cover of Ring of Fire. Johnny Cash’s original with the mariachi horns and so on is so distinctive, I wondered how you could do it differently. But it’s great. Why did you decide to include this?
DF: After my father passed away, I began covering this song live in this gospel way dedicating it to him each night. He was a huge Johnny Cash fan as was I, thanks to him playing it for us as kids. It was always so well received by audiences and once I knew I was recording in Memphis it made so much sense to add it. It’s become a tribute to two great and tortured souls with bellowing voices.
DATC: You’re an ambassador for the JED Foundation. Tell us about that.
DF: The JED foundation is an organization whose mission is to protect the emotional well-being and prevent suicide for our nation’s teens and young adults. Statistically, teens and young adults are suffering at alarming rates from a range of mental health issues including suicidal ideation and attempts. This level of emotional distress can be brought on by being overwhelmed with the transition into adulthood, especially if they’re battling depression, anxiety, bullying, discrimination, or any number of hidden triggers in their lives. I was approached by the CEO, John MacPhee, a few years ago, who is a fan and had been to several of my shows and heard me talk about my sister’s suicide around a song I’d written for her called, Songbird Fly Me To Sleep. Since then, I have trained with JED and The Moth to become a JED Storyteller and I always attend their storyteller events and fundraisers, where young people get up and share their lived experiences. It’s really a smart approach, because hearing another person sharing what happened to them and how they got, or fought through it, is an incredible way to reduce stigma and create empathy and understanding. The song, Fight My Way is another one of my faves on the album, which I wrote just 2 days before going to Memphis to record, about the stories I’d just heard the night before from several young people who, if not for the right support, wouldn’t likely be here today. I was so moved and shaken by it that I had to write a song about it. Being a JED Ambassador simply means I spread the word through sharing my story and lived experience and I always point to JED’s amazing resources online any time I’m given a platform. So, for me that’s always connected to music. On stage, in the studio – wherever. It’s the only megaphone I have so it’s the best way I can hopefully serve the cause.
Luke Winslow-King is one very fine guitarist, singer, composer and songwriter. Formally trained in musical composition and an accomplished jazz guitarist, he is able to fuse blues, gospel, R&B, folk and jazz into a hugely entertaining and quite original rootsy style.
He’s been performing since he was a teenager and releasing albums since 2007, playing in his adopted home of New Orleans and then touring extensively in North America and Europe. He’s just released his 6th album, Blue Mesa, which is a wonderfully upbeat, positive album of rocking blues featuring Italian blues guitarist Roberto Luti.
Down at the Crossroads talked to Luke about the album and life on the road…
DATC: First of all, Luke, congratulations on the new album. It’s very, very good; I’ve been playing it non-stop these past few days. Tell us about the background and what you were trying to do with this album.
LWK: Thank you so much. Well, I’m just putting one foot in front of the other and this is the next natural progression. I’m writing songs about my situation and life and just trying to take the next most natural step artistically.
DATC: The album has a quite different feel to your previous records, particularly musically. With some songs, we’re almost in blues-rock territory, with some nifty electric guitar solos. Is that a bit of a departure for you?
LWK: No I don’t think so. There’s been a natural growth from my first albums which were more acoustic, and there’s jazz roots in some of the early albums and classical too. But I’ve slowly introduced a more rocking electric sound, album by album, and actually, as an artist I feel like I’m coming back to my roots and playing music more like what I played when I was a kid in Northern Michigan. So, it’s actually not too far a departure for me personally. I think it works and I’m getting a great response to it on the road. It’s music that’s a little bit more energetic and accessible.
DATC: Who handles the electric guitar work on the album? Because there’s some pretty tasty stuff there.
LWK: Most of the solos on the album are Roberto Luti’s. So yeah, he definitely stars on electric guitar. How it’s developed on stage is that he’s more of the lead player and I’m more the rhythm player. Roberto tours Europe with us and will be on the road with us most of August through November.
DATC: It’s obvious you’re a fine guitar player, Luke. Not least slide player. Is the guitar your first instrument? Because I gather you have a formal musical education so I’m guessing you’re proficient with other instruments?
LWK: Yeah. My major in college was music composition, so my main focus was orchestration. So I learned the instrumental capabilities and limitations of many instruments and how to write for that – how to orchestrate and blend them together. I also had to become proficient with piano, so I can defend myself on the piano, as they say. I played all my scales and chords and I can tinker around. I also play harmonica, a little bit of banjo and mandolin and some other stringed instruments. I’ve played bass in some gigs. But guitar’s the main instrument that I feel comfortable performing with.
DATC: And did you start playing guitar at an early age?
LWK: Yes, my father was a guitarist and guitars were always around the house. So I started messing with guitar around 4 or 5 years old and then I started taking it more seriously, taking lessons when I was 10 or 11.
DATC: I’m guessing you have a pretty interesting guitar collection. What do you have and are there any real favourites there, one you would rescue if your house was burning down?
LWK: Yeah, I’ve a really cool American Conservatory parlor guitar from the 1880s which is very precious to me. It’s not really valuable, but it’s an old guitar that has a really great energy to it. That’d be one that I’d rescue! Then there’s my National guitar that’s been a huge part of my career – I’ve played a lot of Delta blues on that guitar in New Orleans over the last 15 years. It’s an all steel guitar and I’ve played that one for years and years, so that one’s really valuable to me.
I also have a really cool Jimmy Hendrix Stratocaster that my dad scored for me at a garage sale – pretty amazing to find a guitar like that. And I’ve a 1930s Gibson archtop and a 1950s one that I play a lot. But these days I’ve settled on playing newer Stratocasters that are more dependable and not so scary to take on the road.
Roberto has an amazing Stratocaster that is worth thousands and thousands of dollars. And vintage Stratocasters are amazing, vintage guitars are amazing, but we can get away with paying more modest, less valuable modern guitars on the road and like them just as well. Roberto’s got an amazing 1930s vintage National too.
DATC: So, you’re now 15 years or so into your career?
LWK: Yeah, I’m 35 now. I’d say for the last 8 years now I’ve been really hitting the road hard, and playing professionally and releasing albums since 2007. But I’ve been playing gigs and writing songs since long before that. I was playing festivals in Michigan when I was in High School.
DATC: And you’re now singing lines like “I can’t take nobody else/ I’m going alone/ I was born to roam” – how does this musical life, always moving around fit with you. Has it lived up to the expectations you had when you started out?
LWK: Well, there are peaks and valleys on every road. And I’ve definitely gained a lot from seeing the world, spreading my music around the world and building a fan base, and having people respond to my music. It’s been inspiring and it’s given me a lot to sing about.
With all that said, at some point I’d like to settle down and lead a more normal life, have a more stable relationship, have a home life as well. But I’ll never stop touring and taking this music around.
DATC: That’s good to hear! With regard to the album there’s a feel-good factor to it; it’s upbeat; you’re moving on; better things ahead. Have I got that right?
LWK: Yes, especially compared with the last album [I’m Glad Trouble Don’t Last Always] which was very much an emergency expression, just survival. And this one is more about a blend of different topics. It’s much more encouraging, inspiring to move forward.
DATC: And there’s serious stuff here as well – “Farewell Blues,” I understand is a song at least partly about your late father.
LWK: My father passed around the time I was releasing the album and also my old dear friend Lissa Driscoll (Lissa co-wrote You Got Mine, on Blue Mesa). So I wrote that song the day I heard my father was sick. It was a really hard thing to have to let go of someone who’s been so encouraging and supportive of me and my life, and was just an all round great guy to walk through life with. So yes, there are definitely some bitter sweet things on this album.
DATC: There’s a distinct Mississippi John Hurt feel to Farewell Blues, which gives it a really nice feel.
LWK: Yeah. John Hurt always had a way of making the blues sweet, you know? I’ve always appreciated that more mellow, country style blues, and I’ve always tried to learn to play that way. And to come up with melodies and have the whole thing happen on your right hand playing the chords and melody at the same time. There’s always that little pop to it, that little dance.
DATC: On each of your albums you have some gospel style songs: Blind Willie Johnson’s Keep Your Lamps Trimmed & Burning; Everlasting Arms which is reminiscent of an old hymn; On My Way from your last album; and now Break Down the Walls – which I love, by the way; I love the positive vibe of it. What is it about this sort of music, this sort of spirit, that appeals to you and resonates with people?
LWK: Well for me it’s music that matters, it’s real, it’s sincere. And it comes from my personal roots in growing up in a Baptist church and having that music as something that was taken seriously. So I appreciate the authenticity of that music and the depth of it. So I want to direct my own songs in that style. You know, especially when we talk about Blind Willie Johnson, I can really relate to that because it’s gospel music, but it’s also blues, two things that I really respond to a lot. So I’ve just been trying to discover myself within those genres and styles, and try and make some of my own music that way.
DATC: And tell us about Break Down the Walls.
LWK: Yeah, I had a real life change that revolved spending a couple of weeks in Kalkaska County jail in Northern Michigan after getting busted with a small amount of marijuana. I was in a solitary cell because I have an extreme allergy to peanuts. So I had to spend a lot of time alone in a tiny little cell, freezing, and thinking and reading, and Break Down the Walls is one of the ones that came out of that experience of being alone, and discovering and overcoming personal boundaries. And that was a microcosm of whatever might be holding us back in life. That experience seemed so terrible and traumatic at the time. And I could see pretty much my whole life unravelling, but I’m actually grateful for the experience now because I discovered I had a new chance, a new lease of life, and I feel sincerely that I’m in the right place with my life and my music now,
DATC: And that really comes across in the new album for sure. Finally, Luke, you’re touring extensively around the US and beyond over the next few months?
LWK: This weekend we’re playing Grand Rapids and Detroit, then next week out to the West Coast, Seattle and Portland, San Francisco, LA, then Utah and Chicago. And then I’m doing some festivals over the summer, and then hitting the road in the Netherlands, the UK, France Germany and Spain all throughout the Fall. And I’m working on new music and performing these songs from the album. So it’s pretty exciting.
DATC: Yes it absolutely is. Best wishes for the tour and very many thanks.
Brooks Williams and Hans Theessink are seasoned blues troubadours who play to knowledgeable audiences across Europe and the United States. Brooks hails from Statesboro, Georgia (yeah, he’s got them Statesboro blues) but is now based in England, while Hans is based in Vienna, Austria.
Both are fabulous guitarists, have a deep appreciation for, and knowledge of, the blues and the social history of the blues, and are engaging and absorbing performers. Going to a concert given by either man will entertain you, challenge you, and above all, send you home satisfied with a big smile on your face.
Getting both playing together for an evening, swapping songs, alternating the lead vocals, harmonizing and trading guitar licks would be really something, then, right? Well, the two guys have embarked upon a joint tour of Great Britain this month, playing 21 gigs in 21 days. Not to be missed – check out the schedule for the Steady Rollin’ Blues Tour here.
And, be sure and get yourself a copy of Brooks Williams’ new album, Lucky Star, out in July which features a couple of tracks with both Brooks and Hans playing together.
Down at the Crossroads spoke to Hans and Brooks before their evening in the Core Theatre in Solihull and asked them about their life in the blues and life on the road…
DATC: How do you two know each other and how did this tour come about?
Brooks: Well, I’ve known of Hans since the very beginning of my career. And we did meet at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1996, but we met properly for the first time when we went to Dallas in 2005, at an anniversary concert for a great venue called Uncle Calvin’s. And we have mutual friends and that was kind of the connection. And then a couple of years ago I did the tour here with Guy Davis. And about half way through the tour, it just occurred to me that the audience really like it when we did stuff together – it became apparent that that was the point in the evening when the show just took off. Even though each of us could do our own thing, there was something magical happened then. So, I started thinking that perhaps this could be thought of as something that happens every 18 months.
And the first one at the top of my list was Hans. ‘Cause I just thought our styles would complement each other. And I was really excited about the possibilities. And thankfully when I presented the idea to Hans, he said, yeah, let’s go for it.
Hans: And we also said we’d not do separate sets and then two songs together at the end. Let’s do the whole thing together. So we swop songs, but we’re on stage playing together all the time.
DATC: And what sort of music can people expect?
Brooks: Blues, but a range – some country blues, a little bit of Texas blues, some of the Delta in there, some really nice Broonzy-style finger picking. Stuff that we love, and we bring it together through the process of how we interpret songs.
DATC: And when you talk about re-interpreting songs – how do you go about that, when you pick up an old blues song, and feel, yeah, that might work. How do you reinterpret that from the original?
Hans: Well, you couldn’t reproduce it. So you can only go another way. I try to get the feel of a song, try to crawl into that.
Brooks: For me, there’s usually one lyric in the song that I latch onto. I mean I’m into the whole song, but there’s usually one lyric that’s my cue. So, we’re going to do Backwater Blues and when I was doing the arrangement for that – and there are so many beautiful arrangements, there are some great ones – but the line that caught me was, I think it’s at the end of the 4th verse, where it says there’s going to be a lot of people with nowhere to go. It’s talking about the storm and the rain, there’s going to be a lot of people homeless. So, I thought, what kind of mood would there be in the guitar part, if that’s the line you’re ultimately going to get to? And so that affected the tuning that I used, the little guitar figure. And then as Hans and I do it, Hans brought this, almost moving bass line – almost like a kind of slowed down blues bogey, like a blues shuffle. It just great. It’s got great power, but it’s got a little edge of desperation. And it was just that lyric that it should all feel like that. Now I know that’s miles away from other versions, but I really like that lyric and where it takes me.
Hans: And I also think it’s good that it’s miles away from other versions! But then we have a song like Deep River Blues, which is pretty close to the original.
DATC: So for each of you – what do you admire about the other person’s playing and performing?
Hans: Well, Brooks has this great thumping guitar style, and beautiful slide playing. We both obviously listen to the same people – Mississippi John Hurt and Fred McDowell and people like that, so even though we come from places far apart, we both have the same kind of general influence. So when we talk about music or listen to records, we obviously know the same things.
Brooks: One of the things that I’ve always admired about Hans’s playing is something I would have aspired to in the early days when I was listening to his Flying Fish record. It’s that way of keeping the bass going – either alternating bass or thumping bass – but doing lovely figures at the same time. So it’s like two or three parts all at once. It moves the way a piano player moves. I like to hear motion. And Hans has a great sense of the songs that he chooses to cover. And a great sense of bringing all this to his own writing, that same feel, that same tradition – so you can put a song from the ‘30s and a song of Hans side by side, and they sit very well right next to each other. The lyrics are poignant and relevant in both cases.
Hans: And even though a song might be slow, it’s all, like, groove oriented. Which is very important, not to lose the groove. And it might be really slow, like behind the beat, or whatever, but it’s still moving and that groove is really important. And Brooks has got that totally.
DATC: And you mentioned Mississippi John Hurt. You get that in a player like John Hurt don’t you?
Brooks: Yeah, that fingerpicking, the way the thumb moves, yeah.
DATC: You mentioned some of the country blues players. When you think back to the context in which they played, the situation they were in, the instruments they played, what do you admire about some of those players?
Brooks: One of the things that grabs me about those early blues players is that they were so far ahead of the curve, so to speak, they were creating something that really hadn’t been created before. When I was learning to play and learning to play slide guitar, there were lots of people I could get ideas from. But with some of the early players, you get the idea there might have been only one other person they possibly could’ve listened to – or maybe in some cases, no one else! There wouldn’t have been the access to records – it would all have happened because they crossed paths with other musicians.
Hans: I’m sure a guy like Charlie Patton had nobody to lean on. They just created their own thing.
Brooks: I know the world has changed many times over. But fundamentally they were trying to make their way in the world and make some sort of living, to make a way in the world playing music, and that is powerful, considering what some of those players would have been up against, socially, economically. Those were some pretty huge mountains to cross, and just the fact that they did it and we’re still listening to it. And it’s still vibrant!
DATC: So both of you play to audiences in Europe and the US – is there still an appetite for this sort of music where ever you play?
Hans: People come and like the hand made feel of things – things happening on the spot, the voice and the guitar and that’s it. And they can see what we’re doing.
DATC: And it’s real music.
Hans: And sometimes we fly off, we get into some improvised bit, and people enjoy that. They can see that its happening here and now and it’s never going to happen again. And that’s the big charm of this kind of music
DATC: What about the demographic – is there a younger audience for this type of music?
Hans: I find that the audience is getting up there! But there’s always young kids in the first row who want to play guitar and want to see what fingering you’re using. But I think the general audience is getting older.
Brooks: One of the things I’d like to see – and I’ve been thinking about this pretty seriously for about a year – how can one expose people to the wonderful flexibility in the blues so that they can see how vibrant it can be for them? It would be exciting to see it moving forward in some way – I’m not sure what that way might be. And the two things that I’ve seen in my travels that keep the blues vibrant in the ears and eyes of people is firstly, blues has such a direct link to rock and roll, so that even some kid who is 13 and wants to play rock guitar, they’ve figured out they need to know how to play blues guitar; that that’s part of the process. So that’s a cool thing. The other thing is that when you find an audience that has figured out that this music – even though it’s set in a time and place and an economic and social situation – that it’s as relevant now for people as it was back then. It’s very alive. Even though some of the language in some of the older songs may be a little bit foreign to our ears, it’s really vibrant music.
DATC: And – unfortunately – increasingly relevant in the world we’re now living in.
Brooks: Yeah, absolutely.
DATC: You’ve both had long careers. What ways has the music industry change for you as a recording and performing artist?
Hans: Well, lots of colleagues complain it’s not working as well as it used to. I must say, on my part, I cannot really complain. For my part, I’m pretty happy, but I guess for new kids starting out, it must be difficult to get your foot in the door.
Brooks: The changes haven’t affected me. I had my best year in 28 years, last year! I’m still travelling that little bit under the radar and so some of the changes that might slow some aspects of the industry down, actually don’t reach me. And because there is less opportunity to hear roots music on the radio, people go online more to listen to online radio and what is interesting is they’re getting turned on to artists they wouldn’t otherwise know of. And so I’ll show up in a little town where I’ve never been and someone will say, oh I heard you on such and such a radio station which you only can get online.
Hans: Or you get somebody from Nepal ordering a CD! You know, I think continuity is really important. To keep doing what you’re doing, so people know what to expect. And if you do quality work over the years, that’s what they’ll expect. Keep doing what you love doing. And if people catch your enjoyment, you being happy doing what you do, that really rubs off.
DATC: So on that point Hans, we’re all getting a bit older – how does touring feel compared with when you were younger, and what is it about what you do that keeps you going?
Hans: I still enjoy playing and playing for an audience. Now this tour is a pretty hefty one – something like 21 days of concerts. So it’s good that we are sharing the stage and swapping songs, so you’re not singing every song! But I really enjoy playing, and as long as the health situation is good, that’s the way to go.
Brooks: You know, for the first 10 or 15 years of my career, I had to constantly just stay on task. I don’t know whether it was just me, or the nature of the travelling, I had a young baby at home, I was married and it just seemed like a lot of burden. But what has been an absolute pleasure in the last decade has been being able to sit back and enjoy – really enjoy – what it is I am doing. And to look ahead at a year and say, “Hey wouldn’t it be great if Hans wanted to come over, and we’d do a tour, and what about three and a half weeks, wouldn’t that be great?” And if we could just dream that? And here’s it’s happening and that’s really exciting. And I feel like, if at all possible, as long as I can keep playing, I’d like to have experiences like the one we’re having now – where it’s fun, it’s interactive, where I’m learning, where I’m loving the music and the audiences. And then, after the tour is over, Hans will do some solo shows and I’ll do some solo shows, and we’ll each play with our bands – but we’ll go back to all of that a little bit richer, and more inspired. It’s like, now, I’m finally at a point in my life I can enjoy it!
Hans: It’s exciting to do things you haven’t done before. Like, when we took off last week, we just said, here’s a list of songs, you pick one, I’ll pick one – and here we go! This is great.
DATC: And this sort of enthusiasm for sure comes across to your audiences. Great, thanks guys and best wishes for the rest of the tour!
When Down at the Crossroads asked Shemekia how she would describe the album musically, she replied, “It’s rootsy. All American music is based on the blues, so I felt free to borrow from other genres like country and bluegrass.”
