Described by Rolling Stone as “pure magic to watch and hear,” Texas singer/songwriter and three-time Grammy Nominee, Ruthie Foster has been singing solo since she was 14 years old. She’s shared the stage along the way with the Allman Brothers Band, Susan Tedeschi, Blind Boys of Alabama, Warren Hayes and Eric Bibb.
She has ten albums to her credit, including the recently released Joy Comes Back, which is both a joyous celebration of life and reflection on the wider world.
DATC: Ruthie, congratulations on the new album, which has been very well received. You’ve been pleased about that?
RF: Yes I am! It was a challenging and rewarding personal journey recording it so I’m extremely pleased to hear that folks are really enjoying it as much as I do.
DATC: Tell us what you wanted to achieve with this album and a bit about how it came about.
RF: The CD actually took about two and a half years to do. I took my time obviously finding songs that expressed what I wanted to say; from letting go of a relationship to exploring what love means to me, redemption and forgiveness. It’s really about my life experience during that period of time.
DATC:Joy Comes Back, the title track, sounds celebratory and…joyful! And it’s got a wonderful gospel feel and sentiment. Can you say something about the song and also about the continued gospel influence to your music?
RF:Joy Comes Back is very much about celebrating. I wasn’t quite there yet but really needed this song. What is says is simple and to the point, set Joy as your intention and know that it’s on the way! As for my gospel influence, I grew up with inspiring singers in my extended family who sang gospel all over Texas and my mother was a beautiful singer too. So I suppose that anything that comes out of my mouth is going to sound close to gospel music at this point in my life!
DATC: There are some nice bluesy songs on the album – the kind of down-home version of Richland Woman Blues with Warren Hood is very cool – you’re clearly very much at home in the blues. But other songs are more soulful, or have a gospel feel – how would you define your music? Do you have a niche, or even want a niche?
RF: There are many shades to the blues for me. I consider some tunes a lot lighter in spirit and delivery than others, such as Mississippi John Hurt’s style. His piedmont style of guitar playing is just fun to play. I do enjoy the deeper, soulful version of the blues as well. It gives me a chance to open up vocally in a totally different way! But my overall niche is more about capturing the spirit from my point of view in a song. I just call it spirit music!
DATC: One of the songs is Abraham, Shawnee Kilgore’s elegy to President Lincoln, which talks about fighting for freedoms. Does this song, do you think, have a resonance just at the moment?
RF: Yes, I agree that the song has much to say about where we are today. But the essence of why I wanted to record it is about the chorus, “when I do good, I feel good. When I do bad, I feel bad.” It’s a simple statement and it’s the truth about how I try to live and go about making my own decisions.
DATC: Black Sabbath’s War Pigs is a bit of a surprise! It’s a powerful antiwar song from 1970. How relevant do you think it is today, and why did you decide to include it?
RF: I did put a lot of work into the arrangement of this one as a special surprise! Being a vocalist myself, I’ve always appreciated awesome (and charismatic!) lead singers of rock bands. The War Pigs vocal opening has always sounded like a blues line to me and I love playing slide on the resonator so I thought I’d try it. The message is very relevant and needs to brought up.
DATC: With the way things are at home and in the wider world, what role does music and musical artists have to play?
RF: I think we as musical artists do have a unique and important platform that can lift a cause to another level, whatever that may be; if we genuinely care about it. It’s not my place to say that it’s our duty to do so, but I will say in my own experience that singing and performing for a cause that’s important to me has been the most rewarding work I’ve ever done.
Kenny Meeks makes great bluesy sounding Americana music. He has worked extensively alongside artists such as Sixpence None the Richer, Buddy and Julie Miller, and Al Perkins, and has four albums to his credit over the past 12 years or so. He’s a great guitarist and gritty singer – and an accomplished songwriter. His new album, New Jerusalem, which we had in our Best Americana list for 2016 is a very fine collection of original songs, all with a gospel flavour. Down at the Crossroads has the opportunity to talk to Kenny recently, and he was gracious enough to be very open and honest in response to our questions –
DATC: Kenny, congratulations on the new album, New Jerusalem. It’s great – chock full of very cool bluesy Americana songs, with unmistakable gospel content. Tell us a bit about how the album took shape.
Kenny: Thank you very much Gary. What got these songs flowing, and this record, was the suicide of an elderly neighbour who was a bit of a grandfather-figure to our kids (especially my boys) – which impacted our family deeply. Also, the sadness of the sudden death of my brother Paul was pretty rough.
These events stirred something in me that became a response to suffering, pain, and isolation. As I began writing songs, a little bit of my history came out. I wrote all but one of these songs through this season of grief and reflection. Also, it’s a bit of a legacy record for my progeny……a peek into my soul and my story. I’m not sure I’ll ever make another record this personal again. It’s not just about those topics, but that’s what got things going.
DATC: Tell us about the title track, New Jerusalem – what is that all about?
Kenny: It’s about the afterlife. I do believe in it, in a biblical way. I wanted to sing about it. I wanted the song to be a celebration and a proclamation. It’s also about a vision of greater unity among followers of Jesus. The absence of schisms, and unity, in Heaven. It’s for me as much as for the listener.
DATC:Mercy Pays the Toll is an interesting song. It talks about “when pain moves in to stay,” and “when this world wears us down…and leaves us tired and sore.” It sounds like there’s some personal experience in there. You ask the question – “how do we live?” What’s the answer, in your experience?
Kenny: This song is in response to the pain I was seeing around me. I’ve certainly had – and caused – my share. But people live with chronic pain, chronic poverty, chronic sadness, post-traumatic stress, or mental impairment. I don’t think I necessarily ask the question looking for an answer. I think the question is meant to be a meditation. How can we share burdens of others? Some so heavy, they think their only way out might be to take their own life?
But, I think the answer is to always love. If only love could be my default response to every situation….. and when it isn’t, we have mercy. Maybe “How Do We Love” would have been better said?
DATC: There’s a bluesy feel to your music, but it’s never downbeat. How have the blues as a genre influenced you and your music?
Kenny: Maybe the blues has been misunderstood as a sad genre. It’s not. I mean, life is sad, and the blues are certainly about life. But, I hear a lot of joy in blues music. But…there is the presence of a yearning in all music, and certainly in the blues. So, I think you’re right in a sense.
I read in a Time article about Delta music history, that lyrics like ‘I’m gonna leave you baby’ were sharecroppers speaking in code that they were going to leave their landowner for a better deal. That was the author’s take. Dunno if there’s any truth to it. But, allegory has always been very present in African American oral tradition and music.
American blues music shaped me early, through a trip to a family farm in Horse Cave Kentucky, where I wandered to the sharecropper home next door. I was real little. The neighbour was on the front porch, playing a dimestore electric guitar through a little amp with a jack-knife slide. That’s where they found me, slack-jawed, standing in front of that porch. This instantly became the music to which I would compare all other. It’s still in my mind like it happened yesterday.
I also really liked Dixieland music as a 9-year old trumpet player. My dad took me to meet Al Hirt at a record store. But, when I bought my first guitar with paper route money at 12, it would most certainly be manipulated with a jack-knife slide. When my mother passed away that same year, the blues became important to me. But, beyond sadness, maybe yearning? Some folks equate tempo with …you know – fast = happy, slow = sad. Man, the slower the better for me. And sometimes the real slow stuff is downright joyous!
DATC: How come the blues, with some of its associations with the crossroads and the devil and so on, can be a vehicle for gospel music?
Kenny: As for the ‘deal with the devil’ I kinda see the “Crossroads” legend, as we know it, as a deal for fortune and fame, not specific to the blues. I’m fairly certain the music we consider to be the genre called the blues was uniquely born from the music of the African American slave population in America. And if their spiritual music wasn’t the birth mother, it certainly was the midwife. So, I think the blues have more kinship with the music of the African-American church than any other genre. It seems really natural to me, in an organic kind of way. I’m not fond of obvious “repurposed” blues-Gospel music. But Rev. Gary Davis …man… that is the absolute loveliest stuff ever!
DATC: Who are the blues and other artists that have influenced you most, either musically or lyrically?
Kenny: Robert Johnson. Ray Charles (my desert island artist…just Ray…all I need…ha!) I love John Lee Hooker. I love Taj Mahal. Jimi Hendrix. Aretha Franklin. Ralph Stanley. Leon Russell. Grant Green. Les McCann and Oscar Peterson. Bob Dylan. John Prine. Rev. Gary Davis. And Duane Allman. I could go on and on (laugh). If you go back, listen to some of Robert Randolph’s mentors in the Sacred Steel tradition…oh boy. I know I’m forgetting some real important musicians that have influenced me, sorry!
DATC: Tell us a bit about yourself, Kenny – first of all, your website mentions your “migratory childhood, and blue-collar upbringing.” Explain that and how that plays into your art.
Kenny: We moved to Dearborn Michigan from Henderson Kentucky when I was 7. It was like a foreign country. So, exile, longing for the familiar surroundings of home. And the music I was hearing through this time kinda changed from country music to Motown, plus British invasion stuff and psychedelia. So the migration to Detroit brought lots of new music into my world. The blue-collar aspect is simply that my dad was a working guy. He was a brilliant mechanic, and he could fix stuff that other guys in the shop couldn’t figure out. I miss him. [Kenny’s father Alvis passed away in 1992].
DATC: You’ve been performing and writing songs for nearly 30 years – how has your music and career evolved over that time?
Kenny: Thanks!…Actually, about 40, but who’s counting? (laughs) Ummmm, pretty much same ol’ Kenny (laughs). I’m trying to learn how to learn better. And learning how to unlearn stuff I’m supposed to forget! I try to make honest music; hopefully that comes through. I think my songwriting has improved a bit. And, I learn from my kids and all the younger people I work with.
And, I’ve always really loved playing with other artists too. That hasn’t changed. I have made music with insanely talented people. Pretty humbling. If I started naming them…well, I’d leave out someone. But you know, it’s very humbling. As for my artist career, I mean, my friends know I always say “why would someone come to see me when they could stay home and listen to a Ray Charles record?” These days I sometimes play guitar for a very special lady named Sandra McCracken, whose music just takes your breath away. We’re going to play with Liz Vice next week. I’m really looking forward to that.
DATC: How do you find audiences at your shows react to the gospel feel of your songs – people, perhaps, who don’t share that faith?
Kenny: Very positive response, not unlike, maybe…a Mavis Staples audience? I think my music is non-confrontational, so the listener isn’t ‘put on the spot’. I never ‘preach’ with lyrics. Proclamation is kind of a good Gospel music method (and I guess that is a kind of preaching). Not all my music is Gospel music, but I think a song like Jesus Knows communicates that He is tuned in to you even if you’re not tuned into Him, you know?…and that’s ok. I just want my songs to make the listener feel welcome. Does that make sense? The important thing about Gospel music is to express that God loves us completely. We ARE loved. Just as we are. Nothing we could ever do could make God love us more. And there is nothing we could ever do to make God love us less. That is the grace of God.
DATC: Are your touring the album at the minute, and where will that take you over the next few months?
Kenny: I don’t have any shows coming up, but thanks for asking. I’d love to play some in the UK. I go where I’m invited, and that’s always such a pleasure. And it has been a pleasure speaking with you Gary. Thanks so much for your interest in my music. God bless you and yours.
God Don’t Never Change: The Songs of Blind Willie Johnson has earned plaudits from all quarters and Grammy Award nominations for Best Roots Gospel Album and Best American Roots Performance for the Blind Boys of Alabama recording of Mother’s Children Have a Hard Time. The album was produced by Jeffrey Gaskill of Burning Rose Productions. The album features a star studded cast which includes Tom Waits, Lucinda William, Derek and Susan Trucks, Luther Dickinson and the Cowboy Junkies. Down at the Crossroads chatted with Jeffrey Gaskill to find out more about how the album came about:
DATC: First of all Jeffrey – congratulations on God Don’t Never Change. It’s a wonderful record; it’s been very widely acclaimed; it’s had two Grammy nominations. That’s no doubt been very pleasing for you – but have you been surprised at just how well it’s gone down?
Jeffrey Gaskill with Lucinda Williams
Jeffrey: I guess I’m not so surprised. I’m grateful for the Grammy nominations – I was hopeful they would come. But I like the fact that it’s gotten great reviews. These are uncertain times – everything’s uncertain, the music business is uncertain, you can’t take anything for granted. But, yes, I’m pleased with the nominations.
DATC: One writer said that your guidance resulted in “Eleven stirring renditions which replicate the soul of the songs, not just the sounds.” Presumably that was what you were striving for?
Jeffrey: Yeah, that was exactly it. Exactly. You know, just going for the heart of the song, and what Willie Johnson was saying at that time. Just bringing it up to contemporary times. And bringing artists together who can convey the song, convey the thought. Really, you know, it’s the thought in the song behind the music that matters the most.
DATC: So why did you want to do an album of Willie Johnson songs?
Jeffrey: Well I wanted to do it way back in 2003, after my Dylan project, Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan came out. But you know, I had to give some things a rest after that and it was hard to find a label that was willing to go to bat for the project on paper before it was recorded. This was at the time the record industry was collapsing.
DATC: So what is it about Willie Johnson’s music that really appealed to you, that made you want to do this album?
Jeffrey: I think it’s the sense of permanence – and I think it’s the same thing with Dylan’s music – these are themes that everyone needs to think about in their lifetime, no matter when in the spectrum of time they’re living their life – it’s really timeless, enduring music. It’s not something to be sung today and forgotten about tomorrow.
DATC: And that’s the thing about his music – it really has endured over the years. It’s been covered by so many artists, in so many ways over the years. There’s something about it that seems to appeal to people in different eras, perhaps coming from different genres of music.
Jeffrey: Yeah, his music can be interpreted in any number of styles, so seminal is it. He himself, we might say, is hidden in plain sight, to the extent that most everybody is familiar with at least one or two of his songs, if not all of them. Although maybe not familiar with him as an artist.
DATC: The interesting thing, Jeffrey, is that Johnson’s music is quite unashamedly Christian; it springs right out of his vibrant faith. How come people still have an appetite for it, and how come artists who may have no particular interest in faith want to cover his songs and find his songs compelling?
Jeffrey: Well, of course some people only see Blind Willie Johnson as a blues artist, with those universal themes. It takes perhaps a little bit more understanding and appreciation of the lyrics and what he’s getting at to really fully realize him as a gospel artist, which he truly is. But he can be taken either way I guess.
DATC: Can you tell us a bit about the process of making this album, Jeffrey? From what you’ve said I gather it was a long time in the making?
Jeffrey: Labels loved the concept of the album and the artists who were interested in recording, but the budget and the financial end just wasn’t feasible while the industry was collapsing. So inevitably I wound up raising the funds through a kick starter campaign. I was grateful for kick starter, but it’s not really in my nature to want to go out and do things like that. But, you know, when your back’s against the wall, and you want to get something done like that, you’ll do what needs to be done. And then the thought came to me about his dilapidated home in Marlin in Texas that I had visited, and what could be done about the wood from it, and through some extraordinary generosity, a woman down there whom I had befriended was able to secure some wood from the house before it was demolished. And that became the Blind Pilgrim Collection – the cigar box guitars.
[Wood that had fallen free from the dilapidated house where Johnson lived with his wife and singing partner Willie B. Harris in Marlin was delivered to the capable hands of George Brin at String Tinkers in Putnam, CT. He carefully cleaned up this old Southern Yellow Pine and painstakingly hand-made ten magnificent finger-jointed boxes book-matched front and back to create these cigar box guitars.]
DATC: And there were some guitar picks as well weren’t there? I’m kinda kicking myself – I wish I’d tried to get one of those picks!
Jeffery: Well, they were made from the same wood that the guitars were made from. I said, “do you have any scraps left?” and in fact there were three very small pieces of wood left, and so I sent them out to a fabulous pick maker out in California, and he was able to get a hundred picks out of that wood. [Chris Brossard Picks (www.brossardpicks.com)]
DATC: Wonderful. So how did you go about recruiting the artists – I mean it’s a fantastic cast on the album, and all the performances are very, very strong. So how did you go about recruiting them, Jeffrey?
Jeffrey: Well, just sending letters to management, saying, hey, I’m Jeff and I made a record called Gotta Serve Somebody: The Gospel Songs of Bob Dylan, and I’m working on this Blind Willie Johnson project, and here’s a song, and I wonder if you’d consider singing it?
One artist we tried, an Irish one other than Sinead O’Connor, was Van Morrison, but we never heard back from him. That would’ve been nice.
DATC: So you suggested songs for particular artists, rather than artists choosing?
Jeffrey: In most cases yes. With some exceptions – like for Sinead O’Connor, I think I gave her different suggestions up front and then she came back and said she wanted to do a different couple of songs. But then I gave her Trouble Will Soon be Over. So that took a little bit of back and forth. But I think we landed on the right one.
DATC: You sure did! It’s probably the surprise of the album, but it’s really fabulous. I wouldn’t have thought of Sinead O’Connor doing a song on an album like this. But she really nails that one, doesn’t she?
Jeffrey: Yeah, she totally nails it. And when I heard that, it really surpassed any expectations I had for the record. That and the Cowboy Junkies. I’m proud of all the tracks – they’re all great – but I really feel like, Sinead O’Connor and the Cowboy Junkies take it to another level, to a real contemporary sound, and show the relevancy of the words and of Blind Willie Johnson’s music. And these are the sort of songs that can be played on the radio, you know, anywhere, anytime.
DATC: What do you think the songs of Willie Johnson have to say to the modern world? We’re going back a long time to a particular social context, to an individual in very difficult circumstances, singing songs about faith – what can these songs say to the modern world?
Jeffrey: Well I like to think that the world is an improved place since his time. But I would think Willie Johnson would think that the lessons from his songs are still relevant. I would hope there is less desperation now than there was back then, and that there would be more empathy and understanding.
DATC: Have you another project in mind, Jeffrey, or do you just want the let the dust settle a bit on this on at the moment?
Jeffrey: Yeah, maybe let the dust settle for now. I do have another project in mind, it’s more of a audio museum exhibit of shaker music. I’m from New England and this music comes from the area in which I live. It’s got real historic importance.
DATC: Sounds like a great project. Thank you Jeffrey. Again – congratulations on the album our best wishes for the Grammys.
“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 twenty years and is a past winner of the Blues Foundation’s “Keeping the Blues Alive Award,” which was presented to him by Robert Cray at the W.C. Handy Awards ceremony.
Guy toured the UK recently with Statesboro native, Brooks Williams, giving audiences an outstanding evening of good-humoured entertainment, as well as a master-class in acoustic blues guitar. Down at the Crossroads caught up with Guy recently, ahead of a few gigs in the south east of England.
DATC: Guy, you’ve been touring England with Brooks Williams. Tell us a bit about it.
Guy: Well, my manager has been a friend of Brooks a long time. He got us together playing a while ago in upstate New York, and then came up with the idea of us doing a tour together. While I was getting some photos done for my last CD, Kokomo Kid (http://nodepression.com/album-review/ghost-pete-seeger), Brooks happened to be in New York, so we did a series of photos together before we even had a tour. I don’t recall having met Brooks before that. I wasn’t really familiar with his music.
DATC: Brooks is a nice guy and a terrific guitarist.
Guy: Oh yes, not only that, but what a voice! His presentation carries so well, the audience loves him!
DATC: So how has the tour gone?
Guy: It’s been going very well. We each take it in turns doing a few songs, one night I’ll open, he closes, then he’ll open the next night and I’ll close. It’s a friendly kind of tour, and at the end of the show, whoever’s on last invites the other on stage to do a few songs together.
DATC: I understand you have a new album coming out before long?
Guy: It is an album that gives a nod to Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, the folk-blues duo, from many years ago. The album is with a fella named Fabrizio Poggi. Fabrizio and I have worked on at least 2 of my CDs. He’s on one song on Kokomo Kid and on the album before that, Juba Dance, he’s on a lot of the songs, and produced the album. On this latest one, he’s half of the picture.
DATC: So why did you decide to focus on Sonny and Brownie?
Guy: Well, it was actually Fabrizio’s idea. Sonny Terry, the harmonica player, is a hero to both of us. I wasn’t sure Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee’s music really need covering, but Fabrizzio – I guess his love for the music was stronger than my ability to say no!
So I went in the studio with him, and I played guitar and some harmonica and he did all the rest of the harmonica, and we covered some of the songs.
DATC: Sounds great. There’s been a lot of the older blues artists have been covered in some recent albums by various artists, but I can’t recall something covering these two. So I’m sure it’s going to get a lot of interest. Thinking about my own interest in the blues, which goes back some 40 years, one of the first blues albums I listened to, which a friend let me borrow, was Sonny Terry and Brownie Magee, and that was one of the albums that got me hooked on blues music.
Guy: Very good. You know, I got to meet both those guys back in 1981, saw them perform. And then in the 1990s, Brownie actually came to a performance that I did, in Oakland, California. I got to shake his hand then, too.
DATC: Fantastic. Now Guy, as well as being a musician, you’ve done lots of other things – you’re an author, you’ve been an actor – what are you primarily, a musical artist?
Guy: I think I’m all of the above. A performance artist most of all, and music is the closest thing to me. But I write for theatre, I write stories and I like to tell stories. They say I tell stories so good, I should be a politician!
DATC: You’d do pretty well just at the minute!
Guy: Yes I would! I’ve got a lot to say – they’d have to shoot me in the first week of my government!
DATC: And do you think of yourself primarily as an entertainer, or do you have something to say or convey in your music?
Guy: I do it through my music. I’m a very, very good – excellent – entertainer!
DATC: Yeah, we’d agree with that!
Guy: And modest. But yes – crafting words and a message.
DATC: And what would you say that was? A lot of what you do is blues based – what is the enduring quality of that music, why does it still resonate, what does it convey?
Guy: The blues is the kind of music that conveys the truth, even if the words you use are not factual. The blues to me is kind of like a religion. This music is my way of being in the universe, of being able to communicate the way that I feel.
The blues reflect an important part of American history – it’s not just black music. In some ways it’s a cautionary tale about some of the hurt, harm and danger that is in my own country of birth. It tells history.
DATC: The blues grew up in that period of terrible suffering and discrimination that was the experience of the black community in the Jim Crow era, but you’re suggesting that it has a broader historical resonance than that?
Convicts who violated the Black Codes
Guy: I’d risk saying yes. Jim Crow was a symptom, a small part of a greater sickness. In the time after the Civil War, there was a period when black people could be part of government, but that didn’t get the support it should have and consequently we got the Black Code laws – so, for example, if a black and white man went before a judge accused of the very same crime, the black man would do more time, because in prison, his labour could be used to build the country.
That has a lot to do with the formation of our country and even some of the difficulties that the American people are facing today. Including the divided emotions in our election. And blues continues to tell this story. It’s not all love songs.
DATC: Yes, when you look at the blues, the majority of songs are about relationships between men and women, but underlying it is this howl of protest and lament about the unjust social situation in which the back community found itself in that period.
Guy: Yes, blues is more complex than people give it credit for.
DATC: Does it have a healing force as well? It tells a story, yes, but does it have potential to do more than that?
Guy: Healing – yes, very much so. Blues can make us laugh, can make us laugh at things that are ridiculous, or refer to some things that are truly cruel, but to hear a man or a woman singing from their heart that they have been robbed, that they’re crying out for justice, I think this has the potential to heal us all.
There are a lot of voices that can stand and accuse one another of many things, but there are also voices that can bring us together, that can make healing possible, make crying possible, make belief and deep breathing possible.
DATC: Guy, you were born and raised in New York City. So why did you gravitate towards blues music? Presumably there were a lot of other influences.
Guy: I gravitated towards the blues because that was what was in me. My body was born in New York City but my soul is not from New York City. I first heard blues music and folk music and such at a summer camp when I was a young child. It was run by Pete Seeger’s brother – Pete Seeger, the great environmentalist and folk singer who knew Sonny and Brownie, Big Bill Broonzy and Leadbelly. So that reflects a lot more of whom I am than the fact that I was born in New York City. It’s my home, but it’s not where I’m from.
DATC: You teach as well, Guy – can you tell us a bit about that and why you do that?
Guy: Teaching music – I guess it comes as part of the territory. I enjoy that, I think it’s in my family’s DNA. Both my sisters have been educators; my grandmother studied with W.E.B Du Bois [American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, educator, author, and editor of the 1st half of the twentieth century], who was a black revolutionary and who was partly responsible for the NAACP. He knew Frederick Douglas [the great nineteenth century African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman]. And my father also knew W.E.B Du Bois. So teaching is kind of in my blood.
DATC: And is there an urge to pass on this legacy of music to a new generation?
Guy: I can see that perhaps in the future. Right now I’m primarily an entertainer. Being in front of people and showing what I do, passing along is gonna come out of that. Right now I’m just thinking of creating fresh and new things that are inspired by the blues. But, yeah, at some point in the future, I’d like to think more about passing on the legacy.
DATC: Guy, do you find that you get in your audience people from different age ranges; do younger people find a resonance in your music, in blues music?
Guy: Yes, but I also find a lot of people who are older who want to hear some of the things they heard when they were younger – people like Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee! So I get college students at my gigs; but also people bring their children with them. I always got something, you know, to delight the children. They can get interested in the same way that I found delight when I was 8 years old, sitting down the front of an auditorium looking up at someone making magic with just a guitar or a banjo.
Brooks Williams has been described – rightly – as “one of the most consistently excellent musicians in roots music,” and his blues-infused Americana has been delighting audiences in the US and the UK for more than 25 years. Rolling Stone magazine once noted his “deft, tasteful guitar chops” – true, for sure, but if you get the chance to see Brooks Williams in concert, you’ll realize just how deft his guitar chops are. He’s a guitar master, guaranteed to make the jaws of any guitarists in the audience drop and to delight the rest.
Brooks, hailing from Statesboro, Georgia, has lived in England these past few years and tours incessantly throughout the UK and the States. He has a back catalogue of nearly 30 albums to his credit and has just recently released a new album of blues numbers. He’s touring the UK this November along with New York blues maestro Guy Davis – a concert with these two will be quite a show, believe me – and the new release, in support of the tour, is simply entitled Brooks’ Blues.
The album is a gem, featuring just Brooks’ voice and guitar – acoustic, resonator and cigar box, and was recorded live in the studio. The result is a very fine album of traditional and classic blues numbers from the likes of Robert Johnson, Bessie Smith, Memphis Slim and the Rev. Gary Davis. Given his family background in Stateboro, Blind Willie McTell’s Statesboro Blues had to feature – eat your heart out, Allman Brothers!
Down at the Crossroads caught up with Brooks just prior to the UK tour.
DATC: Brooks, you’ve been living in England for a while now, and touring all over the UK. How have audiences here reacted to your music, in comparison with the US, and has your music changed or evolved since moving here?
Brooks Williams: When I moved to England six years ago it felt a bit like I was starting my career all over again. On one level that can be stressful and humbling, but it has also been very liberating. I’ve found the UK audiences to be very switched on about American roots music. They know the movers and shakers. They know the songs. They have an understanding of the tradition. They spotted my connection to American roots music right away and have, literally, applauded the ways I have dug deeper into that tradition both in my writing and in my performing. It’s been like having a mirror held up to my face and being reminded what I look like. There’s a saying in music about performers and writers “finding their voice,” as if it is a one-time thing. I believe that finding one’s voice is an on-going process. Moving to the UK and playing for UK audiences has played a big part in that on-going process for me.
DATC: But you’re still touring in the US as well?
BW: I tour the US quite a few times every year. This upcoming year looks to be the busiest year yet.
DATC: You’ve been very actively recording over the past few years and have just released a new album of blues songs, called Brook’s Blues, with twelve traditional blues numbers and none of your own songs. What was thinking behind this?
BW: I’m doing a month-long UK tour called “Inside The Delta” with American bluesman Guy Davis in November 2016. We’ll each be doing our own sets but also backing each other up. In preparing a set of mostly blues songs for the tour I realized how many songs I know without even digging too deeply into my repertoire. And I realized how much I love these old songs. So in celebration of the “Inside The Delta” tour I recorded all 12 tracks over 3-days, “old school,” with vintage mics, a creaky chair, just my voice and guitar.
DATC: It’s just you and your guitars on the album, Brooks – which puts your guitar work centre stage – always a pleasure! Tell us about the guitars you used on the album.
BW: I used a Collings acoustic with a vintage DeArmond pickup (like Lightning Hopkins had in his acoustic guitar), a National Estralita resonator and my Chickenbone John 3-string cigar box guitar. The amp is a new Fender I borrowed from John Boden. In terms of tunings and slides, I used both glass and chrome slides, depending on the song, as well as a range of tunings from standard to drop-D to open-D to open-G.
DATC: The album kicks off with Robert Johnson’s From Four Until Late, which was famously done by Cream in the ‘60s. You give more than a nod to Robert Johnson in your version, but yours gives us something a bit more sophisticated maybe in the guitar work. How do you go about transforming a song that a lot of people will be familiar with, from the original, into your own interpretation? Particularly with someone like Robert Johnson, who’s a pretty nifty guitar player!
BW: It’s the way I have of transforming a well-known blues song to something else that inspired me to call the album “Brooks’ Blues.” These are the blues as I know ‘em. I’m not even aware that how I know the blues songs is that different to the original. And I don’t really know how I go about arranging the songs. It’s just something I’ve always been able to do. Blues songs are just like any other song to me and that means the lyrics are central. Each song has a story. But the extra beautiful thing about a blues lyric is that it leaves the backdoor of interpretation propped wide open while at the same time being exactly what it says it is. We can meet it wherever we happen to be. I’m more interested in singing the lyric than playing the guitar part as it is known on those great classic recordings, which I listen to and love so much.
DATC: You’ve included a Bessie Smith song, Backwater Blues, which features some nice, dark resonator work. Very different from Bessie Smith’s original piano version and it works very well. There always seems to be much more attention given to the early men blues singers than the women –who actually in their day were the much bigger stars. Is there a mine of material there that we’re missing do you think?
BW: Though there are some excellent exceptions – see Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing “Didn’t It Rain” for one! – the blues does seem to be more about the guitar slingers and the men slinging those guitars. However, as you say, that wasn’t always the case – and it shouldn’t be the case moving forward. Early blues was more about the singers and singers in those days were accompanied by a piano. The guitar came to the front later, which is great and has inspired me, but we can’t lose track of the roots of the roots, so to speak. There’s a whole bunch of music we’re missing and some very interesting and nuanced song lyrics waiting to be rediscovered.
DATC: And of course, I suppose Statesboro being your home town, on this sort of album you had to include Statesboro Blues? I guess Willie McTell is an artist you admire?
BW: I had to include Statesboro Blues. It practically says so on my birth certificate! For someone who loves guitar and the blues, what an incredible birthright I’ve been handed. Willie McTell played a mean 12-string guitar and had a beautiful tenor voice. And he traveled the highways and byways of my home state. How he did that as a blind man of colour in the Deep South USA in the 1930s is beyond my scope of understanding. But what isn’t beyond my scope is the fact that all the early bluesmen were first and foremost entertainers. The music is for the people – the community – and it has a place in the community. As such I believe that the blues was just one aspect of their music. It’s the part that’s remained, for sure, but in order to make a living and to sing for and to the people, they had to entertain. That meant doing all kinds of songs – blues, gospel, ballads, show tunes, popular tunes, novelty tunes. My shows are not that dissimilar – nor is Brooks’ Blues – you need a bit of slide, some rock and roll, a gospel song, a ballad, maybe even a country-tinged song.
DATC: The last song on the album is a Rev. Gary Davis song, I Will Do My Last Singing. Of all the Gary Davis songs, that’s an unusual one to choose, but it’s a lovely, lovely version of it – you’d hardly recognize it as a Gary Davis song. Tell us about that.
BW: I was taught I Will Do My Last Singing by the delightful blues duo, Shari Kane and Dave Steele from Michigan USA. I had the great pleasure of doing a couple of tours with them last year. We closed every show with this number. Though I do it quite differently to them, and, obviously, quite different to Rev. Gary Davis’ version, I found the song quite evocative. A bittersweet sentiment that hints at hope. I play it with a slide on my acoustic guitar tuned to open-D.
DATC: Brooks, anyone who’s been to one of your concerts will know how great a guitarist you are. And you run guitar workshops from time to time and you provide tablature and chords for quite a few of your songs on your website. What’s the motivation behind that?
BW: I am more aware than ever that we all need to do our part to see this music lives on in future generations. We all need to tend the fields, so to speak, and plant the seeds. New blues songs need to be written. The old blues songs have to preserved. My hope is that the more of us out there teaching the songs, directing people to both new and classic recordings, and getting people listening to the blues, the more people that will get as hooked on it as I am and will keep it going, either as players, presenters, customers. We need it all. In terms of the players, and why I do the workshops and put tab/chords/lyrics on my website, I’m hoping that maybe they will put their own spin on a Brooks Williams version of an old blues classic. Or maybe even put their own spin on a Brooks Williams song. This stuff isn’t mine, after all. I’m just a caretaker, like everyone else.
DATC: And finally, Brooks, I know you’re a bit of a road warrior in terms of your touring. What’s on the agenda for the next few months?
BW: More touring. Haha! No seriously. More touring. I’m just getting started and I feel like I’m just getting to the good stuff. We’ve got a big tour lined up in the New Year: a month is USA, six weeks in the UK, two weeks in Europe with my band, and on and on. Mine is not an overnight success story. I’ve been doing it too long for that to be the case, but every gig presents the opportunity for me to introduce my music to someone new. I’m winning over fans one at a time and that ain’t a bad thing!
DATC: Thank you Brooks!
Check out Brooks’ website for news, albums, videos and guitar tab.
Luther Dickinson is one of today’s outstanding blues musicians, well known for his work with the Black Crowes and North Mississippi Allstars. He’s also got a number of top notch solo albums to his credit – Hambone’s Meditations, Rock ‘n Roll Blues and now Blues and Ballads, Parts I and II. This latest release is a joy from start to finish, featuring twenty one songs from throughout Luther’s career, new songs, North Mississippi Allstars songs and old favourites – all stripped down, loose and relaxed. It’s the perfect vehicle for Dickinson as carrier of the Mississippi Hill Country blues torch.
Down at the Crossroads caught up with Luther at the Blues Kitchen in Brixton, London, the third of three nights at the Blues Kitchen’s three London venues. Luther played an outstanding set of his psychedelic folk-rock blues, showing why he is renowned for his slide playing and guitar playing generally. Armed with a couple of Gibson Les Paul semis, his Martin Dreadnaught and a guitar he had fashioned out of a coffee can, Dickinson rocked the joint with a selection of songs from Blues and Ballads as well as fuelling Bob Dylan, Fred McDowell and Jimi Hendrix in his own inimitable, captivating style.
He’s a great entertainer, frequently interacting with the crowd and regaling us with stories and comments throughout. Particularly moving was his story about his father, when very ill, suggesting he record Dylan’s Stuck Inside of Mobile, as a one-chord Hill Country blues. “There are things in life which will disappoint you,” Jim Dickinson told his son “but not Bob Dylan.” That’s about right, isn’t it?
Luther, easy-going and relaxed, greeted me warmly as I waited for him before the gig and we found somewhere quiet to have a conversation. We talked about the new album, passing on the musical tradition, the Saturday night-Sunday morning tension in American music and the enduring power of the blues.
DATC:Luther, thanks for talking to us at Down at the Crossroads. First let me ask you about your new album, Blues and Ballads, which has had a great reception and great reviews.
LD: Fooled ‘em again! It’s cool because I realized that the more casual and honest and humble the production and recording experience is, the more people like it. And that’s a good lesson to learn.
It’s very, very pared down, it’s very acoustic and it’s all live. Buddy Miller, the guitar player and producer in Nashville, he really turned me around. He told me – because we were jiving each other about working together, because he’s busy and expensive!; and I was like, come on, Buddy, just produce this, and he was like, look, just don’t overdub. And it’s so true, just commit to live vocals; and if you need a fiddle player, then call the fiddle player, and if you need background singers, then call ‘em up and wait for them. Get everyone in one room and capture a real performance.
And you know, we grew up with our father, Jim Dickinson, who was a great producer, but he taught us to make the band tracks first and then the vocals being secondary, And that’s a great way to make records too, but, it’s really been liberating for me to just commit to the live voice. It’s all about the voice.
DATC:You know I thought the vocals in this record were perhaps the best you’ve ever done. Really, really good, really noticeable on this.
LD: Thank you.
DATC:The record’s called Parts I and II. Does this imply more to come in the same vein?
LD: It’s a double album. The inspiration for the record was the song book context. I wanted to make a songbook, because I love songbooks, folk songbooks, hymnals, whatever. I grew up pre-Internet, I learned from the library, I memorized every book in the Hernando Mississippi library. My grandmother’s hymnals, the early folk songbooks, magazines. I love sheet music, and so I wanted my own proper songbook.
So I re-recorded my favourite songs in a folk fashion befitting a folk songbook, and a handful of new ones, so it’s volumes one and two – and the plan is, my previous solo record, Rock ‘n Roll Blues, I would like to have it transcribed – that would be volume 3, and then have another solo record, HambonesMeditations, [an instrumental album] – transcribed as Volume 4.
And then it starts amassing, you know – it’s not like I’m going to record another Blues and Ballads anytime soon. But the plan is for the songbook to grow.
DATC:The song book is only available with the vinyl, isn’t that right?
LD: Yes.
DATC:And you’ve got a stellar cast on the album. Jason Isbell, Jim Lauderdale, Amy LaVere, Shardé Thomas, JJ Grey, Charles Hodges, Jimbo Mathus. And one of my favourites – Mavis Staples.
LD: Aw, Mavis is the queen! That was the beginning of the whole record.
DATC:She does Ain’t No Grave, which I know is a very personal song. But it’s wonderful what she does with it.
LD: Aw, man. We went to Chicago, she said she wanted to record the song, and I wanted to make sure that happened. If she wants to record one of my songs – let’s make that happen! So I set it up with my band, Amy LaVere and Shardé Thomas, and we go to Chicago and we get the track – first take – band and vocals, first take. And Mavis shows up about an hour later and we get her first take. She sits and listens and reads the lyrics, and it breaks her down. She starts crying.
DATC: It’s a very moving song. I know the context of it. [the song was written by Luther after the passing of his father, producer/singer/songwriter Jim Dickinson in 2009]
LD: My father passed in ‘09. I wrote a lot of songs when my father passed – as he was ill, and when he passed. But that one just came – I woke up one morning, I was on the tour bus and I wrote that song down before I even turned on my light, in my little bunk. It just came out, top to bottom. And at the end of the night, after the concert, I took my songbook and my guitar into the bathroom of the bus and the melody came just as easy. But it was hard to record that song, originally, for Keys to the Kingdom in ‘09. So I asked Ry Cooder to help me with that song. It was so easy to write but I couldn’t figure out the right interpretation. And Ry just played slide guitar – like the master that he is – and I went, of course, slide guitar! And once again there’s another great lesson.
That is another version of the Buddy Miller story, just to keep things simple. And Seasick Steve, he grabbed me by the shoulder and was like, you are the link, you grew up with Otha Turner and R L Burnside, and you are the link, and you’ve got to keep it primitive. He literally shook me and said, “Keep it primitive.”
And you know, my brother and I, we’d fallen prey to, you know, delusions of grandeur and over producing records, but Ry Cooder, just simply playing it on slide guitar and Seasick Steve yelling at me and Buddy Miller saying don’t overdub – these things have formed my new production aesthetic. It’s been really fruitful.
So Mavis came in and she was just first take, and that was the beginning of the record. And every other recording was just as casual. I had a handful of songs. So if I was in Memphis, I’d call my Memphis friends or if I was going to be in Nashville, I’d call my Nashville friends. JJ Grey had always liked Up over Yonder, so I knew I wanted to get him to sing on it . Because we’d been touring together. The songs are like snapshots of who we’re with, when we’re making the record.
DATC:And is Ain’t No Grave a song that you sing often?
LD: Not in night clubs. Unless it’s requested. You know, it’s a sad song about losing a loved one. I don’t want to violate the escapism of having a good time, but if people request a song…but I’m not going to sing that song over a loud crowd, or people who wanna dance.
DATC:There are a number of songs on the album with a gospel feel or theme (Up Over Yonder; Ain’t No Grave; How I Wish My Train Would Come; Let it Roll); we get that coming through in your work over the years, all sorts of scriptural references and echoes, old hymns – what’s the inspiration for this sort of material?
LD: It’s when my loved ones pass away. I always celebrate them when they pass away. And it started with Junior Kimbrough, Otha Turner, and then Lee Baker, my father’s guitar player in Mudboy and the Neutrons – he was murdered, you know. I’m a folk musician, I play loud psychedelic blues rock, but I’m a folkie at heart. And it dawned on me, like, Cassie Jones, Stagger Lee, once upon a time, these were just men that walked the earth, It was folk songs that made them legends. So I thought, I’m going to start celebrating my heroes, and sing about Kenny Brown or sing about my father, or Otha Turner, and make them my folk heroes, celebrate them in song.
And then the biblical imagery, growing up in the south, my grandmother played piano in the church. And I don’t talk religion or anything, but I love gospel music, it’s just a positive feeling, and I think a lot of musicians relate to it. But once again it’s not right to play it in the night clubs, it’s not appropriate. Maybe slip one in at the end, you know! And then the imagery – funny thing is, I’ve never studied the Bible. I mean I’ve poked around, but when you do pick it up, it’s like, oh my God, here’s this song, here’s that song. Every soul and R&B song has a biblical reference, and the blues too. To be honest, I’ve learned more from Pop Staples or Blind Willie Johnson about the Bible than I ever did reading it myself – listening to Samson and Delilah – you know what I’m saying?
Thing is, I just love the vernacular. I love the phrases of folk music and blues music and conversation with the elders, and the biblical stuff slips right in there. Bob Dylan’s a master of this, and also Robert Hunter [Grateful Dead songwriter]. Ain’t No Grave – there are multiple songs entitled that, or Rollin’ and Tumblin’ or Let Your Light Shine, or whatever – these phrases, they have weight, when people hear ‘em, they have, like, repercussions, sub-conscious repercussions. All those phrases I’ve internalized over my life, that’s the oral tradition of making it your own, and making it your own story, using the timeless vernacular of our culture.
DATC:So you mentioned Blind Willie Johnson. There’s kind of thread over the last century – from Blind Willie Johnson to Robert Wilkinson to Fred McDowell to Gary Davis to Kelly Joe Phelps, and many others. Why do you think that is, given the other darker side of the blues where some church goers felt it was the devil’s music, and the myth of the crossroads and mojo and all of that?
LD: Well, Robert Wilkins quit playing blues so he could become a preacher and only play gospel music. Son House went back and forth. Fred McDowell, he was a bluesman, but he played in his local church every Sunday. But when he passed away, they wouldn’t bury him there, because he was a bluesman. And that church is in Como Mississippi. Rev Robert Wilkins’ son is the preacher in that church [Hunter’s Chapel Church] now, and even he is a bluesman that preaches. In that culture, it’s a very treacherous line.
And it still goes on. Like, I’ve known Robert Randolph since before he was a professional musician with a career, and he and the Campbell Brothers, they don’t play in church any more. The Campbell Brothers were kicked out of church. Many, many of the sacred steel musicians have been pushed out of their churches for one reason or another. And there’s a new batch of sacred steel players playing in the church, but – they don’t know the tradition or the history, they’re just starting with Robert Randolph. So with sacred steel, the roots have been cut off and the new growth is going to be starting from scratch.
But, it’s just that American experience of church and blues. You know, Saturday night, Sunday morning.
LD: Yes, I didn’t realize how emotional that was going to be. Interesting thing.
DATC:You started off playing Just As I Am on slide guitar. Took me back to my own childhood, those were the songs I grew up with and nearly had me in tears!
LD: I learned that from my grandmother. That was one of the invitational hymns… My Mom is a huge believer, teaches Sunday School to elderly ladies. It’s very interesting, I could say that I’m well balanced, because I’ve got all the extremes. I just try to navigate it!
DATC: The blues is traditional music, with a long heritage, and were essentially the music of African Americans in the trauma of the early part of the 20th century. Why has this music endured? And why does it have an appeal beyond people whose lives were as harsh as those among whom it grew up?
LD: I think there’s a human quality to it. But as well as blues, there’s also country music, Appalachian music, and music just brings people together. It did for my dad’s generation in the 50s, rock ’n roll, the 60s, music helped transcend segregation… And with the blues, the lyrics and the melodies are ancient and they just resonate, you know, and it evolves. And what I play is not Delta Blues, it’s psychedelic folk blues rock, you know – that’s just where I am – but I grew up in Mississippi, second generation musician studying songs and blues, and I will claim that what I do is modern day blues. But it’s like what Buddy Guy says, I got ten fingers, I got two hands, I can play some blues!
DATC:Thank you Luther.
Postscript:Three quarters way through his set that evening, Luther switched from the Les Paul to his Martin acoustic. First thing he played? Just As I Am on slide guitar. This being a London audience, I was probably the only person there who recognized it. Thank you Luther!
Check out Scottish musician and broadcaster Lins Honeyman’s excellent blues radio show. You can “listen again” over the next week to this broadcast, which features an interview with Gary Burnett about his book, The Gospel According to the Blues.
The book dares us to read Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in conversation with Robert Johnson, Son House, and Muddy Waters. It suggests that thinking about the blues-the history, the artists, the songs-provides good stimulation for thinking about the Christian gospel. Both are about a world gone wrong, about injustice, about the human condition, and both are about hope for a better world. In this book, Gary Burnett probes both the gospel and the history of the blues as we find it in the Sermon on the Mount, to help us understand better the nature of the good news which Jesus preached, and its relevance and challenge to us.
DATC: Ruthie, congratulations on the new album, which has been very well received. You’ve been pleased about that?
DATC: One of the songs is Abraham, Shawnee Kilgore’s elegy to President Lincoln, which talks about fighting for freedoms. Does this song, do you think, have a resonance just at the moment?
DATC: With the way things are at home and in the wider world, what role does music and musical artists have to play?
