Alligator Record’s Bruce Iglauer has been Bitten by the Blues

Luther Allison, Koko Taylor, Professor Longhair, Albert Collins, Johnny Winter, Elvin Bishop, Shemekia Copeland, Marcia Ball, Tommy Castro – just some of the star-studded cast of blues artists that Bruce Iglauer has worked with and have appeared on the record label he founded nearly fifty years ago.

Alligator Records has been a vital part of blues history over that period, and Iglauer has been at the forefront of promoting the blues, discovering new artists, and investing in the careers of established artists. He’s been a record company owner, record producer, record promoter, booking agent and tour manager along the way, as well as encourager and confidante to many of the Alligator artists, whom he counts as part of the family.

Bitten by the Blues is the story of Bruce Iglauer’s journey, the story of Alligator Records and, in many ways, the story of urban blues since the early ‘70s. It’s a hugely enjoyable insight into the world of the blues, the larger-than-life personalities of the artists, and what it takes to found and sustain a record label over several decades. When we spoke to Bruce Iglauer about the book, he told us:

“I didn’t want it to be for a completely specialized blues fan audience, and I certainly didn’t want it to be academic. I wanted to share my excitement about the music and the artists with a more general audience. I also thought/hoped that the business story (which was expanded at the request of our publisher, University of Chicago Press), would intrigue people who like this sort of American success story. Obviously the music that I love is quintessentially American, and it’s hard to imagine building a small business recording blues anywhere else. I just got an email from someone who was given the book and was inspired to start listening to the artists who were featured. If that’s the result, it’s a success!”

The book rips along at a nice pace and I found myself drawn in, wanting to know what happened next at every turn. It’s very detailed about incidents, people, dates and recording sessions, but these are part of a richly told story and contribute to a cohesive narrative. I did wonder, however, how Iglauer was able to remember everything. Maybe he kept a journal along the way?

“No,” he told me, “I just have a very good memory, at least for the most dramatic events of my career. In my life, I’ve been surrounded by very colourful and talented people and they made an indelible mark on me. It’s easy to remember talking with Howlin’ Wolf, because in my wildest dreams I never thought that could happen.”

Early in the book, he recalls traveling to Chicago in 1966 and hearing Mississippi Fred McDowell playing and he said it changed his life. I asked him why it had such an impact on him.

“That’s hard to explain. All I can say is that the music seemed so honest, so unvarnished, so direct, and it seemed like he was almost stripping himself naked emotionally. There was no pretence, no “show business.” He opened the door to his life and I was able to look in. Plus, he had probably lived a harder life than anyone I ever knew, and you could hear the strength that he got from living that live, and feel the wounds and the scar tissue. Blues is some of the happiest music on earth, but it’s happiness borne from overcoming pain, so the pain should be in the music too. That’s what I heard in Fred, though my response was a gut response, not an intellectual one. I felt this was music for me.”

The first band Iglauer signed and recorded, at a stage when he was a young blues fan in Chicago was Hound Dog Taylor and the House Rockers. He lovingly recounts his encounters with Hound Dog live performances and his subsequent first recording sessions. And he talks about the music being “infectious.” Which is maybe not the first word some people think of when they hear the word “the blues.”

But says Iglauer, “I think the easiest way to explain this is to listen to their music. It’s full of energy, danceable grooves, raw vocals, intense guitar—just the things that made early rock ‘n’ roll so appealing. And when they slowed it down, the catharsis that real blues engenders is right in front of the listener. And you can hear how much fun these three guys had playing together. If you can’t feel Hound Dog Taylor & The HouseRockers, and if they don’t make you smile, you’ve got a hole in your soul!”

Hound Dog Taylor

The story of Iglauer arriving in Chicago, working for Delmark Records in the basement of the Jazz Record Mart, and discovering the clubs and the artists who worked them, occupies the early chapters of the book and I wondered, what was it like, as a young white guy, a hippie, as Iglauer described himself, trying to engage with artists on the blues scene in Chicago in the 70s?

“Actually, not very difficult. The whole Chicago blues scene at the beginning of the ‘70s was on the South and West Sides of the city, and the audience was 99% black. The white people who came to the blues clubs were enthralled by the music and its creators. We weren’t neighbourhood people dropping in for a beer. We were fans. These were mostly not famous musicians, and they were pleased to have fans, especially ones who came to clubs that were in parts of the city that might be perceived as hostile to them. After I became a “record man,” there was a certain amount of suspicion of me, but when it became known that I paid royalties and welcomed musicians into my home (which was also my office), I was generally well accepted. Of course, I had to learn to speak with a Mississippi accent!”

As well as a music story, Bitten by the Blues is also a riveting story about business start-up and development, and, as with any business, you not only need a good product, you need good marketing and a huge dollop of hard work. I loved the account of Iglauer’s tenaciousness when he was trying to promote his first Alligator recordings – having signed the artist and overseen the recording and production, he drives to various radio stations in different cities to ensure radio play and doggedly contacts magazine journalists – hugely time-consuming, but the sort of effort that serious marketing requires. He carefully thought through his target audience and how best to reach them (at that time progressive rock radio, rock-oriented publications) and he was the first person marketing blues to that audience specifically.

“I also had to learn the existing ‘ropes’ – working with distributors, working with retailers, collecting money, dealing with financial issues, etc. A lot of it was my refusal to give up, and my willingness to work almost every moment. I never did learn engineering, though. I always found engineers who could hear like I do.

“As far as my “early success,” my success was pretty much just with Hound Dog. I sold enough Big Walter Horton albums to break even, and Son Seals, a complete unknown, was a money-loser for me. Still, part of the reason for my money-losses was that I was manufacturing and giving away literally thousands of promo LPs to radio, press and for in-store play. I could have had a much more modest label, but then I never would have reached the audience I was going after.”

One of the artists whom Bruce eventually signed was Luther Allison, but his history with Allison went all the way back pre-Alligator and he recounts a fascinating incident about trying to get Allison to sign an agreement for a new album with Delmark, which Allison declined to do. In the book, Iglauer said “I was unable to forgive Luther.” And it wasn’t until 20 years later that that relationship was repaired. I wondered about that…

“I was very hurt by Luther’s not being honest with me and leaving me so vulnerable. I could have, and probably should have, lost my job at Delmark because of him. I’m glad we made up but I never forgot what he did to me because he was just looking out for himself. It always kept some distance between us. I was happy to work with him but we didn’t become real friends. Still, people change and I accept that he was a different man in the 1990s than he was in the early 1970s.”

As I considered the colourful history of Alligator Records and Iglauer’s leadership over many years, I asked him if he had any regrets, looking back.

“Obviously, failing to hear the originality in Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray, both of whom I could have signed, makes me kick myself. Mostly, even though I’m a risk-taker, I’m sorry I didn’t take more risks on more unknown or developing artists, even though I’ve had plenty of failures (when I say failures, I mean financial failures, not artistic failures, though I’ve had some of them too) with unknown artists. Some worked out well, like Son Seals and Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women and Selwyn Birchwood. Some didn’t, like Michael Hill’s Blues Mob and Corey Harris. Many were mixed results. But I’m very proud of the quality of music on Alligator, and I hope it will stand for decades to come.”

As I read this roller-coaster history, I wondered if the young Bruce Iglauer knew then what he knows now of what was to transpire over the years, all the ups and downs, would he have done what he did?

Authors Iglauer & Roberts

“For sure (though I would have done it better!). There are other people who could have done what I have done with the blues, but no one else chose to do so and was able to combine musical and business and marketing skills in the way I have. There are other excellent producers, other smart business people and certainly there are better marketers than I am.  And many of those people would expect or hope to make more money than I ever thought about making. I’m very greedy, but my greed isn’t for money. It’s for being in the studio when a timeless recording is made, or in the audience when an Alligator artist makes that soul-to-soul connection with the listeners, or bringing a good arrangement idea to a rehearsal or encouraging an artist to write a fresh original song. The feelings I get in those situations are way better than money!”

One of the most hair-raising incidents in the book is the story about a train crash in Norway in 1978, during a Son Seals tour of Europe. I’ll not spoil the story for you – read the book! – but suffice it to say, thanks to the efforts of Iglauer and band members, nobody died.

Bruce told me, “It’s the only time in my life I’ve ever been brave; I was pretty sure I was going to die and I wanted to know that I had done the right thing. I could have escaped the train car but not without trapping the other passengers. I wasn’t willing to do that. I had always known since my father’s death that life is very fragile and there are no guarantees for the future. So, accomplishing something every day is necessary.”

Talking of accomplishments, what, I asked him, does he consider his greatest achievements?

“I can’t easily determine which things I’ve done have the most importance or are ‘the greatest’. I feel that Alligator (both myself and my great staff of 14) has been a crucial force in moving the blues forward and developing careers for many worthy artists. Of course that only happens with the artists’ talent and a huge amount of effort on their part. But the most important thing I can do is to assure that the blues will have new artists and new audiences in the future. That’s a continuing goal.”

Although he missed one or two opportunities to sign world-class artists along the way – Stevie Ray Vaughan was a case in point: “I couldn’t hear what made him special,” Bruce admits in the book – Alligator has had more than its fair share of top-class blues artists. What does Iglauer look for in an artist when he is thinking of signing them?

“First, passion. I want to feel the music is pouring from the deepest place inside the musician and that “it’s in him and it’s got to come out” (to quote John Lee Hooker). Originality – does the artist have something fresh to say, or a fresh way to say it? Blues is a traditional music, but you can’t impress me just by doing something that’s already been done. Take the tradition and make your own personal statement from it. Then I look for professionalism – can this person lead a band? (Not the same skill as making music with a band). Are they already advancing their own careers, at least by gigging locally and regionally? Are they capable of national/international touring? Do they have their personal lives together? Do I see a potential for them to continue to grow as artists? And do I feel I can work with them as people? But ultimately it’s a ‘gut’ thing. If it moves me, I’ll often take a chance, whether it’s Son Seals or Lindsay Beaver or Toronzo Cannon or Michael Hill.”

Towards the end of the book, Iglauer discusses the recent developments in the music industry – from CDs to downloads to streaming, and the fact that many of Alligator’s former indie label competitors have given up on the blues. What hope is there, I enquired, for independent labels these days?

“The role of labels, indie and major, keeps changing. However, the reality is that though many artists can afford to record their own music now, and make it available on the Internet and on various streaming and download services, there is little to push listeners to discover their music. The role of the labels can still be to bankroll the recording – which many artists need. The “you can do it yourself on your computer in Dad’s garage” is not a reality for people who can’t afford a computer or software and who don’t have a Dad or a garage, i.e. really poor people). And to create media excitement, get songs on streaming service playlists, help create live performance events, and of course also to manufacture and distribute physical CDs or LPs and get them places like Amazon and into existing stores – for that you need a real label with real distribution and marketing.”

And an active online presence is a vital part of this, using an artist’s website, online marketing, and social media.

Says Iglauer, “A few of the older, better-established artists can get away with not much online presence. For anyone on the way up, using any and every online marketing /communication form is absolutely necessary. First, a website that includes every upcoming date, a well-written bio, downloadable good quality photos and maybe a downloadable poster. Lots of Facebook presence. Post photos with fans all the time. Write about upcoming gigs. Even non-musical things….one of my artists did a FB Live from his kitchen while cooking his favorite dish. The artists must be available to their fans 24/7/365 or they appear to be assholes. I don’t know how anyone has a chance to write a song anymore, they’re so busy responding to online communication or Instagramming photos. But it’s all necessary.”

At the end of the book, Iglauer says, “As I get older and the blues move further from the mainstream of popular music, my mission of bringing forward the key artists of the next generation of blues seems ever more vital.” I wondered how confident he was that this can be done? Is blues now just music for old white people?

Selwyn Birchwood (photo: Allison Morgan)

“I am both confident and concerned. I need to find artists who are rooted in the blues tradition with just copying what’s been done before. Recently we’ve signed 20-year-old Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and just-over-30 Selwyn Birchwood is working on his third Alligator album. Lindsay Beaver, a recent signing, is 33. But regardless of the artist’s age, I want to hear an artist who has a vision for making blues more contemporary, both in the lyrics and in the musical form. I’d like to hear someone making a real synthesis of blues and hip-hop. I’d like someone exploring new chord changes and song structures for blues, but still incorporating the emotions and the blue notes that are intrinsic to blues. I’m sure that humans need the intense catharsis that the blues (at its best) can stir, and the soul-soothing quality of the blues. But can I find the artists who can convey those things in a way that the modern audience (and the future audience) will feel and understand? I’m not sure, but it’s my mission.”

Bitten by the Blues is a well written and utterly engaging insight into how Alligator grew from a standing start into the largest independent blues record label in the world, with hugely entertaining stories of record deals, live performances, studio recording and the lives of important blues artists. If you’re a blues or roots music fan, or a music fan interesting in a behind the scenes look at the history of the music industry, or have an interest in the story of true entrepreneurship, then Bitten by the Blues is a must-read.

Bitten by the Blues, Bruce Iglauer and Patrick A. Roberts, Chicago Press.

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Listen to our new podcast: Episode 1 – Blues Legend Joe Louis Walker

We’re delighted to launch our new podcast,

Blues at the Crossroads.

It features a chat about Journeys to the Heart of the Blues, from Joe Louis Walker, Bruce Katz and Giles Robson between Gary Burnett and podcast producer, Gemma Burnett, followed by an interview with Joe Louis Walker.

“The blues is consistent, it’s constant, you know? It constantly speaks to the harder side of life.”

Listen and subscribe here.

 

Allison Russell: Songs of Our Native Daughters – joy, resilience and beauty out of horror

Allison Russell is one half of the acclaimed Americana band, Birds of Chicago, along with her husband, JT Nero. Formerly a member of the Canadian roots act, Po’ Girl, Allison is a talented multi-instrumentalist, singer and song-writer. Birds of Chicago has released three top notch studio albums, including last year’s Love in Wartime, produced by Luther Dickinson and JT.

Paste Magazine called the band an “Americana gospel dream team” after hearing their 2016 Real Midnight album, NPR’s Folk Alley included the album in their top 10 favourite albums of the year. Here at Down at the Crossroads, we had both Real Midnight and Love in Wartime in our top 10 Americana albums of 2016 and 2018 respectively. We said of Love in Wartime, “JT Nero’s and Allison Russell’s vocals and rich harmonies meld wondrously, and the song arrangements are innovative and imaginative while, at the same time, warm and inviting.”

Allison Russell has recently been involved in another project, along with Rhiannon Giddens, Amythyst Kiah and Leyla McCalla, with an album about to be released. Entitled Songs of Our Native Daughters, the thirteen-track album explores the history of slavery and its legacy, especially from the point of view of black women. It’s a stunning piece of work, a tour de force, musically, lyrically and thematically. Rhiannon Giddens, the driving force behind the album, has said that she sees this album “as a part of a larger movement to reclaim the black female history of this country.”

Gemma and Gary from Down at the Crossroads had a long chat with Allison Russell about Songs of Our Native Daughters. We asked her, first of all, who the major artists involved in the project are and what the album is about.

Allison Russell: Well, it’s a project that was envisioned and produced by Rhiannon Giddens and she invited myself, Layla McCalla, an absolutely fabulous cellist and writer, multi-instrumentalist as well, and Amythyst Kiah, a fabulous writer and multi-instrumentalist to join her for twelve days just outside of Lafayette, Louisiana in the bayou country. We went down to Dirk Powell’s studio there and it began with exploring some reclaimed minstrel tunes and slave songs that Rhiannon had. She really wanted to have modern women of black heritage, writers, to kind of delve into that material and see what came up. And it was really quite brave of her, because we all sort of took a leap of faith, in that we had none of the material for the original songs we wrote for the project. You know, we’d all had some ideas but everything was written in those 12 days, so we would be, you know, literally writing everything with the exception of Momma’s Crying Long. That’s a piece that Rhiannon had written previously but had not found a home for yet. And Amythyst had a couple of verses that were floating around to Blood and Bones but it hadn’t fully formed yet. And so, we had this kind of amazing experience of living together, working together, for twelve days and it was just kind of a creative explosion for each of us. And there are a lot of threads within each of our lives.

We’re all obviously very different musicians and writers with very different backgrounds, but we do have in common the experience of being, you know, visible minorities within a country that is still really struggling with the legacy of racial fear and a reactionary kind of backlash of hatred. Of course, the last couple of years especially, it’s become clear that that’s not laid to rest. That the legacy of slavery is not resting easily by any means yet, in America particularly.

And so, all kinds of things came up. All of us are artists who are working more within a kind of a folk or Americana framework, where we are not the majority within that framework. And so, we’ve each experienced people – usually, I think, meaning well and just not realizing – you know, like being taken for another artist of color, or, the assumption that, oh well we’ve already got one banjo-playing black so we don’t need another one at this festival – that kind of thing. And you think, oh my goodness, can you imagine if that same metric were applied to, you know, white gentlemen that play guitars – it would be ridiculous! You know, we don’t need Bob Dylan, we’ve already got Neil Young. It’s just so silly. It’s just so absurd when you extrapolate it to something that’s more commonly accepted.

So, it was really interesting, where we were all kind of delving into our own histories…I did a lot of reading leading up to it. The name of the project is Songs of Our Native Daughters. It’s a reference to James Baldwin’s Notes of a Native Son which was his first non-fiction book that was published in 1955 and was, I mean, just groundbreaking. What he was writing was unimaginable back in 1955. Obviously, James Baldwin is a writer and a thinker, a vast influence, not just in America, but internationally. He was a sage of our times and he was so erudite and had this academic approach that made it digestible and understandable for people outside of the black community as well. And so, we were kind of rereading that and wanting to have a similar kind of discourse, if you will, or an exploration of that uncomfortable history within our times. But from a more kind of woman-centered and obviously musical perspective.

Gemma: Yeah, well I love the album, Allison, and it was really powerful. But I appreciated about hearing women’s voices and writing women back into history.

Allison Russell: Yes, exactly.

Gemma: I was listening to Polly Ann’s Hammer for the first time when I was walking into work and I just burst into tears in the streets, literally. It was so emotional just thinking about women’s strength in the way that they have been written out of history, and for black women especially. It was very powerful. It just moved me.

Allison Russell: Oh, I’m so glad you brought up that song. That’s an example of what I’m talking about. So here we’re in this process and we’re all kind of bouncing ideas off each other and we’re all writing madly. You know the night before we’d be madly finishing three songs and then recording the next day! We finished all the recordings in about ten days and then just did a few harmonies and things like that, overdubs, but most of it was done live and in real time with the Smithsonian videographer there capturing some of the process – it was just everything happening at once! And that morning, it was our last day in the studio with some of the other musicians that were involved – Jason Sypher who was playing bass and Jamie Dick who’s playing drums.  And we were doing interviews with the Smithsonian as well. Rhiannon was on her way out the door from our shared Airbnb, and she said, “Oh you know it occurred to me maybe we should write a song from Polly Ann’s perspective.”

And it was like a bolt from the sky! Amythyst was in the middle of doing her interviews and I started madly scribbling lyrics because I just thought, that’s brilliant!

She’s been there all along, hasn’t she? In those John Henry legends and songs there’s this castoff line – he had this woman Polly Ann who, you know, picked up a hammer and drove steel – and you never hear about her again!

And John Henry dies. He’s killed by this backbreaking labor. And I just started thinking, well Polly Ann didn’t die. As usual, the woman did the job of the man, and then got on with raising the kids! Kept the family together after he died. And so, I was sort of envisioning – here’s this heroine that has been hiding in plain sight all along. She kept the family going and somebody had to to keep the legend going, you know. And it’s Polly Ann! She survived. She did the work, and she helped the kids to go beyond the life of labor they had had. Yeah. Oh, I’m so glad you brought up that song.

Gemma: Yeah, it’s just phenomenal. But there’s another strong woman, of course, in the song Quasheba, Quasheba which is which is really moving and I knew that you wrote that one. Can you tell us a bit about it?

Allison Russell:] I can. I was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec in Canada and I didn’t know my biological father, growing up. I had a French foster family for several years, and then I was raised by my mom and her husband. My mom is a Scottish Canadian. It’s a troubled family and she married a very abusive man, and so the father who raised me, my adopted father, was this very abusive, racist character, and, you know, I just didn’t know what it was to have a real father.

And then when I was 30, I got very curious about my other side – because I was always not like the others. I was always having to explain, yes that’s my mother, yes, she’s my biological mother. In a branch of the family who weren’t particularly accepting of her, you know, born-out-of-wedlock brown child. But my uncle, my mom’s older brother, helped me find my biological father because my mother and he were in high school when she got pregnant. My father had been finishing high school in Montreal from Grenada. Grenada is a tiny little island nation – three little islands very close to Trinidad and Tobago and the West Indies. My father finished his education in Canada, but he and my mom had already broken up and he’d gone back to Granada by the time my mother realized she was pregnant. So, I never met him. Grenadians, it’s such a tiny, tight knit community and there’s only about 350,000 Grenadians in the whole world. And two thirds of them are abroad making their livings. So, my uncle had a girlfriend in high school who was Grenadian and he was able to track her down through Facebook and ask about my father.

And lo and behold, this old girlfriend’s aunt went to church with my father’s sister-in-law. So, within 24 hours of me saying, “I’m interested in meeting my biological father,” I got a phone call and it was my father!

Yeah, it was quite amazing. And so that was, gosh, that’s eight years ago now. And we have had a wonderful relationship. Now it turns out that he had quite an intense early adulthood, because he was sort of on the wrong side of the Cold War. There’s a lot of people don’t know that history, but in ‘82 Grenada was invaded by the U.S. because they had received money from Fidel Castro to build a commercial airport – not a military airport, but the cold war was so intense in the early ‘80s that that was seen as sort of a provocation, and Grenada was invaded. And my dad was a young idealistic socialist and was on the wrong side of that line and lost his job. His wife also lost her job and they ended up having to move to make a better life for themselves elsewhere and they wound up in Toronto, Ontario. And I have two siblings on that side, a little sister and a brother.

And so that’s where I got to meet them when I was 30 years old. They were in Toronto while I was in Montreal. They were only a few hours away for all those years. But I didn’t know!

Anyway, my father’s eldest sister, Denise, decided to hire a historian to help her put together a history of the family. And they were able to discover records of Quasheba, sold off the coast of Ghana and traded hands many times. She eventually wound up in Tobago, and then Grenada and then had – we don’t know how many children she had. But there’s a record of a daughter also named Quasheba, who was actually kidnapped by a plantation owner in Grenada, but she had somehow or other learned midwifery skills and she was able to make somewhat of a life for herself that way – I guess the owner would sell her to other plantations, would sort of rent out her services to other plantations, and so the story of this woman Quasheba…there was this oral kind of thread as well within our family. There was, like, the mystery of this woman.

But the historian my aunt Denise hired was able to track down more information about her, and it was so powerful to learn her name and a little bit about her story. And I am grateful to have that knowledge and I’m grateful for her resilience because literally our entire family and this huge George clan (that’s the last name of my father’s people) wouldn’t exist without her. There’s so much of the narrative around slavery understandably focuses on how horrific it was, and it was obviously. But it’s kind of like taking away a little bit of the everyday heroism of surviving that.

You know we don’t talk about that. We don’t talk about the strength and the resilience. And that’s a gift that gets passed on to subsequent generations. That’s part of it too. But that’s not a story unique to slavery in North America. I mean, on my mom’s side you know, they were Scottish crofters and were turfed out by the Lairds when the clan system fell.  On my mom’s side, my great grandfather came over and lied about his age – he was 16 and his brother was 14 and they were basically begging in the streets in Edinburgh, and then they got on a ship. Lied about their ages and got on the ship and wound up in Saskatchewan. Which I don’t know if you’ve ever been to Saskatchewan, but I can’t imagine surviving the winter there when you’re a child from Scotland! But somehow, they did. He and his brother got a land grant and they somehow survived and made the farm thrive enough to make a living. But his little brother wound up dying at the Somme.

Gemma: Well I’m glad you brought up resilience because that was something I wanted to ask you about. Because that’s a very strong theme in the album as well, despite all the harrowing stories. That theme of resilience…and joy is there as well. And it struck me that joy is a form of resistance.

Allison Russell: Yes, it is. It is a form of resistance and love in a time of war or hatred is a form of resistance.

Gemma: And it’s necessary right now.

Photo: Terri Fensel

Allison Russell: Yes. Yes, I feel it is. And my adopted country of America – I am Canadian but my husband is American – I’ve married into this country, my child has been born here. It’s a very, very intense time here, a lot of hidden turmoil and pressures that have come to the surface.

You know, with this character in charge, he’s kind of doing the whole reactionary fear-mongering, us and them nonsense that tries to divide people, and so I feel like it wasn’t an intentional reaction to that, but you can’t help but kind of dig in. All that we know how to do is write songs, you know, and commune with people, but more and more I’m realizing it’s so important, there are so few avenues left where people with differing political views, or religious views, or social views, or socio-economic backgrounds, or cultural backgrounds can get together in a room and be decent to each other.

And music, live music, is one of the few avenues where that still happens. And it can change people’s ideas about things and it can lessen their fear and make them feel more connected. And when you feel connected and empathetic, then you’re not going to lock children up at the border. You know you’re not going to do it.

So, I do feel like, you know, singing songs and writing songs that hopefully people can connect to and with and feel our common humanity – that’s not nothing, that’s something I cling to.

Gemma: And it’s a very intimate experience.

Allison Russell: Yeah. Yeah. Exactly.

Gary: Yes, the album certainly felt to this non-American very important, right at this particular point in time in history with all this going on, Allison.

Allison Russell: Yes. We all felt a kind of urgency, I think. Aside from we were under the clock timeline – we only had 12 days together. But there was a feeling of urgency. We have to respond to some of the poison in the atmosphere here. If just to dig in on the beauty and the connection. You know, another theme in the album that really emerged, I noticed, was this idea that the separation based on a superficial visual trigger like someone has darker skin and someone has pale skin is so false.

And, you know, you just have to scratch the surface of America. Thomas Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, he had an entire black family. And a black mistress, by all accounts. This was probably the half-sister of his white wife. I mean it just goes on and on, and he ends up emancipating the children from that union later, and eventually, finally, Sally, his, you know, well if someone can be called a mistress when they’re an enslaved person – yes, the black mother. You know, this is at the heart of America. And nobody talks about it. One side had darker skin, one side had paler skin and one side was exploiting the other. But it’s the same family. It’s not a different family; it’s one big dysfunctional family and that is something that gets hidden and glossed over too often. I mean that was that’s why I was so thrilled when the Hamilton musical came out because you know finally someone is talking about – this is a mixed-race person. This was not a white person.

Gary: So, tell us about when you were making the album. When you were collaborating, the four of you together, how did you decide on who was going to sing on what songs and what the arrangements were going to be?

Amythyst Kiah

Allison Russell: You know it all kind of happened very organically. I’d say that the obvious delineations of leads were, if you wrote the song, generally you sang it. But for the co-writes, on a couple of them, we were sort of trading verses. Or in the case of Blood and Bone, that was just so clearly Amythyst had that chorus – I just want to hear her voice on that song! It’s strong in the sense that we co-wrote it, but it was just very clear to me that she should be the one to sing it, and it ended up just very natural. It wasn’t an orchestrated, “OK, now you sing this and I’ll sing that” – it just kind of happened naturally, very organically, as we just sort of worked on things. And we’d try things a couple of different ways sometimes and then it would feel really good one way and less good the other, so we’d do it the way it felt really good!

Gary: But of course, you were four very talented musicians and artists. And one thing I noticed is that the banjo features quite a bit on the album. All four of you are banjo players?

Allison Russell: Yes, we are! And we all play different banjos which is amazing actually. That was all Rhiannon. One of the things that she wanted to do is really feature the banjo. And part of that goes back to the unfortunate kind of tokenism that sometimes happens or novelty, like, oh it’s a black girl playing the banjo. How sweet! But it’s a deeply American instrument which could not have existed without Africans being brought to this land. And so, it’s a unique union between African and European and enslaved traditions. And it’s just beautiful. It rises above, sort of tapping into that idea of joy and resilience and beauty coming out of horrific things. And the banjo is a shining example of that. So, it felt powerful and emblematic to all of us and we’ve all used it a lot.

Photo: Terri Fensel

It’s my second instrument that I primarily write on. I am by far the poorest banjoist of the group. But I write a lot on the banjo. But I’m not the shredder! That’s Amythyst. She can rip a beautiful solo and I’m more of a rhythm and textural player and I use it for writing predominantly. I’m more of like a songwriter who also happens to play the banjo and write songs on the banjo.

I loved the way our banjo voices sounded because they’re all quite different. Rhiannon plays this incredible minstrel banjo from the eighteen hundreds, which is a fretless, gut string banjo with a very deep voice. Amythyst plays a steel string, a five-string, smaller sort of sharper-voiced banjo which is gorgeous. Layla plays a four-string tenor banjo which has totally different voicings and sounds. And then I play a kind of a hybrid. Sort of an open G kind of claw hammer style banjo. But I converted mine to be closer to a gut string. It’s called Nylgut and it won’t be as affected by temperature and altitude and things. And it has a kind of fiber skin as close as a synthetic skin can be to the original goat skin. And so, these four banjos have such different voices and it was really lovely. There were a couple of pieces where we were all playing the banjo at the same time. Just something about the harmonics of it. and it just felt like the spirits were gathering or something. It was really affecting and beautiful.

Gary: Who knew there were so many types of banjo!

Allison Russell: Oh, there are so many!

Gary: And we detected your clarinet coming through a time or two as well!

Allison Russell: Yes, I was the one woodwind player in the group and they let me play the clarinet a couple of times.

Gary: We like the clarinet and it’s lovely to hear it coming in now and again!

Allison Russell: Oh, I’m so glad. I love the clarinet! You know if I’m at a jam session or something that’s my axe to jam on! Yeah. To me it feels like an extension of voice. I always have loved the sound of it. I didn’t come to playing instruments until later in my early 20s. I was sort of trapped in what I call the singers’ ghetto before that, where people say, oh you’re a musician and you say, yes I sing, and they’re like, oh you’re a singer, you’re not a musician! So, I decided I’ve got to get out of the singers’ ghetto, I’ve got to learn some instruments. I started actually with guitar which I don’t even really play anymore, and then found the clarinet and then the banjo.

Gary: Fabulous. Now Songs of Our Native Daughters is on the Smithsonian Folkways label. What’s the background to that?

Allison Russell: Well, that was already in place before Rhiannon invited us. I mean that was part of why she was able to invite us all to do it, because the Smithsonian very generously supported and funded the project for us.

And I think it was very important for her to have been involved with the Smithsonian, because so much of the source material that she has researched and delved into has come from the Smithsonian archives. Rhiannon’s like a musicologist, you know; she’s really gone in deep with the archival material in a way that I’ve just scratched the surface. And in fact, most everything that I’ve learned about early American and African-American music has come from Rhiannon. She has really gone in deep with the archives and the research and piecing things together. The inspiration for this project came when she was walking through the new museum of African-American History and Culture. And she was struck by a quotation of William Cowper’s, which was a kind of a satirical poem about the slave trade. He was a great abolitionist, of course, and was horrified by the slave trade and was doing everything he could to get it banned. But Rhiannon was so struck by this poem and how it correlated to our modern times and the kind of hidden slavery that occurs off our shores. You know – people in factories in Sri Lanka being paid nothing and having the factory collapse on their heads so that we can have clothes or cheap watches or phones or whatever it is.

So, she was really drawing that line from the past to the present, so that just kind of got the whole idea percolating to do something like Songs of Our Native Daughters. So, she wrote the Smithsonian a proposal and they got on board. I think they’re really making a point of not just having the archival source material and recordings – they really want to support modern artists who are continuing these traditions. And I think it’s so wonderful because very few places are left that that do that. We’re very grateful to them.

Gary: So, have you any plans to tour this album Allison?

Allison Russell: Well, it’s funny, Rhiannon and I were just talking about that this morning. We were talking about how tricky it is, because of course everybody’s juggling their individual projects as well. But we all want to very much. We did kind of a little preview of Songs of Our Native Daughters. Rhiannon had a residency at Symphony Space in New York City for four weeks and we did two shows where we previewed a lot of the material and it was so well received. People there gave us such great feedback about it. And there’s been such a lovely response from some journalists and wonderful music sites like yours. So, we all want to do some sort of touring around it. It’s just going to be tricky to figure out the timing. But certainly, this summer I think we’ll be doing some festivals together and we’re trying to figure out a time perhaps in the Fall to do a little run.

Gary: You definitely need to do that because it’s a fantastic album! The music’s great and of course the themes are so very important. So, you definitely gotta do that. Now, I know that you’ve been touring hard with The Birds of Chicago, Allison but you’ve another project coming up in March, playing a number of venues with Luther Dickinson and Amy Helm. Now that is some line up!

Allison Russell: Luther and Amy have become like family to us. Luther and his wife and their daughters are here in Nashville and we’ve relocated here within the last year. Our little girls have a band together and they all love each other and they go to the same school, and it’s just become, you know, it’s become quite a family affair! And Amy as well. The record we’re supporting with that tour in March is coming out on New West on March 22^nd, Sisters of the Strawberry Moon. But we actually recorded it three years ago! And that’s how we really got to meet. Got to know Luther and got to know Amy and the last few years we’ve become friends and all of these projects have grown out of it. And JT and Amy have started writing a lot together and there is this kind of happy collaboration and deep friendship has ensued. But we all sort of thought about the record, it’s not going to come out. But then, lo and behold, there they’re releasing it in March. So, we were all so pleased to have an excuse to tour together you know!

Gary: And your Birds of Chicago Love in Wartime is a fantastic album which gone down really, really well. You must be delighted with the way that’s been received.

Allison Russell: Oh, we were thrilled about it. We feel so grateful. And we’ll be coming up on a year since it was released at the end of May, and it’s just been such an inspiring year of getting to connect with people all over the world. We came to Ireland and Scotland and England and the Netherlands, and a little bit in Germany, and Canada, and of course in the U.S. It’s been really lovely and we’re so grateful for people listening and coming out to support the shows and, you know, we definitely don’t take that for granted and we’re so grateful for it.

Gary: Allison, thank you so much, you’ve been very generous with your time. Thank you for being so open with us.

Allison Russell: Yes, thank you. It’s been a pleasure!

Songs of Our Native Daughters is released on February 22nd.

 

Joe Louis Walker: “The blues is consistent, it’s constant”

Legendary bluesman, Joe Louis Walker is a Grammy nominee who has won numerous Blues Music Awards and W.C. Handy Music Awards, and is in constant demand to perform across the United States and the world. NPR Music called him “a legendary boundary-pushing icon of modern blues.”

Photo: Marilyn Stringer

Born in California in 1949, Joe has had a lifetime in the blues, collaborating along the way with a diverse group of first-rate artists including James Cotton, Bonnie Raitt, Buddy Guy, Taj Mahal, and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown.

With 26 albums to his name, his 2018 release, Journeys to the Heart of the Blues (Alligator Records) is something of a departure from his other records, which typically feature his blistering electric guitar, in a stirring mix of soul, rock, jazz, and gospel. Journeys to the Heart of the Blues is a stripped back collection of old blues songs, some by better known artists like Big Maceo Merriweather, Sunnyland Slim and Blind Willie McTell, others which revive songs from lesser known artists like Washboard Sam and Son Bonds. It’s been nominated for a Blues Music Award 2019 for Best Acoustic Album.

The songs were recorded by Joe along with US keyboard maestro, Bruce Katz and top-notch blues-harp player from the UK, Giles Robson. Along with Katz’s delightful boogie-woogie piano and Robson’s heart-rending harmonica, Walker’s vocal performance throughout is masterful, doing full justice to the gritty blues stories of the album’s songs.

Down at the Crossroads talked to Joe about the album:

DATC: Congratulations on the new album, Joe. It’s really excellent and had a lot of good reviews. It’s a very stripped-down approach to the blues – tell us about why you wanted to make an album like this.

Joe: Thank you. Well, the whole idea was – the harmonica player, Giles Robson, sat in with me one night – we were doing the same show in Amsterdam. And we had a good time, playing together. So he had an idea to do an acoustic thing with acoustic guitar and harmonica. And then we said, why don’t we add a piano to it, give a bit more percussive feel, and so I thought of Bruce Katz. So it turned our really good, because Giles came over from England and we rehearsed for a couple of days, and we recorded the whole thing in, I think, 3 or 4 days – record and mix and all that stuff – the whole record took maybe 6, 7 days to complete it. We did most everything live right there in the studio.

DATC: That seems pretty fast!

Joe: Yeah! In today’s world!

DATC: But then, you had three superb musicians working on it!

Joe: Yeah. Everybody communicated really good, when it came to the recording, when someone wanted to try something one way or a different way. Everybody communicated really well, which was really important.

DATC: Yes, and that comes across very much when you’re listening to the album. You’ve got that real good sense of understanding from the three of you playing together.

Now, these are pretty much all classic blues songs – you obviously still sense an appetite for this sort of material? What is the enduring power of the blues, and this more raw, stripped down blues that we get on this album?

Joe: Well I think that the tunes that this record presents are sort of…it goes back to a lot of topical blues where one particular song would be about one topic. And so here you have in detail about one topic like in Murderer’s Home, Murderer’s Home is basically murderer’s row when you go to prison, so this is describing murderer’s row. You have Hell Ain’t but a Mile and Quarter, obviously a mile and a quarter none of us want to go. So the song has gotta sound like that, gotta feel like that, you’ve gotta make that visual come across in your mind. When Giles brought some of these songs and we picked these songs, they seemed a little bit more obscure than a lot of other songs that have been done, and the artists who did them. People like Son Bonds, and others – a lot of people don’t know about them.

DATC: Yeah, it’s good to bring these artists to people’s attention. The sort of blues you’re talking about there – rooted in real life, in the nitty gritty of the difficulties of real people’s real lives – is that something in the blues that has an appeal, as opposed to the more ephemeral approach of a lot of modern music?

Joe: I think that is the one thing that differentiates blues for a lot of other genres of music. The blues is consistent, it’s constant, you know? It constantly speaks to the harder side of life, the things that we all go through, that might be uncomfortable to talk about, that we all think about, and then you find out that somebody else thinks about it the same way. Somebody else can put it in the form of a song, a poem, a book or whatever, then its cathartic. It’s a great purpose when it does that.

DATC: And is that why you gravitated towards the blues in your early days and why it’s continued to have such a strong pull for you over the years, Joe?

Photo: Joe Del Tufo

Joe: Well, I was like anybody else. I was a kid when I started playing music and you know, I just gravitated towards the music, period! Whether it was T-Bone Walker playing the guitar, or later on, whether it was the Animals – you know, I didn’t care, I just liked the music. And so, later on, when bands would put ads in papers for musicians, or in music stores or in different shops, I would answer some of those ads for a lead guitar player, when I was a teenager, and that helped me become a more well rounded guitar player. I played all kinds of stuff, you know, and the blues I played, it was blues, but it was also bluesy type of material. I just played all kind of stuff.

DATC: At one stage in your career, I understand you changed direction and spent a long time in a gospel group. Can you tell us about why you did that and then about moving back towards the blues again?

Joe: I started back to playing gospel music because that was basically where I started when I was a kid anyway. I’m a sort of a restless soul. There was a great group I was a part of, the Spiritual Corinthians, and so that was a great thing. But when I left the gospel group, I didn’t look at it as going back to playing blues. I looked at it as going forward, to playing something different. I get tired of playing the same thing! It just that musically I’m a restless person. So I wanted to do something different. I went back to trying to make my own stamp on a blues style music.

DATC: And you’ve done that to great effect over the year, Joe, fusing in various influences into your playing and your albums, but gospel has continued to be a theme in your music. I’m thinking of albums like Hellfire – the title track and Soldier for Jesus and the real gospel sound of Keep the Faith on Hornet’s Nest, for example.

Joe: Sure, yeah, and it gives me an excuse to sing with a lot of people who were heroes of mine, who do gospel stuff. I hired the Gospel Hummingbirds, The Spiritual Corinthians, I had The Jordanaires – God bless ‘em – I had the McCrary Sisters on a couple of things. A lot of different gospel people have sung on these records I’ve done. The new record I’m doing – it’s not the acoustic stuff, it’s my own record. I’m having a lot of people on that, I’m having several female singers, and one is Carla Cooke, that’s Sam Cooke’s daughter. And that’ll be out this coming year, with a lot of different ladies singing with me.

DATC: We’ll look forward to that. Just on this subject, On your website, you say talk about “my belief that the spiritual will carry you through when the physical can’t.” What do you mean by that?

Joe: Well, to put it into context, I think somebody asked me the question what was the difference between playing in church, playing gospel and playing in other styles. And I just said that the spiritual usually carry you through when other things won’t, you know. And there’s a lot of people that feel that way, there’s other people that don’t. So It think that when people have faith in whatever it is, it gives them another sort of strength in other areas of life.

DATC: Sure, sure. Now, you’ve kept a very fresh approach to the blues over the years, melding in other influences. As you look around today, are you encouraged by what you see in the blues? What younger players do you see that encourage you?

Joe: Yes, there are a lot of great young musicians that are doing a lot of great things. A lot of young people, like Selwyn Birchwood and Shemekia Copeland, a whole lot of people doing great things. Matt Schofield…everybody’s doing different kinds of things in their own way – more power to ‘em! Some are doing it a bit more jazzy, some are doing it a bit more country bluesier. But I see a lot of young people when I’m out touring at festivals and what have you. So I think music is in a good space.

DATC: Fantastic. Thank you, Joe. Much appreciated.

Best Blues Albums 2018

2018 has seen so many fabulous blues albums released – whether it’s acoustic blues, blues rock, gospel blues, funky blues, Chicago-style blues, Memphis-style blues…whatever, it’s been a remarkable year for the blues. Down at the Crossroads has chosen 30 albums that we’ve enjoyed listening to and that we consider exceptional. (Click on the links as you go through to find full reviews or interviews).

Here’s our Top 10

Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son
An album of wonderfully reinterpreted old gospel songs and hymns, from the guitar virtuoso. Cooder’s first album for six years has been hailed as “destined to become an instant classic” the produce of a “musical mastermind” and “completely fresh and contemporary.” These are songs that will speak to anyone, believer or unbeliever. There’s humanity, decency, inspiration, hope in these songs, that anyone can feel. If you are a person of faith, however, you’ll find an extra dimension of faith, encouragement and challenge here too. Further comment on the album here. 

Larkin Poe: Venom and Faith
Quite simply this is an extraordinary album from the very talented Lovell sisters in their 4^th studio album. The two sisters play every instrument, aside from some wonderful slide guitar in one song by Tyler Bryant, creating a wonderful variety of sounds and textures. Is it Americana or blues, or pop even? We’ll plump for a modern interpretation of traditional blues. Classic but innovative, with traditional, primal sounds mixed with electronic beats. It all works wonderfully well – not least in what is possibly the best version I’ve ever heard of Skip James’s Hard Time Killing Floor blues. More comment on the song here.

Joe Bonamassa/Beth Hart: Black Coffee
You really can’t go wrong with an album of music from guitar genius Joe Bonamassa and vocal tour de force Beth Hart. Individually brilliant. Together, they make magic.

 

 

Ana Popovic: Like it on Top
Ana Popovic, top-notch guitarist, singer and song-writer with her 11^th studio album. 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’. It’s a terrific piece of work, featuring some beautiful and truly exceptional guitar work, and funky, bluesy arrangements. It’s an important piece of work about the empowerment of women. Our interview with Ana is here.

Buddy Guy: The Blues is Alive and Well
15 tracks from the veteran bluesman, with Guy’s still formidable vocals and blistering guitar work aided and abetted by the McCrary sisters, Mick Jagger, James Bay, Jeff Beck and Keith Richards.

 

 

Paul Thorn: Don’t Let the Devil Ride
Unabashed album of gospel music, with Paul and his band, and a group of top notch collaborators including the Blind Boys of Alabama, the McCrary Sisters, Bonnie Bishop and New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Horns, all in scintillating form. Our interview with Paul is here.

 

 

Paul Cowley: Just What I Know
The Mississippi Delta via Birmingham, England and Morbihan in Brittany. They’re all in the mix in Paul Cowley’s wonderful album of classic-sounding acoustic blues, Just What I Know. Deft and delightful acoustic guitar work, including lovely, tasteful slide playing, along with Cowley’s nicely phrased vocals, make up a hugely satisfying selection of acoustic blues. See our full review here.

 

Ben Harper & Charlie Musselwhite: No Mercy in this Land
Vibrant collaboration of no-nonsense blues which delivers all you want from the blues – lament, joy, emotion – but never sounds dated. Musselwhite’s harmonica playing is exceptional throughout, complementing Harper’s versatile vocals and cool guitar work.

 

 

Various: Strange Angels: In Flight with Elmore James  
Top notch tribute album to Elmore James featuring Bettye LaVette, Keb’ Mo’, Warren Haynes, Shelby Lynne/Allison Moorer and others.

 

 

Dana Fuchs: Love Lives On
Fine album of bluesy American from the talented singer-songwriter, which features her utterly engaging, raspy vocals and a wonderful set of 13 songs, including a blues-soaked, stripped back version of Johnny Cash’s Ring of Fire.  “Love Lives On is about hope and perseverance…I hope in some way this album can give some of that back to you,” said Fuchs. See our interview with Dana here.

 

And here’s the next 10:

Shemekia Copeland: America’s Child
Shemekia Copeland has a stack of blues music awards to her name and several Grammy nominations. 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. Our interview with Shemekia is here.

Luke Winslow-King: Blue Mesa
Wonderfully upbeat, positive album of rocking blues. 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. Our interview with Luke is here.

 

Van Morrison The Prophet Speaks
Van the Man is in a rich vein of form with his 40^th release, giving us six new tracks of his own and blues classics from the likes of Willie Dixon and John Lee Hooker in a 14 song set. He continues his collaboration with multi-instrumentalist Joey DeFrancesco in some quite wonderful, jazzy blues, all with a classic, big band feel. “Change your thought and it will change your mind,” sings Van. The prophet speaks.

 

Chris Smither: Call Me Lucky
Double album of terrific acoustic songs from the gravel voiced and rhythmic guitar picker. 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. Our interview with Chris is here.

 

Janiva Magness: Love is an Army
Twelve hugely enjoyable songs which tap into a deep well of bluesy Americana and Memphis soul. Magness is joined by a number of guest luminaries, such as Charlie Musselwhite, Delbert McClinton, Texas singer-songwriter Bryan Stephens, Poco frontman Rusty Young, Mississippi hill-country blues artist Cedric Burnside, and bluegrass guitar and banjo virtuoso Courtney Hartman. These are stirring songs of protest, empowerment and hope which will capture your soul and move your feet. Our interview with Janiva is here.

 

Mark Harrison: The Panoramic View
Mark Harrison’s new album, The Panoramic View is an entertaining treat of modern acoustic blues, full of wondrous finger-picking and slide playing, and giving full vent to Harrison’s compelling story-telling and wry humour. Mark Harrison is a supremely accomplished song writer, guitarist and performer and The Panoramic View a satisfying feast of modern acoustic blues. Our full review is here.

Rory Block: A Woman’s Soul: A Tribute to Bessie Smith
Block turns her attention to the Empress of the Blues, after her set of 6 tribute albums to the founding fathers of the blues. Everything on the album is played by Rory Block, and as ever, the guitar picking and slide work are masterful. The songs, clearly, are very differently treated to the originals, but make for a fine and hugely enjoyable tribute to Bessie Smith.

 

Joe Bonamassa: Redemption
Rock blues guitar icon Bonamassa’s 13^th studio album delivers great song-writing, excellent vocal work and, of course, exceptional guitar work, accompanied by a hugely talented, veteran band. The title track, complete with heavenly choir and huge production, is an epic track to be savoured.

 

Keeshea Pratt Band: Believe
One very fine album of soul-soaked blues, featuring an outstanding 7-piece band and the wondrous Ms. Keeshea Pratt, whose soaring and thrilling vocals sparkle on each of the twelve tracks. Our full review is here.

 

 

Brooks Williams: Lucky Star
Brooks Williams, a jaw-droppingly good guitar player, has a sweet, but versatile voice, and is a great song-writer with a ready wit. Lucky Star is a terrific album of bluesy Americana, with twelve tracks and two additional bonus songs which feature Brooks along with blues maestro Hans Theessink. The combination of Williams’ tenor voice and Theessink’s gravelly bass works tremendously well. Our full review is here.

 

And our final set of 10:

Matty T Wall: Sidewinder
Make no mistake – Matty Wall is an extraordinary talent and deserves a massive amount of recognition for this terrific album. It’s blues rock, but it shimmers with passion, originality and top-notch musicianship. The combination of Wall’s artistry, his excellent band and legendary Grammy-winning producer-engineer, Bob Clearmountain, has resulted in one of the best blues rock albums of the year. Our full review is here.

 

Ian Siegal: All the Rage 
Ian Siegal rages against the poison in the veins of the world in a very fine album of blues rock. His trademark rasping vocals never felt so menacing and appropriate.

 

 

Joe Louis Walker & Bruce Katz & Giles Robson: Journeys To The Heart Of The Blues
Traditional stripped down blues featuring some sparkling boogie-woogie piano, lovely guitar work and wailing harmonica from three blues masters. Great versions of some blues standards in a thoroughly satisfying set.

 

 

Paul Oscher: Cool Cat
Oscher was member of Muddy Waters band, of whom Waters said “Paul Oscher plays the soul I feel,” This is an exceptional album of time-honoured, classic blues, from a man, whose life in the blues oozes from every musical phrase. According to Oscher, “The real gift of talent is not the ability to be able to play, it is the gift of the love you have for the music.” Our full review is here.

 

Billy F Gibbons: The Big Bad Blues
No surprises in this one; every phrase is characteristic Billy Gibbons. But what’s not to like? Four classic blues covers and seven new songs to get your toes tapping and your engine revving.

 

 

Elvin Bishop’s Big Fun Trio: Something Smells Funky Round Here
Worth it for the title track alone: “I’m not talkin’ ‘bout funky like a groove/Really funky…like pee-uuuuh!” The stench comes from the nation’s capital – “funky like some old politicians.” Great fun throughout, including the spoken “Lookin’ Good,” with its three stages to life: youth, middle age and “you’re looking good.”

 

 

Bryan Lee: Sanctuary
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 this very fine collection of unabashed gospel blues shows his vocal and guitar playing powers are still very much in evidence. It’s a top-notch blues album, well produced, recorded and mastered. Our interview with Bryan is here.

 

Victor Wainwright and the Train
Boogie woogie, as you might expect, but a lot more besides on this fine album, driven by Wainwright’s raw, powerful vocals and top notch piano playing. Watch out for the excellent BB King tribute, “Thank You Lucille.”

 

 

Danielle Nicole: Cry No More
Guitar work from guests Sonny Landreth, Walter Trout, Luther Dickenson and Kenny Wayne Shepherd sets off Nicole’s stirring, emotion-laden vocals.

 

 

 

Mike Zito: First Class Life
Rocking, honest 15th album from Zito who sings about his “second chance at a first class life,” charting his journey from addiction to sobriety to a life in music.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Down at the Crossroads’ blues artist interviews: 6 things we learned

 

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Down at the Crossroads’ artist interviews: 6 things we learned

We interviewed 11 artists this past year. Here are some of the things they told us:

Hans Theessink

1. The blues legacy: A common theme in the artists we interviewed was the debt they owed to the blues legacy they have inherited. Veteran New Orleans bluesman Bryan Lee told us about how hearing Freddie King as a young man first hooked him on the blues. He went on to say that “the blues is a universal language…it goes to our make up in our soul.” Acoustic blues maestros Brooks Williams and Hans Theessink talked enthusiastically about playing the blues together, “combining some country blues, a little bit of Texas blues, some of the Delta, some really nice Broonzy-style finger picking.” Eric Bibb talked to us about “connecting the history and the situation in the American South and the blues tradition with what’s going on in the rest of the world,” and when we interviewed Mandy Brooks she spoke about the healing and connection that comes in the music of people like Blind Willie Johnson and Fred McDowell, and about the truth that we are able to connect with in these artists. Brooks Williams noted the way that the early blues artists were trying “to 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!”

2. We love what we do: All 11 of the artists we talked to this last year are hard-working musicians, touring constantly, giving their best, no matter what the size of audience is, night after night. Can’t be easy, especially as you get older, yet Eric Bibb said that “the joy of performing never goes away.” Blues guitar virtuoso, Ana Popovic, talked about playing with her great band and the wonderful fans that support her, while Chris Smither said that “as soon as I get on stage I realize, this is what I do, this is what makes me happy.”

3. The touring life: Eric Bibb told us he doesn’t “want to stop touring. It’s an essential part of what I’ve enjoyed and still enjoy doing” The physical side of it, however, “especially the hauling of your instruments around from place to place and so on – that can be a strain.” Chris Smither who still plays over 100 shows a year says he’s slowed down some, but admits in some ways it’s become easier – “I can afford nicer accommodation!” Luke Winslow-King, way younger than both these artists, confessed he’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.” It’s the love of the music, the love of performance which keeps these fantastic people going – for which we are all grateful.

4. The state of the world: There’s a lot to be discouraged about looking around the world – not least in the United States. Some of the artists were quite outspoken: Eric Bibb spoke about racism – the “tremendous prejudice against what is referred to in the news as people of colour…[an] orientation [that] is so ingrained, so institutional, that people don’t think about it.” Shemekia Copeland talked about the song she has recorded called Would You Take My Blood which directly addresses the problem of racism. “All I want is some respect,” sings Shemekia. How can the problem be addressed, we asked her: “An incredibly difficult question,” she replied. “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.”

Janiva Magness spoke about the need for more gun control – she said, “thoughts and prayers and all that – it’s the time for action and not simply platitudes,” while Chris Smither spoke about a song in his new album which references the “clown with a comb over, tweeting on his phone.” Eric Bibb drew attention to the fake news consumed by many people, saying, “with a diet of that and little else, it’s very possible to get a very distorted view of the world – where a guy like Donald Trump could be appealing.”

5. Women in the blues: The history of the blues is peppered with misogynistic lyrics and the abuse of women. Thankfully things are changing and two of our women interviewees made important points. Janiva Magness said that “there are certain disadvantages because I have different plumbing than you – that’s real. That’s not based on skill, or ability, it’s certainly not based on talent, so those prejudices are based on some very old distorted thinking and philosophy. And I have to raise my hand on the #metoo movement…I have absolutely dealt with sexual harassment my entire life. I’m a woman in the world. Anyone who is surprised by that is either not paying attention or is on some level some kind of perpetrator.” Ana Popovic told us the theme of her new album, Like It on Top is “female empowerment,” which leaves us in no doubt that women should have equal pay and equal benefits. “There’s nothing crazy about it. It’s just the new world.”

6. Faith, hope and spirituality: Dana Fuchs spoke about her song, Faithful Sinner, and said, “Ultimately, aren’t we all just flawed beings who are trying (I hope) to do the right thing?” Paul Thorn, who grew up the son of a Pentecostal minister, hit the same note: “Whoever you look up to the most in life, your hero, whoever that may be, you have to understand, that person is very flawed. We’re all flawed. Nobody is all good and nobody is all bad. That’s the thing I think this record also says – we’re all in it together.”

Photo: Mike White

Despite the difficulties we face inside ourselves or without, our artists expressed hope for the future. Eric Bibb said, “I see no choice but to hold out in my music and my songs a message of hope because otherwise, everything becomes pointless.” And when we asked Shemekia if, as she looks around at America today, she has 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.”

Talking about the need for faith, Bryan Lee said that “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,” while Mandy Brooks insisted that “God gives us the strength to “press on” and “move on up”.”

Bringing it all down to the personal and practical, Janiva Magness said that love is an action – “it begins with us, it begins at home. Helping someone who is in need. It begins there. Do it. Do something every day to help someone else.”

Check out the interviews:

Ana Popovic

Brooks Williams & Hans Theessink 

Bryan Lee 

Chris Smither

Dana Fuchs

Eric Bibb 

Janiva Magness

Luke Winslow-King

Mandy Brooks 

Paul Thorn

Shemekia Copeland

Shemekia Copeland: America’s Child and her hopes for the future

“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.”

Thank you Shemekia.