Rory Block is just getting started: Part 1 of our Interview

“I feel like I’m on a roll. I know what I’m doing here. I’m focused. I’m excited about it, I’m on the road and I know what my destination is. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that as clearly as I feel it now.” Rory Block

Rory Block is one of the world’s greatest living acoustic blues artists. She’s been honing her guitar skills since she was a teenager in 1964 in New York City, and has devoted her life and career to performing the blues. Her talent has been recognized many times by WC Handy and Blues Music Awards in the US, as well as gaining accolades and awards in Europe. She has just won Acoustic Artist of the Year in the 2019 Blues Music Awards.

Over the years Rory has performed with a host of other top artists like Keb’ Mo’, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Wonder, Taj Mahal, Mark Knopfler, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jorma Kaukonen…the list goes on. As the New York Times put it, “Her playing is perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends.”

Rory Block grew up in the New York of the 50s and 60s, in the world of Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur, and the folk revival which saw country blues artists like Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Fred McDowell and Son House rediscovered. Her personal encounters with these influential blues masters of the 20th century left an indelible mark on her and has inspired her music and performances ever since. Not least in her highly acclaimed set of tribute albums to Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Fred McDowell and Son House. In these she has masterfully recreated the music of these seminal artists, reinterpreting the songs for a new generation.

Down at the Crossroads was delighted to get talking to Rory, and found her undaunted by the prospect of getting older, as inspired and excited about her music as ever, embarking on a new multi-album project which pays tribute to the woman blues artists of yesteryear, and generally loving life.

We talked to her about her life in the blues and her new album A Woman’s Soul: A Tribute to Bessie Smith. So interesting and wide-reaching was the discussion, we’ve split in into two parts. Here’s Part 1 –

Gary Rory, Congratulations for having won that Blues Music Award. But I know of course that you’ve won many blues music and W.C. Handy awards and others over the years. How satisfying is that sort of recognition for you?

Rory It really does mean a lot. I think it’s fabulous to be nominated. Actually, it’s a shock! When I was first nominated, I couldn’t believe it. It was just so you know – so justifying – it makes me feel like my work, it means something. People are noticing, people care. Sometimes we can get in a bit of a low spot where we think nothing that you’re doing adds up to anything. Anybody can have that feeling. And so, a nomination in itself tells you that you shouldn’t be discouraged, that something is going right.

But I used to tell myself, don’t worry, because I had been nominated a number of times before winning the first time, and I was pretty much satisfied with that and I wasn’t expecting to win. But I secretly wished that someday I would! But I kept telling myself not to think about it. And when I did win, it was a sweet thing and it did really make me feel joyous and happy. And then most recently I thought, well, I’ll never win again, I’ve got my five awards. That’s more than enough. So, I was going to the awards fully expecting not to win because I’m not that much of a social media person and these days you just really need wide reach, lots of attention given to social media and I’m not so great at that at all. I mean, I don’t post anything myself.  Without my husband nobody would see anything! But I just thought well, I’ll just be so happy with the nomination. And so, when I heard my name in the distance, I didn’t even know my category had been called. And I thought, Oh my God, I think I might have just – could it be? And I thought I better go and see! So, I kind of went up the back steps to the stage and then they were all looking towards me coming up and I thought, this could be that I just won – it was so far from my mind at that point! It was as if I just thought that’s part of the past.

So it’s really meant a great deal to me because I felt like somehow it was really a validation of my work – that it is being appreciated. I think that’s the beauty of it, honestly, it is a good feeling.

Gary Yeah. All these years in your long career and it is still being appreciated.

Rory Nice. I feel energized and so does my husband Rob. In fact, I feel like I’m just getting started! Even without the award I feel like I’m on a roll. I know what I’m doing here. I’m focused. I’m excited about it, I’m on the road and I know what my destination is. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that as clearly as I feel it now.

Gary Well that’s absolutely fabulous, because as people get older, sometimes they just kind of drift a little bit. They think it’s all behind them. But you know I think what you’re saying is fantastic, that you feel you’re on a roll, that you’ve a lot more to do. That’s brilliant.

Rory Yeah. I mean, honestly, that’s the whole thing about “older or younger” whatever it may be – when it really comes down to it – getting older or passing years is only what you make it. You know, you may make a disadvantage of it, but honestly, I don’t go there. I see it as an advantage. Now maybe I’m crazy, but I see it as a real opportunity to know more, to do more with what you know, to feel more…your fruit ripens! And to me it’s like I don’t feel old. What are you talking about? For me, it’s just like I feel more secure. I’m more clear that this is what I was put here to do. You know, really, I see it that way. I was put here to do it. And man, I’m just getting started!  I don’t feel a limitation at all and I don’t feel old – my goodness, not at all.

Gary Well that is fantastic. That was very refreshing to hear you say that. And congratulations on the Bessie Smith album which has been very well acclaimed and very well received. Tell us a bit about why you wanted to make this album.

Rory Well, you know that my previous project is the mentor series. I have to back up and just talk about that if I may, for a second, because it makes the other thing make more sense.  I was raised in an environment and in a family where you didn’t talk about your accomplishments. It was not OK. Whatever that moral system is where some of us were raised to go, “Don’t boast, don’t tell anyone.” And I never spoke about the people that I knew in person and I never spoke about, “well you know I actually spent time with Son House” – I never spoke about anything from the past. And then one day it just hit me, like, I really want to talk about this! I thought I ought to tell my story a little bit and that’s when I started writing my book. And I ought to record records that celebrate the people that I knew in person. So, after the Robert Johnson tribute, which was however many years ago and won Acoustic Album of the Year, I thought it really should be followed by Son House. Whom I knew and had spent a fair amount of time with. And then I thought, you know, I really should try and explain that this is someone who inspired me in person, because in retrospect, how rare is it to have spent time with him? I just thought well, everybody spends time with someone else, and everyone spends time with Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt! But it really turned out that good fortune had put me into the right place at the right time and I was able to briefly meet these absolutely phenomenal, influential founding masters of blues.

So that led to the mentor series – six CDs to blues masters whom I met in person. And it was nothing to do with whether they were women or men. These were the blues people who were rediscovered and brought in to Greenwich Village where I lived. If they had brought Bessie Smith back (she was deceased at that point) – I would have been overjoyed to meet her too. But with no choice on my part, these were the blues masters who I was introduced to as a young teenager. So those six CDs concluded the mentor series.

And everyone was saying, What are you gonna do to follow up? And then I thought, this really needs to be about my favourite women of blues, and so “the power women of the blues” is my new theme. And it was a no-brainer to start with Bessie Smith. No, I didn’t meet Bessie Smith but that’s not the criterion of this new series. It is those who I dearly loved who were a huge part of inspiring me. And I don’t even know who I’ll pick from here because there’s such a broad range of names and great artists. You could do tributes just about for the rest of one’s life and never run out of inspiration. But to choose Bessie Smith was easy for me because I grew up listening to her music.

Gary Actually it was the women blues artists in the first instance that were the really big stars even before the men wasn’t it?

Rory You know that’s a good point and I’ve heard nobody say that, but I think you’re right. Yes, there was Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, all who actually attained real name recognition. They toured the world with bands – Bessie Smith was playing with Louis Armstrong and she played for luminaries around the world and she was a big star. So yeah, I think that’s that is a good point.

Gary Then you get through to somebody like Sister Rosetta Tharpe who maybe isn’t exactly blues but I mean she was a big star.

Rory Yeah. That’s totally correct. And one of my challenges is how modern do I get? Bessie Smith was still recording, maybe overlapping in some of the years of the early country blues acoustic artists.  But then there were the ones who are even beyond Bessie’s decade and I’m going to I have to limit this to 1940, 1950, 1960. So that’s a challenge that I haven’t yet sorted out. I suppose it really shouldn’t matter that much and I should just pick my favorites!

Gary Yeah, it’s very interesting. All those wonderful tribute albums you’ve done to the country blues guys – they were all fine guitarists and I guess this is an understandable thing for you to do to pay tribute to them by picking up something of their style and at the same time making it your own. But I guess the process is really rather different with somebody like Bessie Smith who sang with a big band. How much of a challenge was it and how did you go about reinterpreting the songs?

Rory I’m glad you asked because that was a huge challenge and I was thinking I really wouldn’t manage it very well. But I figured it out! But in the beginning, I thought, How will I play all these jazz chords because I’m not a jazz player? And I started listening to it and I thought, this isn’t going to come out right. This is never going to work, it’s not going to have any credibility. And I started trying to do the basic tracks which come first on the album. As I started working on them, I thought, I can’t get these chords, they’re over my head. But then, somehow or other it began to fall into place.

I start with a simple rhythm track that I do myself, by the way, with little boxes and Bongo things – mostly boxes and tubs, an oatmeal box, literally, and serving spoons and wooden spoons. And I create a basic track which gives it a much more alive feel than a generated click track. I wanted a more organic sound. So, if I make my own click track that translates into a much more natural feel in the end. I’ve discovered this and it’s really my thing. It’s a way to make it sound more organic, because there’s gonna be the human variation on the beats and they’re not just computer generated. So then I play the acoustic layer of the chords to the best of my ability. And then I put on overdubs, once I get that.

So, the challenge was to get the chords right. And I was scratching my head, wishing I’d had jazz training, but I managed, and all of a sudden, it got easier!  And then I would move on and put the bass part on. I was listening to the parts of the band members on her great tracks and the bass player is astounding! So I tried to do that and I followed along, translating what I could, and I think I did a pretty much a note for note type of translation in the beginning. And then after a while I stopped doing that. It was perfect for the first few tunes to use as much as possible the actual notes played by the bass player. Then after a while I just started getting the bass groove to my guitar down and I just started playing and it felt like this is working. So after that, it just opened up and I thought, I can do this! And then I would layer on my slide parts. And then once it gets rolling, then it’s like, this is fun!

Gary So you basically did everything on the album yourself by the sounds of things?

Rory Completely, yes! There’s nobody else but me! That’s the way it’s been for a while and I’ll tell you why I started doing it. And there is no other good reason other than that in the beginning we couldn’t afford anything. Back in the days when they were making big L.A., New York records, if you look back at the budgets for a star from the 70s, we’re talking like, a half a million dollars to make an album. And then times changed and those little acoustic artists came along and we’d make albums at studios that weren’t charging three and four hundred dollars an hour, but maybe 40 dollars an hour. We’re like, oh this is so great! But I had one day in the studio with luminary players where a band came in – the soul people from Philadelphia and so on – and it was a ten thousand dollar day! You know, I mean, my goodness people don’t have that kind of budget money anymore now.

At one point I used Stevie Wonder’s backup singers on a certain record but that was back when people were giving me budget money to pay for that stuff. But then it just kept getting less, and it wasn’t because you were becoming less known or because people didn’t care about your music or your career wasn’t growing, it was because everything was restructuring. Record companies’ budgets went down, down, down. Everybody I know has had the same experience. So, in the end I said, I’m going to sing these myself, I’m going to play this myself. It was literally you had to do it if you wanted to have a band sound in this little niche that I’m talking about. So, I just came up with it and it right away felt like it could work. And so, I’ve stayed with that and now it’s like it’s what I do.

Gary Now you just mentioned singing. People will always remark that on your fantastic guitar work and your slide playing, but in listening to this album, I must say, I was very taken with your singing. Obviously, you couldn’t try to imitate Bessie Smith – but the singing on this is terrific. What had you to think about in your approach to the singing?

Rory Getting the right amount of soul. You know, it’s really about the soul and putting yourself into it the whole way. I had to add power. But listen, I’ve been singing Mississippi John Hurt, I’ve been singing Reverend Gary Davis, I’ve been singing Robert Johnson, so I understand that you can’t do a weak vocal. I have to give my all because these artists are just so amazing that I really don’t want to miss the mark. I know I have to give everything that I’m capable of and so that’s how I that’s how I approach it – I go, you better get this right! This is not about getting by. This is about giving everything you can give. And as you said earlier, you also have to put something of yourself in there, otherwise you’re trying to be someone else.

Gary Yeah. And every occasion, whether it’s a Robert Johnson song or Mississippi John Hurt song, I guess you’re always trying to make it fresh for a modern audience. You’re capturing this style, something of the essence. But how do you go about that, you know, taking one of those guy’s songs and making it fresh?

Rory Well I don’t think it’s something that you consciously do. I don’t consciously say, I better do this a little different. With the Robert Johnson tribute, that was an example of where I didn’t want to do it differently. For me Robert Johnson is the top of the mountain. He is the master of that style. It doesn’t get any better than that. So, it’s not like somebody is waiting for me to do it my way.

And that doesn’t diminish me as an artist. It just means that I’m not going to come up with a better way. So, I wanted to get right down to something that I felt I really understood. I heard him first in 1964 when I was 14 years old and I immediately knew that he was the top of the mountain. I mean it was so great. So I said, I’m going to crack this code – because I knew about the guitar playing, I feel like I’ve known from the time that I first started listening to him and tried to play the music, I had some kind of a connection to it and I was very focused on it. I want to talk about that again in a second, where I had an interesting background that I think gave me a certain edge when it came to being able to play something very close to what he was playing.

Check out Part 2 of our interview with Rory Block, where she talks about meeting the seminal country blues artists, dealing with stage-fright, and sitting in guitar lessons with Rev. Gary Davis.

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16 Gospel Blues Songs You Must Hear

Gospel blues has a long history reaching back to the likes of Blind Willie Johnson and Rev Robert Wilkins right through to recent work by Kelly Joe Phelps and Ry Cooder. It’s not surprising, given the close relationship between the spirituals and the blues. It’s a genre rich in musicality, spirituality and inspiration. Here are 16 gospel blues songs that are really worth listening to.

Blind Willie McTell: I’ve Got to Cross the River of Jordan

Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell, sang Bob Dylan. True, but McTell also left us a fine collection of gospel blues songs, including River of Jordan, which focuses our attention on the inevitable journey we all must take across Jordan – on our own, facing the consequences of our lives. There’s some fine slide playing on the song and McTell’s vocal performance is strong and compelling. The song is essentially another version of Nobody’s Fault but Mine.

Check out Mark Millers 2010 album, The Gospel Songs of Blind Willie McTell.

Blind Willie Johnson: Dark Was the Night

Arguably Willie Johnson’s masterpiece, it is making its way across the universe as part of the musical offering on the Voyager space craft. Recorded in 1927, it features Johnson’s inspired slide playing which creates an incredible other-worldly, eerie effect and his agonized moaning. You really cannot hear the words of this old spiritual which focuses on Christ’s trial in the Garden of Gethsemane, but Johnson’s vocals and slide work more than evoke this terrible hour. Click here for our more detailed look at this song.

Rev. Robert Wilkins: Prodigal Son

Wilkins’ compelling retelling of the gospel story of the prodigal son was recorded in 1935, six years after he had recorded the same song with secular lyrics. Now, having turned his back on the blues and an ordained minister, he re-recorded the song, and eventually performed it at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. For more on the song, go to here.

Skip James: My God is Real

The music of Skip James, the most enigmatic of all the Delta blues figures, was ominous, bleak and mysterious, made primarily for his own emotional release. James was an exceptional guitarist, with a trademark E-minor tuning and an eerie falsetto vocal delivery. After making some seminal blues recordings, in 1931 he moved to Dallas, where he served as a minister and led a gospel group. His My God is Real, speaks of a deep, very personal experience of faith.

Josh White: My Soul is Gonna Live with God

White was a prolific blues artist and civil rights activist in the first half of the twentieth century. He took a clear anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance and recorded a number of political protest songs. He also recorded gospel songs under the moniker, The Singing Christian. His 1935 My Soul is Gonna Live with God puts his guitar playing chops and his fine singing on display and focuses on the Christian hope for after death.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Rock Me

Rosetta Tharpe was a major star during the 1940s and 50s and was an inspiration to the early generation of rock’n’roll artists. She grew up immersed in the church and her faith was a constant inspiration to her music throughout her life. Rock Me, one of her most loved songs, was written by Tommy Dorsey and first recorded by her in 1938. An instant hit, the song contains various Biblical and hymn references. Isaiah 41 comes to mind: “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” The song was also another of Blind Willie McTell’s gospel recordings, under its original title, Hide Me in Thy Bosom, in 1949.

Find our tribute to Rosetta Tharpe here.

And check out this fine recent version by Brooks Williams, accompanied by Hans Theessink:

Mississippi Fred McDowell: You Got to Move

Fred McDowell’s song was brought to prominence by the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album. It’s essentially a song about the Christian hope of resurrection – “when the Lord get ready, you got to move!”

For a great recent version, check out Paul Thorn’s take on his Don’t Let the Devil Ride album. Check out our conversation with Paul, including his comments on the song here

Sister Fleeta Mitchell & Rev. Willie Mae Eberhard: Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down

Most people are more familiar with Robert Plant’s version of this old spiritual, but Fleeta Mitchell and Willie Mae Eberhard’s stripped down version which appears on Art Rosenbaum’s 2007 album of traditional field recordings is well worth checking out. The song is based on Jesus’s words in Luke’s gospel when he said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” For Christians, the power of evil personified by the “Adversary” is under judgement because of the coming of Christ and ultimately we are not to despair, because good will triumph under the Lordship of Jesus.

Mississippi John Hurt: Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me (Don’t You Hear My Saviour Calling?)

John Hurt is renown for his blues and his rhythmic, alternating bass guitar style, with fast syncopated melodies. Reputed to be a gentle soul, his music is quite transcendent, whether blues or gospel. Here Am I, Oh Lord Send Me is a fine example of his technique and is based on Jesus’s words in John’s gospel about the fields being ready for harvest. The song has a devotional feel about it, with the singer offering himself for God’s service.

Rev. Gary Davis: I Am the Light of this World

Born blind, black and in the American South, Davis had little going for him, and yet he became a master of the guitar, ending up in New York City where he was recognized for the musical genius he was. Davis stayed faithful to his calling as a minister of the gospel until he died and only in the last decade of his life was he persuaded to sing blues songs publicly. His ragtime, blues and gospel performances are all outstanding. I Am the Light of this World recalls the words of Jesus in St. John’s gospel.

Check out Ian Zack’s riveting biography of Gary Davis – reviewed here.

Larry Norman: Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?

Blues-based rock, rather than strictly blues, but this song from Only Visiting this Planet in 1972 puts to rights the misconception that the blues is the devil’s music. Norman, the father of Christian rock, takes up the line from Salvation Army founder William Booth almost a century earlier and then proclaims loudly, “there’s nothing wrong with playing blues licks.”

Read our review of the excellent Larry Norman biography by Gregory Alan Thornbury.

And in a similar vein, check out Lurrie Bell’s The Devil Ain’t Got No Music, from his 2012 album with the same title.

Eric Bibb: I Want Jesus to Walk With Me

Often played by Eric Bibb in his concerts, he captures completely the dual nature of this old spiritual – on the one hand mournful about the trials and tribulations of life, and yet hopeful about the reality of the presence of Jesus in the midst of those trials. As Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Click here for our recent interview with Eric.

Walter Trout: Brother’s Keeper

From the 2012 album, Blues for the Modern Daze, Walter Trout’s dazzling technique, intensity and emotion seizes you, along with the hard-hitting lyrics. The song recalls the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 and calls for more neighbourliness in our relations. Trout reminds us that “Jesus said to feed the hungry, Jesus said to help the poor,” and finishes he song with a searing criticism of modern “so-called Christians” who “don’t believe in that no more.” For more on the song go to here.

And click here for our interview with Walter where he talks about the song.

Ry Cooder: Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right

Ry Cooder has produced one of the best gospel albums ever in Prodigal Son, reviving and updating a number of old gospel songs as well as a couple of his own. We could have picked almost any song from the album for inclusion, but his excellent version of Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger right is surely a song for our times, with xenophobia at an all time high. Strangers, sojourners and immigrants were all to be treated with care and welcome according to the Hebrew bible – “And if a stranger dwell with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God,” (Leviticus 19:33-34). And reflected in the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 – “I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me … When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? … Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”

Find our take on Ry Cooder’s album here

Kelly Joe Phelps: Goodbye to Sorrow

Phelps’s 2012 album, Brother Sinner and the Whale, is arguably the best gospel roots album ever. Phelps’s guitar work and slide playing, as always, is immaculate, and the songs are a remarkable testament to Phelps’s rediscovered faith. They brim with creativity, inspiration and spirituality. His reworking of the old hymn, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah is masterful, but we’ve chosen his own Goodbye to Sorrow here, which is simply a wonderful song and packed with theology:

“My God came to earth a humble man
As part of a divine and master plan
When they crucified our Saviour He set the captives free
That death would lose dominion over you and over me

I have said goodbye to sorrow as I lay before the cross.”

Click here for Down at the Crossroads’ comments on this album here.

Blind Boys of Alabama: Nobody’s Fault But Mine

Singing together since 1944, the Blind Boys have been singing blues tinged gospel for an awfully long time and you’d be hard pressed to pick the best of. For a good list, check out Paste’s take here. We’ve gone with this sparse arrangement of another Blind Willie Johnson song, Nobody’s Fault but Mine, which is full of the personal regret and heartache. The plaintive harmonica, the slide guitar and the tight harmonies combine to make this an outstanding version of the song.

Check out our tribute to the Blind Boys of Alabama here and our comment on Nobody’s Fault but Mine here.

If you’re interested to find out more about the relationship between the blues and faith, get yourself a copy of The Gospel According to the Blues, by Gary W Burnett.

 

Easter Sunday and the Rolling Stones?

So, what have the Rolling Stones to do with Easter? Well, actually, the link is a bit tenuous – on their 1971 album Sticky Fingers, they recorded and brought to everybody’s attention a Mississippi Fred McDowell song, You Gotta Move.

You may be high, you may be low

You may be rich, child, you may be poor

But when the Lord get ready

You gotta move.

Mick, Keef and the boys may or may not have realized, but this is a song about Christian hope – it’s about resurrection. No matter who you are – man, woman, black or white, rich or poor – when the Lord’s good and ready – them bones gotta move! It’s Gary Davis Jr’s “great gettin’ up morning” when he “heard the angels singing.”

Now Jesus – we’re fine with him as great teacher – depending on your preference or politics you can have “the poor you always have with you,” “render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s” or “my kingdom is not of this world” or, if you’re game for being a bit more challenged, you can focus on the golden rule, “love your enemies”, “blessed are the peace makers.” So long as he’s an de-historicized prophet or philosopher, he’s pretty safe – maybe a bit profound here and there, like Aristotle or some other religious guru and worth knowing about – but once we start putting resurrection into the mix, that starts to get a bit rich for us.

Early Jesus follower Paul realized this pretty much from the get-go. “If the Messiah isn’t raised from the dead,” he wrote in his letter to a group of Jesus followers in Corinth, then “our faith is worthless.” Might as well “eat and drink,” he said, “for tomorrow we die.”

Paul tells us he knew a load of people who’d seen the risen Jesus, apart from himself, and everything stood or fell one this fact. Paul and other people in the first century may not have shared our scientific worldview. But they knew dead when they saw it. Dead men didn’t get up. Dead was dead.

But Paul and his friends had seen Jesus raised from the dead and their Jewish theology led them to the conclusion that this fact meant that Jesus followers – those in-the-Messiah, as Paul puts it – could hope for a similar outcome at the last. Christian faith revolves around resurrection – the resurrection of Jesus and the resurrection of Jesus followers. Nowhere does the New Testament encourage a hope for a disembodied existence after death in a heavenly city in the sky. Christian hope is much more earthy, tangible – it’s about the hope for a new world, a transformation of the here and now and a share in that through resurrection. This sort of hope is the impetus for Jesus followers to live as if that day had already arrived, focusing their lives on the justice, peace and love that Jesus taught about.

This is why Christians celebrate Easter Sunday – God raising Jesus from the dead means everything has changed; something fundamental in the universe has shifted and each of us can be a part of it. No matter who we are – as Fred McDowell said – rich or poor, a women or a policeman, whoever – we can have a share in God’s future. When the Lord get ready – you gotta MOVE!

 

Kenny Meeks’ bluesy Americana: “I just want my songs to make the listener feel welcome.”

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.

 

The Guitar Genius of Rev. Gary Davis

Ian Zack, Say No To The Devil, Univ. of Chicago Press, 2015

Ian Zack’s biography of Reverend Gary Davis is an outstanding  work – meticulously researched, thoroughly engaging and readable and written with great affection and sympathy. Zack clearly recognizes the enormous talent that Davis was, noting with some disappointment and incredulity that Rolling Stone magazine had no room for him in its list of 100 greatest guitarists. The omission beggars belief, given the personal influence that Davis had on a generation of guitarist through his teaching, and the way that his songs were covered by major rock groups like the Rolling Stones and the Grateful Dead.

Zack notes the comments of blues singer Larry Johnson after Davis’s death in 1972: “I admired him most for, first of all he being born blind, in the South, black, had everything against him. Everything. Nothing did he have in his favour. And he managed  to become a master musician. And then he managed to influence other musicians from here to England. And I think for him to do that, even to keep a mind good enough to do that, is something else.”

Zack carefully traces for us the contours of Davis’s life from his early days in South Carolina to the streets of New York City, where he was eventually to be recognized for the musical genius that he was. Davis stayed faithful to his calling as a minister of the gospel until he died and only in the last decade of his life was he persuaded to sing blues songs publically. Zack does not ignore Davis’s failings or the inconsistencies with his Christian ministry– his drinking, his periodic womanizing or the lewd lyrics of some of his blues material (mostly privately sung). But at the same time he doesn’t dwell on these and focuses instead on the enormous generosity of Davis and his wife, Gary Davis’s insistence for most of his life on being first of all a minister of the gospel and his immense musical talent.

It is, at times, a heart rending story, as we see Davis cope with his blindness, battle poverty virtually all his life and struggle to be appreciated during his lifetime for the amazing artist and guitarist that he was. It is inspiring as well, though as we come to understand, with one of his pupils, Larry Bezer, that “He faced adversity eyeball to eyeball and never blinked.”

Ian Zack has given us a wonderful gift in this biography – it deserves to be widely read and acclaimed. He sums up Rev. Gary Davis as follows:

“In truth, Davis was uncommonly giving, spiritual, tenacious beyond the most usual conceptions of the word, funny, charming, quick-witted, and, or course, profoundly gifted. But he was also cocky, competitive, sinful, and at times unfaithful to the religious virtues he sang about so mightily. His music, one might say, was profoundly aspirational, and if he sometimes fell short of a commandment or two, the only one he had to answer to was God.”

Johnny Cash and Luther Dickinson: Ain’t no Grave

Rev Gary Davis

Songs about death and dying are common in the blues. Not surprising, given the toughness of life for African Americans in the southern states under Jim Crow during the early decades of the twentieth century when the blues grew up. Infant mortality was high, life expectancy low, disease common and healthcare practically non-existent for many. So death was an ever-present reality – families losing children, children losing a mother or father, neighbors aware of the pain of bereavement suffered by their friends. Today we expect our full three-score years and ten and then some, and until we start heading towards that point, most of us don’t have to attend too many funerals. But, sooner or later, we all have to face it – “I gotta walk that lonesome valley, I gotta walk there by myself, Ain’t no one can walk there for me, I gotta walk there for myself.”

The reality of death in the early days of the blues is highlighted by the traditional song, sung by Rev Gary Davis and many others since, Death Don’t Have No Mercy. It’s a particularly mournful blues, as befits its subject matter:

Death don’t have no mercy in this land,
He’ll come to your house, he won’t stay long
Look in the bed and find your mother is gone – Death don’t have no mercy in this land.

The song covers all the family members – mother, father, sister and brother and says starkly: “Death will leave you standin’ and cryin’ in this land.” Those of us who have lost those near and dear to us know the numbness that comes when we’re left “standin’ and cryin.”

Here’s a version of the song done by Jorma Kaukonen and Hot Tuna:

The Roman Empire of first couple of centuries in which Christianity grew up was one where the great mass of people in the urban centers lived generally impoverished, uncertain lives, where disease claimed the lives of many, and where, again, infant mortality was high and life expectancy low. In a situation where the old pagan gods offered no comfort beyond this life, Christianity emerged with news of a God who had become human and had risen from the dead, and who now offered the same prospect of resurrection to believers. Not only that, but that this resurrection-life-to-come could begin to be experienced in the here and now. This is part of the explanation of the growth of the Christian church over these early centuries. Christianity offered hope – in the midst of harsh, difficult lives, there was hope – hope that things could be better within the new community of faith, sharing and love, hope for beyond the grave and hope for the world to be transformed.

One of the songs that gives expression to this hope is Ain’t No Grave Can Hold My Body Down, originally written and recorded by “Brother” Claude Ely, who was a singer-songwriter and Pentecostal holiness preacher, born in 1922. The song, strictly speaking, isn’t a blues song, but to my mind, it fits right in with the gospel blues we see from Blind Willie Johnson right up until the present.

Ain’t No Grave has been recorded by Odetta, recently by Charlie Parr and Crooked Still (featuring in the vampire TV series True Blood) and, of course, famously by Johnny Cash on his American VI album, released not long after he died. The album is a record of Cash’s faith during the last months of his life.

Claude Ely’s original version of the song is bright and jaunty, whereas Cash’s is sombre, sung by a man who knows he’s approaching the moment of truth – and yet it still manages to capture the essence of defiant hope that infuses the song.

Rick Rubin, who produced the album recollects a conversation in May 2003 with Johnny Cash soon after his wife June had died:

I’d never heard him so distraught. And he said, ‘You know, I’ve been through tremendous pain in my life, and I’ve never felt anything like this.’…

…He sounded so weak, so beaten, and I’d never really heard him like that before. I’m not sure where the question came from, but I said, ‘Do you feel like somewhere you can find faith?’ And when he heard that word, a switch went off in his head, and he answered in a strong voice, ‘My faith is UNSHAKABLE.’ And the conversation changed after that. So he had tremendous faith, he didn’t really have fear and he already was dealing with pain; I think he had acceptance. When he knew he was going to die, he was calm and matter of fact about it, and…that was it.”

Johnny Cash died in September of that year, sustained by the faith expressed in Ely’s song:

There ain’t no grave can hold my body down.
There ain’t no grave can hold my body down.

When I hear that trumpet sound
I’m gonna rise right outta the ground
Ain’t no grave that can hold my body down.

Well look way down the river and what do you think I see?
I see a band of angels and they’re coming after me.

There ain’t no grave that can hold my body down.
There ain’t no grave can hold my body down.

Cash’s voice is that of an old man, and yet is clear and convincing over the sparse instrumentation. The recording is both sobering and powerful.

The CD was released in May 2004, three days before what would have been Cash’s 78th birthday. A video to accompany the song was created with the help of professional and amateur artists, and fans of Johnny Cash. Within four months a quarter of a million people had contributed illustrations:

In some ways, the video attests to the enduring power of art and the fact that Johnny Cash lives on through the legacy of music he has left. That wasn’t what the song meant to Cash, however. An integral part of Cash’s Christian faith was the hope of resurrection. This has been the case since the very earliest days of Christianity. Within twenty years or so of the first Easter, Paul the apostle told the Jesus-followers in Corinth – “if the Messiah has not been resurrected, then your faith is useless.” Paul didn’t think there was much point in following someone who had simply brought a new philosophy to the world – such people were ten a penny in Paul’s day – one more dead philosopher or would-be Messiah was neither here nor there. The point was, though, Paul, along with a load of people he actually knew, had seen the risen Jesus – and he goes on to explain that the Messiah’s resurrection was the “firstfruits” – the first and the guarantee – for believers who “fall asleep,” in other words who die. The Messiah’s death and resurrection brought a “new creation” which Christians could share in – the new life of the Messiah infusing Jesus followers right now and then raising them to life at the last. This is the Christian hope, this was the essence of Cash’s faith, this is what Ely’s song expresses.

Finally, here’s a terrific updated version of Ely’s song, written by Luther Dickinson after the death of his father – Ain’t No Grave.

When that day comes, when death comes my way
I would hope to be as brave
As he was on judgement day.

Fighting the devil: What you selling, You know I ain’t buying!

Joe Louis Walker in his song Soldier for Jesus on his ablum Hellfire continues a biues tradition of fighting with the devil.

The devil makes an appearance relatively frequently in the blues. Tommy Johnson famously reported that he’d sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads in exchange for guitar-playing chops. The same myth, of course, was ascribed to Robert Johnson. One of Johnson’s songs features the devil as a major character. In Me and the Devil Blues, Johnson answers the devil’s knock on his door and goes off with him – “me and the devil, ooh, was walking side by side”. The result of this walk with the devil was – “I’m going to beat my woman until I get satisfied”. It’s an appalling lyric, but clearly Johnson knows that such action belongs to the darker side of life, exemplified by his walking companion.

The first appearance of the devil seems to have been in Clara Smith’s 1924 song, Done Sold My Soul to the Devil. Not long after we have Charlie Patton’s Devil Sent the Rain, where he says in a song about berievement, “Good Lord sent the sunshine, devil he sent the rain”. A straightforward idea here about the source of good and evil.

In 1927, Sam Collins recorded Devil in the Lion’s Den – “yon’ comes the devil, we gonna set this town on fire”. The song is about the unfaithful, ramblin’ gambler and it seems clear to Collins that, although he’s boasting in such behaviour, it nevertheless is to be associated with the devil.

Skip James

In Skip James’ famous Devil Got My Woman, he moans about losing his woman and claims it was the devil who stole her away from him. He feels so bad about this state of affairs that now he’d rather actually be the devil than “that woman’s man”. James is not the only one to implicate the devil in a failed relationship – Piedmont bluesman Brownie McGhee sings about a lover who wants to poison him, shoot him and hit him with a blackjack. The song is called  Dealing with the Devil.

What’s going on here in these early blues songs? There’s clearly something of seeking a certain noteriety by some of these artists, mixing a reputation for rambin’ and drinking and womanizing with talk about the devil. But beyond that, in a genre that focuses on life’s injustices, hardships and disappointments, is the recognition that there exists in the world good and evil, and that human beings at times are at the mercy of forces greater than themselves, be they inner impulses and addictions, unjust structures in society or ill-treatment by others.

Moving on a few decades, Rev. Gary Davis gives us I Heard the Angels Singing, where the singer goes down to the valley to pray to get to the place where the angels are singing. On the way he meets the devil who tries to prevent him from praying. In the end however, the “Holy Ghost” gives him the power to resist and he gets to hear the angels singing. Eric Bibb has recently done a terrific version of this song.

Bang up to date we have Joe Louis Walker in his recent release, Hellfire – terrific album, by the way – with Soldier for Jesus, which takes a similar theme where the singer is opposed by the devil in his attempt to be a follower of Jesus. Walker’s fight as a soldier for Jesus is against the devil. He recognises this is a fight “all the time” and alludes to the temptations of Jesus where the devil offered him all the kingdoms of the world if he would fall down and worship him – “And I was staring him eye to eye, He said, “I’ll give you anything”. Like Jesus, Walker tells the devil “I say what you selling, You know I ain’t buying”. Victory in the battle, according to Walker, comes by falling “down on my knees to pray, I have my Bible in both hands”. Result? – “you know the devil done took off and ran”.

The problem of evil in the world, whether we want to personify it as the “devil” or not, is obvious to us all. It was obvious too, to the various writers of the Biblical literature, where we see God’s good creation corrupted and human beings held culpable for the evil which becomes part of the world. The New Testament, essentially, tells the story of how God finally deals with the problem of evil in his world through  the death and resurrection of Jesus. Although many Christians recently have become very focused on certain theories of atonement, the idea that seems to have been most important to early Christians was that of Christus Victor – Jesus as the one who brings victory over evil. In Jesus’ death and resurrection, God was dealing once and for all with the problem of evil in God’s world. The odd thing here for a world used to the power of violence and sheer brutal force is that this victory was won by suffering, humility and love. It was this that God vindicated, by raising Jesus from the dead.

The call for Jesus followers is to seek to implement this victory of God over evil in the same way – by suffering love. In the end, it is this that has more power than any tyrant or totalizing empire. And it is this power that in the end will see God finally put the world to rights and deal finally with the problem of evil.

Rev Gary David – heard the angels singin’

In the meantime, we all face the devil day after day – whether it’s in the injustices we suffer or see around us, or in our our personal struggles with doing the right thing or with our own desires and addictions. The good news is that it’s possible to be personally free – to hear the angels singing, as Rev. Gary Davis put it – through God’s power. Paul in his letter to the Romans in chapter 6 gives us a inspiring vision of what’s possible for us. But it’s also possible to see real change in God’s world here and now – through the power of forgiveness and love. And once we orientate our lives around forgiveness and love, we’ll find, as Joe Walker says, “you know the devil done took off and ran”.

Joe Louis Walker with “Soldier for Jesus”