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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Theresa Needham

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo: Marty Moffatt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Great Blues Albums #1 – B.B. King, Live at the Regal

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B.B. King’s Live at the Regal is on every blues fan’s list as one of the greatest blues albums ever. It’s a live album of ten songs recorded from a concert by B.B. in the Regal Theatre in Chicago on 21^st November 1964, and it captures King, aged 39, at the height of his powers. His singing and guitar work is immaculate and his engagement with the audience hugely entertaining.

I saw B.B. King just a couple of years before he passed away, playing the Grand Rex Theatre in Paris. It was the first time I’d seen him, and it was a great thrill – we really did feel like we were connected to the history of the blues that night, even though B.B. didn’t play his guitar as much or as well as he might have as a younger man. Fair enough! When you’ve reached his legendary status, I’ll take what I can get. His singing was still very good, at times sweet, at times powerful, and his good-humoured interaction with the audience was good to see. I’d have liked one of those guitar picks he tossed into the crowd, but I was too far away!

My daughter bought me a vinyl copy of Live at the Regal for Christmas, and it was a delight to slip it on to the turntable and hear the songs in lovely warm, crystal-clear stereophonic sound. On this album you get B.B. as I didn’t get him that night in Paris, that characteristic, crisply-picked guitar answering his vocals, which range versatilely from tender to gritty to falsetto. B.B. King is one of those rare guitarists you can recognize from hearing just one or two notes.

Was he playing Lucille that night? Well, not one of the black signature models that Gibson brought out – they only appeared in 1980 – but from the photographs on the album sleeve, he appears to have been playing a Gibson 335 sunburst and with a Bigsby vibrato device. Not that King ever seemed to need the latter – he got great vibrato from just his fingers on the fretboard.

Doubtless you’re familiar with the Lucille story – but just in case: when B.B. was playing a dance hall in Arkansas in the winter of 1949, a fight broke out and a barrel half-filled with burning kerosene set in the middle of the dance floor to keep things warm was overturned, setting the place on fire. Everyone, including King raced outside, but in his panic, B.B. had left his guitar behind, so he dashed inside to rescue it. He later found out that the fight had been over a woman named Lucille, so he named his guitar, and all subsequent ones, Lucille as a reminder never again to do something as stupid as run into a burning building or fight over a woman!

King, in his biography, Blues All Around Me, said that before this particular concert, he had played the Regal “hundreds of times before,” and felt that he had played “hundreds of better concerts than the one taped at the Regal.” He was surprised at the critical response to the record, but said he was happy to receive the praise. However this particular night rates in the thousands of concerts King has played, the fact is it captures the man in top gear, playing with an outstanding band – Duke Jethro on the piano, Leo Lauchie on the bass, Kenneth Sands on the trumpet, Johnny Board and Bobby Forte on tenor sax, and Sonny Freeman on drums.

Apparently, Jethro’s organ, which he was originally schedule to play, broke down, so King said he should just play the piano. Jethro told B.B. that he didn’t know how to play the piano, only to be told, “Well, just sit there and pretend; that’s what you do most of the time anyway!”

The band that night was in sterling form – B.B., when introducing them, says admiringly, “I think they’re wailin’ out there!”

Recognition of the stature of Live at the Regal has come from Rolling Stone Magazine, which put it at number 141 on its list of the “500 Greatest Albums Of All Time,” and in its addition in 2005 to the Library of Congress’s list of recordings chosen for permanent preservation with the National Recording Registry.

The album kicks off with Every Day I Have the Blues, after broadcaster and music promoter Pervis Spann introduces B.B. King as the “king of the blues.” It’s exciting stuff from the get-go, the brass in tip-top form duelling with King’s timeless guitar licks before the man kicks in with that beautiful tenor voice.

By the time the full guitar solo kicks in the crowd are already whooping and whistling. The crowd cheering throughout the album, actually, adds to the excitement and atmosphere and never seems distracting from the music. It’s just the way a good live album should be.

The album works its way through a veritable collection of B.B. King hits, including the slow blues of Sweet Little Angel (included in the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame’s “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll) and How Blue Can You Get, King’s guitar reaching right inside you and wringing every ounce of emotion out.

The album captures a couple of great moments where B.B. interacts warmly with the audience – at the start of It’s My Own Fault and How Blue Can You Get – doubtless only a fraction of his chat during the evening, but showing that he was a consummate entertainer with a natural rapport with his audience. But for the most part, King let the sincerity of his singing and the piercing quality of his guitar do the talking.

Photo Credit: Solarpix / PR Photos

Obviously you can’t see it with this record, but King used to contort his face when he played his guitar – his wife Martha used to call him Ol’ Lemon Face because of that. King said of himself, “I squeeze my eyes and open my mouth, raise my eyebrows, cock my head and God knows what else. I look like I’m in torture, when in truth, I’m in ecstasy. I don’t do it for show. Every fibre of my being is tingling.” And that commitment to the music is what you’re hearing on Live at the Regal. “I wanted my guitar to connect to human emotion,” he said once. And you can feel that as you listen to this album.

If you’ve not listened to this album – do so without hesitation! If you’ve not listened to it in a while, get it out of your record collection and play it again. And don’t just play a couple of songs – play the whole thing and let B.B. and the band caress your soul. Rock along to You Upset Me Baby and Woke Up This Morning, and soak in the blues feeling of Worry Worry and You Done Lost Your Good Thing Now.

You’ll see what is the very best of modern blues.

Best Americana Albums 2020

2020 gave us a fine new collection of Americana/roots music. Bob Dylan at 79 showed his genius once more and Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band came through with a classic-sounding album. Other notable releases came from Jason Isbell, Lucinda Williams and Welch & Rawlings. Here are our picks in two batches, 22 in all, each shown in alphabetical order rather than ranking.

Our Top 10

American Aquarium, Lamentations

This is simply a terrific album. Serious themes, sophisticated songwriting, good tunes, with a dollop of hope and optimism creeping through. The title track is inspired by the Old Testament’s Book of Lamentations, where PJ Barham he relates Jeremiah’s sufferings to someone who has “woke up from the American dream.” “He’s watching his entire country fall apart before his eyes, calling up to ask God for help, and nobody’s answering,” says Barham. “I thought that was a really great parallel [to] 2020 America.”

The Avett Brothers, The Third Gleam

In the third of their Gleam series, Scott and Seth Avett with long-time bass player Bob Crawford give us eight pared-back songs focusing on family, romantic love and spirituality. The harmonies are lovely, the songs are strong and the sparse acoustic arrangements work wonderfully well.,

Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways

Songs like I Contain Multitudes and I’ve Made up My Mind to Give Myself to You are, like the rest of the album, quite brilliant, With its apocalyptic overtones and searching questions like, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” Rough and Rowdy Ways is a majestic piece of work from the 79 year-old, something of a masterpiece.

Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit, Reunions

Another really fine album from Jason Isbell, the seventh album from the former Drive By Truckers artist, Backed by the excellent 400 Unit, this is a great set of intelligent songs, which, though personal, sound universal. The band play effortlessly together with terrific energy throughout, beautifully accompanying Isbell’s and Amanda Shires’s spine-tingling harmonizing. Outstanding.

The Jayhawks, Xoxo

Hard to believe the Jayhawks have been on the go for 35 years. This, their 11th studio album, is classic Jayhawks, and features songwriting and vocals from all four members of the band. There’s a nice bit of musical diversity in this album which will appeal to long-time fans and newcomers alike.

Diana Jones, Song to a Refugee

Song to a Refugee is a quite remarkable piece of work by singer-songwriter, Diana Jones – an album entirely given to highlighting the global refugee problem. It’s a serious listen – you’ll enjoy Jones’ acoustic, guitar-driven, folky Americana, but feel downright uncomfortable as she tells story after story about desperate people escaping war and violence and seeking refuge and safety.

Marcus King, El Dorado

First rate set of bluesy, soulful Americana from a man whose guitar chops and richly textured vocals are making a lot of people sit up and take notice. The band graced Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival last year and this album is sure to enhance its reputation even more. Produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, there’s a fine balance of approaches here, from powerful blues rock here in The Well to the late-night blues of Wildflowers and Wine to the 70s Southern rock of Sweet Mariona.

Bruce Springsteen, Letter to You

Classic E-Street rock from the Boss, who seems to have more energy than ever. With more road behind him than ahead, Springsteen waxes philosophical on the subjects of loss and frailty of the human condition. But Springsteen, in the way only he can, gives us hope and celebration as well, and the album is surely his best of recent years.

Gillian Welch, David Rawlings, All the Good Times

Wonderful album of covers from the talented duo, sparse and beautiful renditions of traditional and songs from other artists. Rawlings’ take on Bob Dylan’s Seǹor is masterful while Welch’s Hello In There is a lovely tribute to John Prine whom we sadly lost this past year. Together they breathe new life into this beautifully chosen set of songs, and somehow hit the right note for the year that is past.

Lucinda Williams, Good Souls, Better Angels

Williams’ raspy, edgy growl adorns a bluesy, gnarly set of apocalyptic songs which explore a world coming apart. Full of punk-rock energy, as Jesse Malin said of it, “It’s like Muddy Waters meets the Stooges. It’s a badass record.” It’s real and it’s raw and Williams takes no prisoners – certainly not Trump who is firmly in her sights in Man Without A Soul. “Help me stay fearless,” she sings towards the end of the album, “Help me stay strong.” Her prayer’s been answered in this album.

 

And the next 12

Dave Alvin, From An Old Guitar: Rare and Unreleased Recordings

“There are two types of folk music: quiet folk music and loud folk music. I play both,” says Alvin, and that’s what you get here. It’s mostly covers in this generous 16 song set, and Alvin’s crusty, attention-grabbing vocals take centre stage. Alvin said the album was recorded for “the sheer kicks of going into a recording studio to make some joyous noise with musicians and singers that I love and admire.” Sums it up nicely.

Mary Chapin Carpenter, The Dirt and the Stars

Mary Chapin Carpenter is in the sharpest form of her 30 year career with incisive songwriting in a beautiful, intimate album. But watch out for the stinging American Stooge, which takes aim at hypocritical politicians.

The Chicks, Gaslighter

Having dropped the “Dixie” from their name, the three Chicks have released their first album in 14 years. Punchy country pop and defiant take on relationship-gone-bad and politics.

Brandy Clark, Your Life is a Record

Heart-break album, which never descends into melancholy. That’s a feat in itself. Clark proves herself to be, once again, a top-notch song-writer and singer.

Sarah Jarosz, World on the Ground

In this, her 5th album, Jarosz’s songs draw inspiration from her home in Texas, after her world tours and sojourn in New York City. Fine album of folk-pop, featuring Jarosz’s finger-picked guitars and banjo and her meditative vocals.

Brian Fallon, Local Honey

Short, at just over 30 minutes, but it’s fine stuff on this 3rd solo release from Brian Fallon. Local Honey sees the former Gaslight Anthem man move into country folk territory in these fine acoustic-led ballads.

Lori McKenna, The Balladeer

Peerless songwriter McKenna draws inspiration from her family to create an upbeat album of the hugely enjoyable songs we’ve come to expect from her.

Larkin Poe, Kindred Spirits (Read our review here.)

Two voices, two guitars, gorgeous harmonies and eleven classic songs reimagined in a rootsy, fresh manner.

Chris Smither, More From the Levee

From a master song-writer come 10 more songs from his 2014 New Orleans Still On the Levee sessions. His wry wit, rhythmic finger picking an authentic, world-weary singing make any Chris Smither album worth listening to.

 

Chris Stapleton, Starting Over

It’s more of the same from the current king of country, despite the album’s title. Solid country rock with some nice bluesy moment. And two Guy Clark covers can’t be bad, right?

Watkins Family Hour, Brother Sister

Siblings Sean and Sara are excellent songwriters, singers and musicians, all on display in this lovely album, bluegrass based, but with tinges of Americana, jazz and ragtime.

Waxahatchee, Saint Cloud

Apparently inspired by Lucinda Williams’s Car Wheels On A Gravel Road, Katie Crutchfield veers away from melancholy indie-rock back to her country roots – very successfully. Excellent stuff.

And check out our Best Blues Albums 2020.

Gráinne Duffy – rock’n’roll drenched with the blues and southern soul.

Gráinne Duffy is “a powerhouse of soul and inspiration mixed with desire and passion.”

Photo: Rob Blackham

She’s played Glastonbury, and concerts and major festivals in Europe, Africa, North America and Australia, and performed on stages graced by Keb’ Mo’ and Van Morrison. She’s a fine songwriter, a top-notch guitar-slinger and has a rock’n’roll voice drenched with the blues and Southern soul. She’s Gráinne Duffy, now with five excellent albums in her discography, and with Voodoo Blues, is winning new fans all over the world.

Ireland has given the world some top-notch blues and rock artists to enjoy over the years – think Rory Gallagher, Gary Moore and Van the Man – and in Gráinne Duffy from County Monaghan, we have another one. Her four previous releases are all worth your while checking out, but with Voodoo Blues, her talent bursts out big time in ten original songs that showcase the versatility and power of her vocals, her guitar chops, and the strength of her song-writing.

Down at the Crossroads got talking to Gráinne about Voodoo Blues. It’s had a lot of very positive reviews – Rock and Blues Muse, for example, hailed her as “an emerging blues star,” and said that the album “presents her to the world as a roots music creator with a fully-articulated vision that’s ready for the big time.” Rocking Magpie waxed lyrical about the “indelible impression” Duffy makes with this “powerful new release.”

Gráinne said that she was delighted with the positive attention the album has been getting, because she’d worked hard on this set of songs. The songs are co-written by Gráinne and her husband Paul Sherry, who is a sensational guitarist in his own right.

She said that the album was a return to her rock’n’roll roots. “I had done the blues album and the Americana album. And the third album was like a live album and the fourth album was a little bit of transition. We’d gone over to America to record it and it was a bit of a change of direction for us, so I feel like I was being pulled back all the time to my rock and roll roots. And it was very simple production this time, which suits me. We just went into the studio and played everything live, and it was just four of us – bass, drums, two guitars and vocals – just kinda the way rock’n’roll should be. You know, simple and straight up. And I think the fruit of the labour is that the tracks are not overly complicated, but they’ve got the essence of what I think really is me deep down inside.”

The album was recorded more or less live, produced by Troy Miller in his Spark Studios in London toward the end of 2019.

Said Gráinne, “We just had a really simple set-up. I’d been in touch some years ago with Troy Miller, who’s a brilliant producer, and also a really great drummer. He’d been Amy Winehouse’s drummer. And just recently, I thought I’d like to work with Troy again, so I got in touch with him to ask if he’d be interested in working on this album. He said, sure. So my husband, Paul – we write together, play together – and I, we boarded a plane and went over and went down to Troy’s small studio and we got it all done. Troy got Dale Davis the bass player who had played with him for years in Amy’s band on board.

“So we recorded for two days and then I came home and did another two days and it was all done. Yeah, it was great. We had to do some overdubs in Ireland because COVID came and we had been due to go over for a final session and with the whole madness, we weren’t able to travel for it. So the last track we recorded here in Ireland.”

I mentioned to Gráinne that I keep seeing reviewers who pick up on the Ireland connection and they refer to Celtic influences on her music. That’s something I never really hear and I said I wasn’t quite sure what they mean by that.

“Yeah, I’m in the same boat as I read that! I’d love to know what they’re hearing! I think it’s nice and it’s lovely that they’re hearing something Irish, but I’m wondering if nobody told them I was Irish, would they know it was Irish? But that has been mentioned quite a few times. Some people have even said, Oh, I get a sense of the Rory Gallagher here. But you know, that’s not intended. But it’s lovely that comes out – it must be just something in the sound, I don’t know.”

Gráinne Duffy’s music for me is very much American music – it’s grounded in the blues, and it’s got hints of soul and gospel, and that’s what you’ll hear if you check out (and you should!) any of her albums.

“Oh, definitely,” she said. “Because that is really the music I listened to growing up. Particularly the blues – I would have been listening originally to Fleetwood Mac and then from Fleetwood Mac I got into Peter Green, B.B. King, Albert King, and then on into Aretha and all of that sort of stuff. So, I mean, you keep backtracking. If you get into that style of music, you keep trying to delve further back, back until you find the roots. But I would definitely agree with you, it’s definitely coming from America, the style of music that has mostly influenced me.”

Some of the songs on Voodoo Blues, like the title track, Mercy, Tick Tock and Wreck It, are solid rock and blues rock, but there’s a nice variety to the album as well. Listen to the hints of soul, and bits of gospel in Don’t You Cry for Me and Shine It On Me.

Gráinne liked that I’d heard that. “Sometimes you when you do that, some people go, Oh, it’s too eclectic, there’s too much going on. But for me, I felt like it was still held together by the overall rock’n’roll sense of the album, even though there are other influences there. I do listen to a very wide range of music, but I think the rock’n’roll sound kind of underpinned the whole thing and that kept it together.”

Gráinne Duffy, over many years, has been a talented songwriter. But the evidence here in Voodoo Blues is that she is getting even better. These are well-structured songs, with strong lyrics, far beyond some of the simplistic song forms you get in a lot of blues rock. I asked her about her development as a song-writer.

“Well, it is a craft and I suppose craftsmen and women are supposed to get better the longer they’re at it, but sometimes it doesn’t work like that. You can start off on a high and you can just be like, the Mojo’s gone. But with this record, I was listening to a lot of old blues and I really tried to pare it back and make it really simple. And sometimes I think simple is best, but it can be hard to be simple! How often do you hear a big song and you go, that’s just three chords and it’s so simple, but it’s great. But sometimes it takes a long time to arrive there. Maybe with this record, I’ve finally been able to declutter and just try to go straight to the point. That’s what I tried to do. And, what helped the song-writing on this album was I had a good sense of where I wanted to go.”

The songs are all written by Gráinne and her husband and fellow band member, Paul. Gráinne is responsible for the lyrical content and they both collaborated on the music, as they have done for some considerable time. As usual on the album there is great guitar work from Paul, who is a very accomplished player. If you go to one of their live shows, you’ll see him really cut loose, with long solos and fast runs up and down the fretboard, but here on this album, he’s very supportive of each song. It’s restrained, tasteful, and works really well.

“Yeah. I have some friends who love guitar and, they were like, come on, give us more guitar! We want to hear more guitar! We did that in some of our previous records. But this album was maybe a little bit pared back. Maybe in some places we could’ve thrown in an extra guitar solo, but I think the guitar parts which are put down are just perfect.”

I asked if Gráinne had any particular favourites in the mix of the songs.

She mentioned Mercy. “It was one of the first ones that kind of kicked off the album and let me know where I wanted to go.” This is a great showcase for Duffy’s vocal power and control, with the lyrics articulated against an insistent guitar riff and some tasty organ work. “But,” she said, “You know, another one that I particularly like is Hard Rain,” referring to the track that finishes the album, a terrific rocker, which features some mouth-watering backing vocals supporting Duffy’s soulful singing. The song obviously gives a nod to Bob Dylan, a particular hero of Gráinne’s, who told me that Bob could do no wrong in her eyes and that she’d even named her son in honour of the man. She told me she loves Dylan’s current sound and style, which for her is a bit TexMex. “I love the sound that he’s gone for recently. I think it’s brilliant.”

I mentioned another song on the album which I really enjoyed, Roll It, and suggested that it recalled for me Sheryl Crow.

“You know what, I am a big Sheryl Crow fan. I think she’s a great.” But although Roll It might possibly recall Crow’s All I Want to Do, Gráinne suggested she probably had more Gerry Rafferty in her mind with it. Others have heard John Fogerty here. Mention of these other artists and songs simply gives you an idea of the sort of influences swirling around in the background, but Roll It stands on its own two feet. Said Gráinne, “Roll It was supposed to be kind of a fun chillout.”

I said to Gráinne how much I’d loved the organ work on the album, particularly in songs like Mercy, Shine It On Me, and Don’t You Cry For Me. It’s classic-sounding rock Hammond and works really well.

“It’s fabulous. That again, is that mega-talented man Troy Miller. He plays drums on the record, produces it and plays the organ and piano as well! I don’t know how that man fits all that talent into one body, but he’s brilliant. But I love that organ work too. It’s not over or under played, it’s just, to me, spot on. But it’s lovely to hear it being appreciated by somebody else, because sometimes that can just go a little bit unappreciated.”

The great thing about this album is how very upbeat and positive it is. It puts a smile on your face. I wondered if this reflects the sort of person that Gráinne is?

“I think so. My first album, Out of the Dark, was a lot slower and sedate and reflective, and people thought I was the most depressed person in the world! And I used to think, how do people think I’m a really sad person? And Ronnie Greer, a great guitar player from Northern Ireland, lovely man, whom I collaborate with, he would always say to me, Gráinne, this record is nothing like your personality! So, I think, yes, this record is more reflective of what I am actually like as a person. I want to get up and at it, I love playing rock’n’roll and have that positive outlook in life. But it’s funny you say that it’s upbeat because I read one review where it said, this gives us hope that the blues isn’t all sad!”

That the blues is depressing is a misconception that many people not familiar with the blues often have. But the blues singer is usually singing him or herself out of the blues. A song might bemoan the state of the world or the singer’s life, but actually singing the song is a way of getting beyond the bad state of affairs.

“Exactly,” said Gráinne. “And so often if you listen to the early singers, like Ma Rainey or Mama Thornton, any of those people, they usually have an awful lot of humour in their lyrics as well.”

I asked Gráinne about not being able to tour the album at the moment, which has got to be disappointing for her.

“Yes, it is. When the album came out, we were like, all right, what can we do to celebrate the release of the album? Normally you do press that day or that week. And you’d be going up to do a gig, a launch night, and then a few more shows. But this time it was just “Right, will we light the fire?” This is so strange. And, because we feel like we’ve arrived at a nice place with this album and it is quite up tempo, we felt it would have been exciting, fun to go out and play. So it really felt like a bit of a disappointment. But we’re hoping there has to be some sort of a silver lining to the cloud. We’re hoping that maybe people take time to actually listen to the record and get to know it, and when we go to play they’ll really appreciate us.”

I wondered if the band has any major events planned, at least tentatively, given the ongoing pandemic situation.

“Yes. Well, bookings have come in for festivals for this year, but they’re all saying with that they are still unsure. So we think it’s going to be the summer or September by the time we get back to play. We’re a wee bit nervous about booking things because we’ve had to cancel so many travel plans. So we’ll just take it one step at a time.”

One final thing I wanted to ask Gráinne about was that I noticed on the album sleeve they were supporting a charity called We C Hope. What is that about?

“I lost my sister-in-law to cancer,” she said. “So we decided to put We C Hope on there if people wanted to donate towards cancer. It’s a foundation we support.” We C Hope aims to help children who suffer from retinoblastoma, a highly curable form of eye cancer – unfortunately every 85 minutes, a child dies from curable eye cancer, mostly in economically less developed countries, where awareness and access to timely, appropriate medical care is very limited. We C Hope seeks to “create a bright future for all affected by childhood eye cancer.” Check out We C Hope at https://wechope.org/

Voodoo Blues is one of the stand-out rock and blues albums of 2020 and ought to bring Gráinne Duffy to the attention of music fans all over the world. She is a quite special talent, and you ought to hope she has the opportunity before long to demonstrate that on a stage near you.

 

 

Best Blues Albums 2020

Blues is music that gives expression to deep human emotion, both anguish about what’s happening and hope that things will get better. Appropriate music for 2020. In the midst of all the heartache and upheaval that the pandemic has brought, artists have been releasing great music. Every one of these albums is worthy of your attention. Aside from the broad groupings, they are just in alphabetical order, because, how do you compare electric with acoustic blues or blues-rock with blues-Americana? Enjoy.

Here’s Our Top 10

Rory Block, Prove it on Me
Acoustic blues master, Rory Block gives us another terrific album celebrating the blues artists of yesteryear. This time she’s focused on women blues artists, and exploring some of the more obscure material. This 10-song set that features Block’s intricate guitar work, and her singing, nicely phrased and bluesy vocals.

 

Shemekia Copeland, Uncivil War
Again collaborating with Will Kimbrough, Copeland uses her powerful voice to great effect as she rails against the forces of disunity in the United States, the legacy of slavery and gun violence. With the help of Duane Eddy, Jason Isbell, Steve Cropper, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and Jerry Douglas, she delivers a punchy appeal for love and unity in a nicely varied musical feast.

 

Dion, Blues with Friends
With liner notes by Bob Dylan and a stellar cast of blues musicians – Van Morrison, Paul Simon Patti Scialfa and Bruce Springsteen, Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck…the list goes on – Dion’s new album is pretty special. His energy and passion for the blues has clearly not diminished even in his 81^st year. Every track is a highlight and it’s an album you’ll want to return to again and again. As Dion says, “The blues is a beautiful form of music that God gave to us.”

Grainne Duffy, Voodoo Blues
Ireland’s Grainne Duffy packs a mighty blues punch with her passionate and powerful vocals, well-crafted song-writing and top-notch guitar chops. She’s the real deal and this album, surely her best yet, is sheer class from start to finish. If you don’t know Grainne Duffy, remedy that as soon as you can.

 

Catfish Keith, Blues at Midnight
In this, his 19^th album, multiple Grammy nominee Catfish Keith focuses entirely on his own original songs. It’s a “best of” essentially, with songs culled from his forty year career, and if you’re any sort of blues fan at all, it’s a treasure trove of complex finger-picking, slide playing, good tunes and good fun, all done in the spirit of the first generation of blues and roots music. Catch our interview with Catfish here.

 

Larkin Poe, Self Made Man
The Lovell sisters’ latest album takes over from 2018’s terrific Venom and Faith. If anything, the rockin’ blues on offer is even more raw and arresting. This is modern blues at its best and you gotta love the fabulous vocals of Rebecca, the glorious harmonies of the two of them and Megan’s sensational lap steel work. We loved God Moves on the Water, which you’d swear was a cover of an old blues song, but this original testifies to Larkin Poe’s authentic feeling for the blues. Exhilarating, invigorating stuff. Full review here.

Marcus King, El Dorado
First rate set of bluesy, soulful Americana from a man whose guitar chops and richly textured vocals are making a lot of people sit up and take notice. The band graced Eric Clapton’s Crossroads festival last year and this album is sure to enhance its reputation even more. Produced and co-written with the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, there’s a fine balance of approaches here, from powerful blues rock here in The Well to the late-night blues of Wildflowers and Wine to the 70s Southern rock of Sweet Mariona.

Robert Cray Band, That’s What I Heard
Another excellent offering of blues, R&D and soul from the ever-consistent Robert Cray and his band. 12 song of both originals and covers of songs you may not know, all delivered with Cray’s sweet vocals and his clean as a whistle guitar tone. There’s a nice dash of gospel as well with Burying Ground.

 

Walter Trout, Ordinary Madness
After 27 albums and a career spanning five decades, what has the 69-year old Walter Trout left to say? Plenty, it seems, going by this terrific album, one of his best. Eleven songs, recorded at Doors’ guitarist Robbie Krieger’s studio in California, Ordinary Madness sees Trout in stellar form, wielding his Stratocaster as only he can and imposing his big personality on every track. Full review here.

 

Rev. John Wilkins, Trouble
John Wilkins’ second solo album of gospel blues is, quite simply, terrific. Eleven inspirational songs, including some classics like Wade in the Water and Grandma’s Hands are pulled off with considerable aplomb by Wilkins, his three daughters on backing vocals, and a fine quartet comprising Kevin Cubbins on guitar, Jimmy Kinnard on bass, Steve Potts on drums and Rev. Charles Hodges on organ. Sadly John Wilkins passed away on October 6, four days before his 77^th birthday. Full review here.

And here’s the next 10

Elvin Bishop & Charlie Musselwhite, 100 Years of Blues
Two blues veterans collaborate to great effect with twelve classic sounding blues numbers, although just three of them are covers – of songs by Leroy Carr, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Roosevelt Sykes. Raw, authentic, loose and hugely enjoyable.

 

 

Albert Cummings, Believe
An album to savour from blues rock guitarist and singer, Albert Cummings. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, with the legendary Jim Gaines producing, we get six originals and five covers, including the delightful cover of Van Morrison’s Crazy Love, delivered with a laid-back bluesy vocal performance backed up with some lovely gospel vocals. There’s also a terrific version of Wolf’s Red Rooster with some muscular guitar work and vocals to match.

Sonny Landreth, Blacktop
It only takes you to hear a few notes before you recognize that it’s Sonny Landreth. His sixteenth album is exhilarating stuff, with slide playing that is jaw-droppingly good, deadly accurate, sometimes amazingly quick and always with that characteristic Landreth tone. This is a richly textured album from the hugely talented Landreth and his band, which is impressive the first time you hear but repays repeated listens in spades. Full review here.

Eliza Neals, Black Crow Moan
Honest-to-goodness blues rock from the talented Ms Neals, choc full of attitude, sass, top-notch musicianship, and downright good fun. One of the best blues rock albums you’ll hear all year, with Eliza Neals and her group of musicians playing straight out of their hearts and souls. Read our review here.

 

 

Fabrizio Poggio, For You
Italian blues harp player, Fabrizio Poggi’s 23^rd album. For You is a remarkably sensitive and inspirational work of gospel blues which draws you in magnetically and keeps you in wonder throughout the ten tracks of mostly traditional songs. Fabrizio says that “together we can make it,” and that the music is “for those who feel lost when the wind of life blows too strong…for all those who are worried, who feel lonely and lost.” The songs, with their spiritual nature, are indeed songs of succour, of hope, of encouragement. Full review here.

Bobby Rush, Rawer Than Raw
Now well into his 80s, Grammy Award winning bluesman Rush moves away from soul-blues territory to give us a pared-back acoustic set of blues classics and original songs. It’s a raw and hugely enjoyable tribute to the blues history of Mississippi, featuring simply Rush’s guitar, harmonica, stomping feet and authentic blues vocals.

 

Chris Smither, More from the Levee
At 76 years young, Smither can still be relied upon to create great music. Featuring that rhythmic, insistent finger-picking and foot stomp, and Smither’s laid-back vocals, along with his trade-mark intelligent lyrics and quick wit, More from the Levee gives us 10 more songs from Smither’s 2013 New Orleans Still on the Levee recordings. They’re all good ‘uns, as good as any in the Smither canon, all ready for you to pull up a chair on the porch and relax into his good-natured musical charm.

Sunnysiders, The Bridges

The Sunnysiders, hailing from Croatia, are Boris Hrepić Hrepa and Antonija Vrgoč Rola, who have been performing together for the last ten years and have three previous albums. Their latest release, The Bridges, mixed at Ardent Studios in Memphis and featuring guests artists Manu Lanvin, Norman Beaker, Lorenzo Piconne, and Yogi Lonich, offers ten excellent tracks of blues and bluesy Americana. Full review here.

Watermelon Slim, Traveling Man
Bill Homans’ rugged, gritty blues in a generous 18 song package of live performances from 2016 in Oklahoma. It’s just Homan and his twangy resonator on a set of originals and old blues covers, including Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. It’s raw, sittin’-on-the-porch blues, all slide guitar and rasping vocals – old school blues.

 

Lucinda Williams, Good Souls Better Souls
Williams’ raspy, edgy growl adorns a bluesy, gnarly set of apocalyptic songs which explore a world coming apart. Full of punk-rock energy, as Jesse Malin said of it, “It’s like Muddy Waters meets the Stooges. It’s a badass record.” It’s real and it’s raw and no Williams takes no prisoners – certainly not Trump who is firmly in her sights in Man Without A Soul.

“Help me stay fearless,” she sings towards the end of the album, “Help me stay strong.” Her prayer’s been answered in this album.

And our final 5

Joe Bonamassa, Royal Tea
Joe Bonamassa is absolutely at the top of his game in this tribute to the British rock that has always inspired him. Ten songs, written by Bonamassa and a group of top-class writers like Jools Holland, Dave Stewart, Bernie Marsden, and Pete Brown, and featuring Bonamassa’s hugely talented band, it’s a feast of blues and rock best played with the volume turned up as loud as you can take it. Full review here.

 

Robert Jon & the Wreck, Last Light on the Highway
Southern rock with a blues twist. Eleven toe-tapping numbers with some tasty guitar work and the fine vocals of Robert Jon. First rate set of songs from a band clearly enjoying itself.

 

 

Betty Lavette, Blackbirds
Soulful collection of songs from Lavette, now in her 8^th decade, ably backed by Steve Jordan and a fine band. Her voice is raspy and world-weary, but more than able to wrest emotion, blues feeling and joy from the songs as needed. She includes a fine version of that ultimate protest song, Strange Fruit.

 

Cary Morin, Dockside Saints
Cary Morin is a fine fingerstyle guitarist and songwriter, whose music is characterized as acoustic Native Americana with hints of blues, bluegrass, and jazz. These 12 songs in his 7^th album add Creole, Zydeco and Cajun touches to their bluesy feel. Very cool.

 

Victor Wainwright & The Train, Memphis Loud
Raucous boogie-woogie and horns-driven soulish blues from blues award winner and Grammy nominated Wainwright and his band. It’s toe-tapping stuff, never a dull moment, as Wainwright and the Train barrels down through the tracks. Wainwright is a terrific pianist and singer and the band are quite masterful.

 

And three live albums worth mentioning, two from Irishmen, both sadly no longer with us. which capture the dazzling talent of each man.

Gary Moore, London
The guitar legend at the top of his game in a small club performance at London’s Islington Academy on December 2nd, 2009, with beloved Moore favourites like Still Got the Blues and Parisienne Walkways.

 

 

Rory Gallagher, Check Shirt Wizard
Previously unreleased, this blistering 20-song set is from four shows in England during an early 1977 tour across the UK in support of Rory’s then latest album Calling Card.

 

 

Straight to You Live, Kenny Wayne Shepherd
We’ve all been starved of live music this year, so this release from The Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band is especially welcome. Available on both DVD and CD, this 2019 show from the famous Leverkusen Jazzstage captures the seven-piece KWS band as a finely honed unit delivering a performance full of energy and verve. Not to be missed.

 

A Special Mention to:

Bob Dylan, Rough and Rowdy Ways
I thought long and hard whether to include this in the main list. It’s not a blues album per se – songs like I Contain Multitudes and I’ve Made up My Mind to Give Myself to You are, like the rest of the album, quite brilliant, but definitely not blues songs. On the other hand Black Rider and GoodBye Jimmy Reed are for sure. And then there’s the gothic 17 minute Murder Most Foul which may not be blues in form but in lyrical content pretty much is. As is the rest of the album, really, with its apocalyptic overtones and searching questions like, “Is there light at the end of the tunnel?” In any case, it’s a majestic piece of work from the 79 year-old, something of a masterpiece.

 

Music Books for Your Christmas List

Christmas is coming, and if you’re a music fan, you’ll want to drop a few hints to Santa. Here are seven books you’ll definitely want in your stocking:

Michael Corcoran, Ghost Notes: Pioneering Spirits of Texas Music

What a sumptuous feast of a book this is. Coffee table sized, lavishly illustrated, and utterly engaging, it oozes quality from the standard of the writing to the beautiful quality of paper. With Corcoran’s engaging stories highlighting the careers and contributions of a wide variety of pioneering Texas musicians, you begin to realize how important and formative Texas is for American music. Top of your Christmas list. Read our review. Buy it here.

 

Annye C. Anderson, Brother Robert: Growing Up with Robert Johnson

Memories of Robert Johnson from Annye Anderson, Johnson’s almost sister, which introduce us to the Robert Johnson we never knew. A wonderful evocation of a time and place. For any music fan, and particularly if you’re a blues fan, this book is a must-read.

Read our review here.

Buy it here.

 

Adam Gussow, Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of Music

Blues harp master and professor of the blues, Gussow, asks an important question of every blues fan – who do the blues belong to? Expertly and sensitively written by a man who has spent his musical career learning from and playing with black musicians.

Read our interview with Adam Gussow here.

Buy it here.

 

Ian Zack, Odetta: A Life in Music and Protest.

Ian Zack’s biography of Odetta is masterful, as he charts the life of this seminal cultural figure who helped spark the folk revival and became a vital part of the protest movements of the 1950s and 60s. She was on the front line of the struggle for equality in America, combatting racism through her music and actions. An important book and a great read. Full review to come.

Check out also Ian Zack’s excellent biography of Rev. Gary Davis, Say No to the Devil. Here’s our review.

 

Freeman Vines, Hanging Tree Guitars

Freeman Vines, born in 1942 in Greene County in North Carolina is the focus of a quite remarkable book, written by Zoe Van Buren and featuring a stunning set of photographs of Vines, his guitars and his environment by Timothy Duffy. The focus of the book is on one particular aspect of Vines’s life – his crafting of guitars from a tree near where he lived that had been used for lynching. Don’t miss the companion music album. Read our interview with Freeman Vines. Buy it here.

Gary Golio & E.B. Lewis, Dark Was the Night: Blind Willie Johnson’s Journey to the Stars

Another beautifully illustrated book (by E.B. Lewis), and cleverly written by Golio, guaranteed to engage the interest of small children. That’s no small feat, given the harshness of Willie Johnson’s life, a man blinded as a child, who lived in poverty and died penniless in the ruins of his burnt-down home. For parents who’d like their children to encounter something of America’s musical heritage, this, really is a must-buy. Highly recommended. Read our review. Buy it here.

Gary W Burnett, The Gospel According to the Blues

It’s been out for a while, but no matter – it’s mine and I’m gonna recommend it! “The Gospel According to the Blues is at once a primer in American music, culture, and race and religious history. Gary Burnett moves deftly from lyrics to theory and back again, from Blind Lemon Jefferson to the insights of contemporary scholarship. Highly readable, thoroughly researched, and with deep respect for the art form on every page. For best results, read with scratchy vinyl recordings of the masters as accompaniment.” An interview with the author and more details here.

Buy it here.

Vika & Linda – bringing some joy to iso(lation)

Vika and Linda Bull are two roots artists that may not have come across your radar. You ought to remedy that straight away! They are two sisters, based in Melbourne, who have been singing, harmonizing and rocking for many years, delighting audiences in their Australian homeland. Along the way, they’ve supported the likes of Billy Joel and have performed with Iggy Pop. The sisters are members of Paul Kelly’s band – Kelly is a hugely successful Australian rock music singer-songwriter and guitarist, whom a Rolling Stone writer claimed to be “one of the finest songwriters I have ever heard.”

Vika and Linda released a new album this year, called Sunday (The Gospel According to Iso, a fabulous album of rootsy, bluesy gospel songs and we got chatting to Linda about it.

But first of all, because a lot of people in the US and Europe may not be familiar with Vika and Linda, despite their success in Australia, I asked Linda how she would characterize their music?

“Well,” she said, “we’re very hard to pigeonhole. We love harmonizing together and singing together and we cover a lot of different genres. We don’t like being pigeonholed. But I think it’s basically roots music is where our heart is – and harmony. Vika and I have got very different tastes, Vika is more rock and I’m a bit more country. And in between we can cover blues, soul, R&B and gospel. And we love to do that. We love to just sing together – regardless of the genre, we just love singing together.”

Turning to the new album, I wondered what “iso” means. Turns out it’s Australian slang for “isolation.” Linda told me:

“Because we made the album in isolation in the first phase of lock-down in Melbourne, not knowing then that we would have two. The background of the record is that we’ve been singing gospel music for probably about 35 years now.” She and Vika have made a few gospel-tinged recordings along the way, but “this one in its entirety is kind of the next step. We had restrictions with lock-down, so we made it minimally. And I think gospel music actually works really well like that. It works really well when you have very few instruments.”

The album is something of a gem, really pared back, largely featuring the wonderful harmonizing of the two sisters, and backed mostly by piano with those lovely sort of gospel chords that you get with the piano.

“We have piano all over it, in every track, and our musical director, Cameron Bruce, is a beautiful piano player. We’ve worked with him in Paul Kelly’s band, and he took charge of everything with us, helped to select the songs with a lot of zoom meetings. Cameron arranged the songs and then sent them back to us as files and we sang over the top.”

The Gospel According to Iso has 13 gospel songs (with a bit of latitude, we’ll count Simon & Garfunkel’s Bridge Over Troubled Water and Chuck Berry’s Downbound Train as gospel!), mostly old traditional songs or spirituals like Sinnerman, Walk With Me Lord and Jesus on the Mainline. The album kicks off with a rockin’ version of Claude Ely’s Ain’t No Grave Gonna Hold My Body Down, and once you hear these two sisters harmonizing, and the bluesy vocals, you know this is an album you want to hear. The high quality is sustained throughout, and even though the arrangements are relatively sparse, there’s a nice variety to the way each of the songs is handled.

The album, Linda told me, all sprang from a weekly Sunday sing-song that she and Vika started to do when everything stopped in Australia early in the year. “I went out on Facebook and Instagram live every Sunday morning at 11:00am and we did one gospel song. That grew in popularity to the point where we thought we could make a record. We’d just ring a friend, they played guitar, we’d sing over the top, and we thought we could make a record like that.”

Why, I wondered, did they choose this particular selection of songs?

“We had lots of gospel songs in our back catalogue that we’ve been singing over the years, but we wanted to do something new. So I dug into the gospel collection that I had amassed over the years and we had about 70 songs from all different sources. Then we whittled it down and the focus was mainly just to do something that meant something to us and bring a bit of joy because it was pretty sort of sad over here – and everywhere.

“But we wanted also songs that people knew. So we have Bridge Over Troubled Water and Amazing Grace. But then there are other songs that we thought, we’ll just throw those into the pot because we love singing them – songs by Mahalia Jackson and so on. That’s how it came together.”

It’s a great selection of songs, but I particularly like Rosetta Tharpe’s Strange Things Happening Every Day. It’s got a very distinctive Rosetta Tharpe feel about it, with both the piano and guitar work echoing her original version. Linda said she liked Rosetta’s “rock and roll attitude. That’s kind of right up our alley.”

The other song I asked about was Elder Curry’s Memphis Flu. Curry was a singing preacher and guitar player who preached fiery sermons through his songs, backed by the barrelhouse piano of Elder Beck, and featured the stomping feet and clapped hands of his congregation. Recorded in 1930 for Okeh Records, Memphis Flu refers to the flu’ season of 1929 which was the worst since the 1919 pandemic. Death rates were very high, particularly in the Memphis region. The song is often thought of as the first rock’n’roll record and the original is a toe-tapping rocker all right. But Curry’s lyrics are pretty harsh. For Curry influenza was a manifestation of God’s wrath at sinners and there was little compassion for the large numbers of people who’d died as a result of the flu’.

Linda said that when she stumbled across the song, she thought how perfect it was for the current situation – but “the lyrics were very direct. So we tweaked them a bit in the choruses. It’s a gospel song of course, but you’re not going to die if you don’t go to church! But we thought the song was perfect for record. We weren’t sure whether people would love it or hate it!”

Actually, you can’t help but love Vika and Linda’s version, driven by a rollicking barrelhouse piano. The amended version of the song is well-chosen, actually, so timely, and with a great message talking about the epidemic getting the rich and the poor alike, and saying that it’s going to get a whole more if you don’t listen up and behave. Wear your masks people!

I asked Linda if there’d been any sort of pushback against science and wearing masks in Australia?

“There was a bit of a pushback. Yes, there were marches and demonstrations and anti-mask-wearing demonstrations, but all in all, you know, in the middle of all this, there was a black lives matter movement, and people were very observant of wearing a mask and they still went out and protested, so people in general were pretty good. No one loves wearing a mask or being told what to do – I get it, you know, but the result was good.”

Talking about black lives matter, the spectre of racism is something that we’re all increasingly aware of these days. What, I asked Linda, has been her experience in Australia, with her Tongan background?

“Well, yes, we have dark skin. So obviously we look different. So we have experienced a certain amount of racism, but nothing like our mother experienced.” The sisters’ mother came to Australia during the White Australia Policy, which from 1901 basically sought to forbid or restrict people of non-European ethnic origin, especially Asians and Pacific Islanders, from immigrating to Australia. It was only legally disbanded in the mid-1970s.

The racism encountered by Linda and her sister has been “nowhere near as much as the previous generation. So it’s getting easier in some ways, but we feel very strongly about being treated equally, and why shouldn’t we? We are respectful, but we are direct, so I always say we stand up for ourselves.”

The sisters are half Tongan – Tonga is a Polynesian neighbour of Australia, and it’s a heritage they feel proud of.

“Polynesian culture is very strong in our family. And the way they sing – when they sing in church, time pretty much time stops, it’s so beautiful. That’s how we were raised. We were raised listening to the Tongans sing in church, and that’s where we get our voices from. Because they taught us, our mother taught us.”

From listening to Linda and Vika, I’d sure love to visit one of those Tongan churches.

“Everyone we take cries when they see the Tongans fire up…as soon as you walk into the church and they start singing and they get into it, how can you help but not be moved?”

The album finishes with a beautiful, unaccompanied Amazing Grace. The slow tempo and the pure quality of the voices make it an appropriately emotional end to the album. There’s something about this song that seems to appeal to almost everybody, so I asked Linda what she thought it is about gospel music that has such a wide appeal even to people of no faith?

“I think that it’s uplifting and it’s one of those sort of genres that you can lean on when feeling a bit down, or when you could do with an uplift. It lends itself naturally to that sort of universal feeling. You know, we all want to live a little bit better sometimes. Although we grew up in a church and had a very religious upbringing, we think this music is for everybody. And I think that we love singing it because for us, it’s a release. I think it’s ultimately our aim with a gospel record to make people feel better, whether they believe or not.”

Sadly, with the restrictions still in place because of the pandemic, the Bull sisters haven’t been able to go out and play on the road. But, Linda told me, they can’t wait to sing these songs to a live audience. Hearing these two sing these songs live is going to be some experience. I just hope I get the opportunity to hear them.

Adam Gussow and the Brotherhood of the Blues

He’s a top-notch harmonica player whose playing, American Harmonica Newsletters says, is characterized by “technical mastery and innovative brilliance that comes along once in a generation”; he’s been nominated for a W.C. Handy award; in a career spanning over 30 years, he’s played major blues, jazz and folk festivals, and on stages with Bo Diddley, Buddy Guy, David “Honeyboy” Edwards, Otis Clay, and Johnny Winter; he’s the subject of a popular and moving Netflix documentary, along with Sterling Magee, the other half of the duo Satan and Adam; and he’s a popular harmonica tutor with students all over the world benefitting from his online video lessons.

And if that’s not enough, Adam Gussow is a professor of English and Southern Studies at the University of Mississippi, where he teaches courses in American and African American literature, the blues tradition, southern autobiography, and, would you believe it, the literature and culture of running! He’s the author of a number of award-winning blues books including a memoir of his days playing with Sterling Magee, a novel, and Beyond the Crossroads, which was voted “Best Blues Book of 2017” by the readership of Living Blues. And one which enhanced my own understanding of the blues greatly when I read it a few years ago, Seems Like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition, which won the Holman Award from the Society for the Study of Southern Literature.

So, with this rich background as a blues historian, blues artist, blues mentor and teacher, Adam Gussow clearly has a thing or two worthwhile to say about the blues and its history and tradition.

Down at the Crossroads was pleased to get chatting to him recently, and I suggested, first of all, that 2020 had been quite a year for him, with a new book being published, a new album being released and then, of course, that Netflix film.

He pointed out that the film had come out first of all at the Tribeca folk festival back in April 2018, but began to show up on Netflix last year. At that point, his email box blew up with lots of people he’d never heard from telling him how much it had touched them. If you haven’t seen it, don’t hesitate, it’s a great show and tells a remarkable and heart-warming story.

It charts the story of Adam’s relationship with Sterling Magee, beginning with his 1986 Harlem street jams with “Mr Satan,” at a time of considerable racial tension, and stretching through the next 23 years as they became a touring duo, were included in U2’s Rattle and Hum documentary, and released a number of albums before Sterling Magee mysteriously disappeared. What happened next is remarkable and I’ll not spoil it for those who haven’t seen it.

Adam said he had nothing to do with the way that director V. Scott Balcerek told the story but that he was pleased with the way it turned out. The film begins with Adam meeting Sterling on the street and beginning to jam, but what the film doesn’t explain is that Adam by that stage was an accomplished harmonica player. He had been tutored by Nat Riddles, a New York blues master. “Nat Riddles was a very important figure in my life, my mentor, and I had been a busker in New York, played solo, then played with two different guitar players, and then spent two months in Europe in the summer of ’86. So there was a whole lot of dues paid.”

Overall, though, Gussow said, “I think V. Scott Balcerek did a really good job and the proof of the pudding is that people again and again, say ‘it brought tears to my eyes.’”

He went on to explain the importance of that more sentimental aspect of the film, by mentioning Martin Luther King’s ideas about the beloved community, the interrelatedness of humanity. “I think,” he said, “there’s a lot of people who imagine that that idea just kind of somehow faded away. And I think that what our film does, is that it offers a kind of story, a narrative, living proof of that forged long-term brotherhood kind of relationship. And I think it gives people hope with all of this identity politics stuff.”

“I think that Sterling and I were kind of race rebels in some way, playing on the streets during a rough period of New York history in which young black men died. There’s no question that it was a rough time and he and I were out there, and he was very conscious, and he helped me be conscious, of the way in which we were offering a kind of a living image of brotherhood… after a while I sank into the woodwork. It was like I was just a part of the street scene. And all the guys who hung out around us…I was just wanting to be one of the guys. But what I would say is that 99.9 times out of a hundred, the response that I got, when people came up, and it wasn’t like they were praising me, it was more like it was a chance for them to talk, even connect in some ways.”

Gussow talked about what had happened in December 1986 in New York when a white mob in Queens had severely beaten three African Americans who’d been stranded when their car broke down, one of whom had been killed whilst trying to flee. Gussow had been away in California for a couple of weeks and when he came back in early January, he found Sterling and began to play on the street with him again. “At least two hundred people came up to give us, to shake my hand, which is to say, people were saying, basically, not only are they not associating me with the whiteness out at Queens that had killed this black guy, they were saying, we’re glad you’re here…we have a partnership. What’s going on in Queens can’t touch the brotherhood that you all are putting out right here.”

I asked Adam about his new book, called Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of Music, in which he contrasts and discusses two opposing views of the blues. One he calls blues universalism, where there’s “no black, no white, just the blues,” with a recognition that the blues is played and appreciated globally. And the other is “black bluesism,” which insists that the blues is black, and wants to resist cultural appropriation and to ensure the trauma of black communities which is inherent to the blues is properly safeguarded. It’s an important question, and one which Gussow deals with in a thought-provoking and sensitive way. He has, after all, come face-to-face with the issue in his long-standing engagement with black blues artists over many years; and, his in-depth knowledge of the blues and the social history of the blues gives him the tools with which to open up the discussion for the rest of us.

I asked him who the book is aimed at and he suggested there were several.

“One audience is probably white, Anglo, American blues aficionados, blues fans and blues musicians…What I’m determined to do is to think about the way that we talk about the music and to sort of educate. My generation of blues players, and I’ll say white blues players, came up at a time – and I know many musicians who fit this mould, including the guys a generation or half a generation ahead of me, like Rick Estrin and Kim Wilson, white harmonica players – came up at a time when, if you’re going to learn the music, you were in predominantly black or all black contexts, some part of the time you were in bands backing up African-American players, and you were getting all of this mentoring, all of this understanding. If you’re Paul Oscher, you were in an all-black context in Chicago.

“And there’s a number of us out there who had that sort of training, which is to say we can’t think about blues without thinking about African-American mentors, teachers, friends, who you’re on the road with. It’s your family. So that’s how we grew up. That’s how we learned the music. That’s how we think of the music. And so, you know, the phrase blues is black music obviously has a kind of weird paradoxical resonance for us, because on the one hand, we know the guys we learned from, we have played with. We also know that we’re a part of it though.

“So there’s a paradox there. So, what we don’t want to hear is that phrase and think you’re trying to tell me I don’t have a right to play this, to carry on a tradition that I was mentored into with somebody who trained me and valued the training he gave me…those guys would often talk about these younger white musicians as their sons.

“But there’s a younger generation that didn’t have that experience at all. And as blues goes around the globe, there are cultures in, it could be Ireland, it could be Chile and Argentina, where there’s no African-American presence to speak of. And so somebody might hear the phrase, blues is black music, and really not even feel the tension that I feel. Really not even get it. And so part of what I’m trying to do is speak to that audience. And I’m trying to say, let’s go back, at least before we move on into the future of this music, let’s go back into that.

“Before we go to the future, let’s go back and understand how the music really came into being with all of the paradoxes – one of my favourite little anecdotes is that in the 1920s, you get this handbook basically for would-be white blues singers written by two African-American blues songwriters that is saying, you must empathize with the lowdown feeling. The music is full of paradoxes, but there’s no question that it has a sort of black Southern identity in some profound way.

“It’s in the language, it’s in the call and response. So I want to make sure that everybody is grounded in that. And that was where, as somebody who taught blues literature, I was invested in saying, here’s how thinking about W.C. Handy can help you. Here’s how thinking about blues conditions, blues feelings, blues expressiveness, the blues ethos, here’s how those concepts can actually help ground you in this. And so that’s one of the audiences and I didn’t want to push that audience away from the music at all.”

Adam’s second audience, he says is the Corey Harrises of the world, black American artists who feel somewhat possessive about the music. “I want to say, I understand that. I want to think critically about the phrase, no black, no white, just the blues. I’m trying to understand what the people who use that think they’re saying. And why people who don’t like that, don’t like it. Maybe diffuse a little bit, I’m trying to see things from a range of perspectives.”

The third audience, he says, is academic readers, people who might be teaching the music. “So that’s why in some of the chapters I talk about the way in which I teach the blues. And my hope would be that those chapters might be of interest to people who teach the blues or are thinking about the blues. It may be in a school context and might help people think a little more clearly about stuff.”

That’s a very interesting section of Whose Blues? where Gussow talks about the worldwide interest in the blues, particularly in his own area of harmonica. He introduces us here to harmonica players around the world who have been keen to learn from Gussow’s library of video tutorial material at www.modernbluesharmonica.com, some of whom have become accomplished players.

In conversation, Adam talked more about blues around the world, noting the role that B.B. King had playing the blues in around 55 countries and seeding the blues in places like Japan and Russia, African American blues artists going to play festivals in Europe, the British blues explosion in the sixties, and the role of American and British radio stations over the years. The blues has truly become a worldwide phenomenon.

In the book, Gussow says, “These are in the process of mastering the music as best they can and making it a part of their own developing cultural inheritances. Should we celebrate this change or condemn it? Should we embrace the postmodern globalization of the blues as a kind of progress, a victory for blues music as a cultural form, or critique that global spread as a crisis of cultural expropriation and dilution, a tragic erasure of the burdens and meanings of black history into the very fabric of music?”

The reality is, Adam told me, that if we were to do “a census of all of the people in the world who listened to blues today, and all of the musicians who played the music, we’d find that African-Americans are the least part of it these days. But in global terms they’re still there. They’re not irrelevant at all. In fact, a lot of the images, the music, the language – everybody knows Hoochie Coochie Man, I’ve got my mojo working, right? And those are all that kind of hoodoo stuff that goes directly back to sort of African rituals. That’s blues music.”

Gussow seems keen to, as he says, embrace the globalization of the blues, but at the same time wants to ensure the blues history, its tradition, its feeling is not lost. And he wants to ensure that the African-American presence is still felt.

Zora Neale Hurston

Which was why he says he thought it was important to talk about blues literature in his book. One of the interesting things you’ll find in the book is the considerable amount of discussion Gussow has about blues writers, as opposed to just musicians: Langston Hughes, Ralph Ellison, Richard Wright, and Zora Neale Hurston. I would hazard a guess and say that most blues fans don’t know them at all. Gussow suggested to me that “blues is more than music,” which you discover when you read the blues literature, including authors he doesn’t deal with in the book, like poets Sterling Plumpp and Tyehimba Jess.

So, as well as acknowledging the reality of people responding to, and wanting to listen and play the blues around the world – and encouraging that, and welcoming that – Adam Gussow is anxious that the way in which the blues is rooted in Black history is kept to the fore.

“Blues is history. Blues is survival tools. It’s a site of memory. I try to make this point in my book, of memory for the traumas of slavery and Jim Crow. Blues indexes the sufferings of Jim Crow. And it’s a way of connecting with that history. And I think it’s so important that we not forget that, that we not imagine blues as just music. I don’t think of blues as just music. I think it is a music, but it has a power that’s deep, and it has some deep magic in it that I’ve certainly felt as long as I’ve been alive.”

Adam Gussow’s deep experience of the brotherhood of the blues, forged through decades playing with Sterling Magee and other African Americans, is on the one hand able to transcend race, but on the other it is rooted in the historical reality of the blues as a complex response to the context of social and political oppression of African Americans. That seems to me to a good pointer to the future. The globalization of the blues just is. But we need voices like Adam Gussow’s to keep us mindful of the reality of the blues.

Since call and response, as Gussow explains, is a key part of the blues, it’s appropriate, I think, to conclude with this joint statement – first the Black Arts Movement spokesperson Larry Neal (in italics), then Gussow’s commentary, echoing and expanding on Neal’s pronouncement.

“The blues were shaped in the context of social and political oppression…the blues are basically defiant in their attitude toward life. They are about survival on the meanest, most gut level of human existence. They are, therefore, lyric responses to the facts of life…These blues are not sorrow songs but survivor songs: the soundtrack of a spiritual warriorship that refuses to say die. These blues wrest far more than their share of swaggering lyric joy out of an evil world, inscribing personhood and sustaining the tribe in the process.”

Whose Blues? Facing Up to Race and the Future of Music by Adam Gussow, is published by University of North Carolina Press.

Hanging Tree Guitars

Lynching is a terrible stain on the history of the United States. Between 1882 and 1968, around 5,000 people were lynched, 73% of them black. It was a form of terrorism on the black community, particularly in the Southern States, with the Klu Klux Klan and other paramilitary groups ruthlessly defending white supremacy. Lynching was brutal, and involved torture, mutilation, hanging and burning.

One man who remembers the terror of lynching is Freeman Vines, born in 1942 in Greene County in North Carolina. He’s the focus of a quite remarkable book, which features a stunning set of photographs of Vines, his guitars and his environment by Timothy Duffy and input from folklorist Zoe Van Buren.

Vines is an intriguing character, who has had a colourful life reflective of the struggles and hardships of African Americans in the 20^th century, and I had the opportunity to chat to him about his life and the book. But the focus of the book is on one particular aspect of Vines’s life – his crafting of guitars from a tree near where he lived that had been used for lynching. In one sense this may seem somewhat morbid, but the project serves to highlight the horror of lynching and how its spectre still hovers over America. And, indeed, the ongoing white violence that many people of colour still face.

For Freeman, having been given the black walnut wood which he had been told had come from a lynching tree, he was simply building more guitars, looking for the elusive sound he had been searching for over many years as a guitar maker. That was the holy grail, it seems, that had driven his art during his life.

But as he worked on the guitars at night, “strange things started to happen,” and the guitar work seemed to take on a life of its own and he ended up carving “some horrific figures” on them. “You had to see ‘em and play ‘em to know what I’m talking about.” About the finished articles, he told me he was glad to see them go, because “I was real uncomfortable with them around me.” The project took a considerable emotional toll on Vines; he said he was worried “about how that boy had to die,” referring to Oliver Moore, a young man who was last person to be lynched on the tree in 1930. His body was riddled with over 200 bullets.

The book documents photographer Timothy Duffy’s investigations about where the wood had come from, resulting in him meeting a woman whose great-grandfather had orchestrated the last lynching to take place on the tree. Freeman didn’t want to know the details about what had taken place, because he told me, “some of them people still live down here,” obviously anxious about relations with his neighbours.

Freeman Vines has lived with racism all his life. When he was growing up the Klu Klux Klan was very active where he lived and billboards declared “You are in the heart of Klan country: welcome to North Carolina.”

“I remember all kinds of stuff,” he told me, before going on to relate a horrific story of an old man he knew when he was a boy who was falsely accused of exposing himself to a white woman and who was abducted and dragged behind a truck until he died. “The white man,” he says, “is a dangerous man.” Even today, I asked him, in 2020? “Yeah, it ain’t no joke, man.” Racism he said, “is about the same way it’s always been.”

Tim Duffy, self-portrait

Hanging Tree Guitars is also about the photographer, Timothy Duffy, who met and befriended Freeman Vines and began to photograph the guitars he made. Duffy specializes in collodion wet plate processing for his photography, an early form of photographic processing which requires a darkroom in the field. Although invented at the end of the nineteenth century, there has been a revival of interest in the method, and certainly, Duffy’s photographs, which are a major feature of the book, are nothing short of stunning. They have an aged quality to them which entirely suits the subject matter, and you’d buy the book just for the photographs.

Duffy says that the journey he took photographing Vines’s work and pursuing the story behind the hanging tree “has had a profound impact on me, all of which I have yet to understand.” The book, then, is very much the story of the intersection of two artists, from two very different worlds, one white, one black, and both working in completely different media. The two formed a seemingly unlikely friendship, helped it seems, according to Freeman, by Duffy’s wife’s feeding him the “best rice and chicken I ever ate.” At the same time, Timothy Duffy and the book’s author, Zoe Van Buran, speak of the hospitality they received on Freeman’s porch.

But ultimately, the book is about Freeman Vines and the insight his life gives us to the past and its legacy. Freeman, whose very name points back to America’s troubled past, was born in poverty in North Carolina. His family lived on a white man’s farm where his mother worked as a “housewoman,” cleaning, washing and cooking and being paid in groceries and clothes. Vines said it was worse than the days of slavery because “you had the idea that you were free, but you weren’t.”

By the time he was fourteen Freeman Vines was doing time in the penitentiary. When I asked him about that, he preferred not to talk about the circumstances surrounding this, except to tell me that he learned to read and write from comic books in the prison library.

He started building his own guitars after playing the blues from a desire to find his own sound – “I didn’t want to sound like the average blues man.” He had heard a gospel musician play a guitar when he was young and that sound has haunted him ever since – “a most disturbing sound, but pleasing and comfortable.”

“Each wood has its own sound when you’re cutting and sanding on it, but you have to be alone to hear it.” The sound, he says, “is already there,” and all you have to do is do the carving and release it. I asked him if there was a particular wood that he liked, maybe cedar or walnut or pine, and he told me that the best wood he’d ever found was the tight-grained pine from the soundboard of a 175-year-old Steinway piano. Freeman Vines is not your regular luthier.

He built guitars for over 50 years, experimenting with woods and pick-ups, but has never yet found what he’s been looking for – “I know I ain’t never gonna find that sound, because I’m too old now.” Yet his guitars made their way into the hands of various professional, touring musicians, both blues and gospel artists. “They was ugly guitars,” said Freeman, “I didn’t even know they sounded so good until I heard them on recordings.” Freeman had never been satisfied with what he heard from Fender and Gibson electric guitars and always felt his guitars, although not finely finished, lacquered or stained, were superior.

Freeman Vines has four sisters who make up the famous gospel group, the Glorifying Vines Sisters, who first recorded in the 1970s and are still making music. Freeman went a different direction, but in the book he is quoted as saying he had been very moved by his sister being healed at a gospel meeting and was considering becoming a Christian himself. Sadly, he told me, the recovery didn’t last, but Freeman said he was still thinking about faith.

The book quotes Freeman as saying, “A person has to have a purpose to live.” I asked him what his purpose has been. For Freeman, it’s all about his work as an artist – “What excites me is wood I can communicate with.” And he’s got a new batch in, “highly figured,” which he was clearly pretty excited about. It’s a great thing, to still be excited about what you do when you’re nearly 80 years old.

The story of Freeman Vines and the hanging tree guitars is a remarkable one and a sobering one. It holds a mirror up to the troubled past, and present of America. At the same time, the book gives a quite remarkable picture of the deep engagement of two artists, Vines and Duffy, over a period of years, and the impact that had on both men. It is an utterly absorbing work, disturbing in some ways, and quite unique. Zoe Van Buren’s handling and presentation of the material is masterful and her afterword quite beautifully written.

There is a companion CD available to go with the book, 12 songs from Duffy’s archive. along with three songs performed by the Vines family, which provide a glimpse into the music that inspired Freeman Vines’s lifelong search for a tone.

The project was supported by the Music Maker Relief Foundation, which was founded by Timothy Duffy and his wife Denise Duffy and which seeks to give relief to senior American roots musicians. Hanging Tree Guitars is published by Bitter Southerner in conjunction with Music Maker Relief Foundation.

Find out more at www.hangingtreeguitars.com All photographs by Timothy Duffy.

 

 

20 Blues Train Songs You Must Hear

The railroad has a special place in the blues. Lovers leave on the train, singers go searching for them by the train, the gospel train is on its way, and the ramblin’ bluesman needs to board that train and ride.

Railroads were one of the major infrastructural and economic achievements of the nineteenth century and loomed large in the lives of people as the blues began to develop. You recall that the story of the very beginnings of the blues was at a railway station – in 1903, whilst waiting for a train in Tutweiler, Mississippi, bandleader W.C. Handy heard a man running a knife over the guitar strings and singing. He said,

“A lean, loose-jointed Negro had commenced plunking a guitar beside me while I slept. His clothes were rags; his feet peeped out of his shoes. His face had on it some of the sadness of the ages. As he played, he pressed a knife on the strings of a guitar in a manner popularized by Hawaiian guitarists who used steel bars. The effect was unforgettable. His song, too, struck me instantly. ‘Goin’ where the Southern cross’ the Dog.’ The singer repeated the line three times, accompanying himself on the guitar with the weirdest music I ever heard.”

Handy later published an adaptation of this song as “Yellow Dog Blues,” and became known as the “Father of the Blues.”

Freed slaves had built the railroad with their blood, sweat and tears, and in the early years of the twentieth century, it was the primary means of transport for people for longer distances. For itinerant blues musicians like Robert Johnson, trains allowed them to move from place to place and ply their trade. Johnson’s sister, Annye Anderson, in her book, Brother Robert, remembers Robert “hoboing” around on the train, going back and forth from Memphis to the Delta for his music. His famous train song, of course, is Love in Vain.

The train was the means of escape, too, for black people wanting to leave behind the injustice of the Jim Crow South and seek a better life in the North and West. From 1916 onwards, around 6m people moved away from the racist ideology, the lynching and the lack of economic opportunity to cities like Chicago, Philadelphia, Detroit and New York. Famously, McKinley Morganfield – Muddy Waters – boarded a train for Chicago in 1943 to become the “father of Chicago blues” and pioneer electric blues.

Trains in the South were, of course, segregated. In the “colored” section, there were no luggage racks, requiring travellers to cram their suitcases around their feet; and the bathroom there was smaller and lacked the amenities of the “whites” bathroom. All these were subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that you were not as good as the people in the other section.

So James Carr’s Freedom Train of 1969 was significant. Attorney General Tom C. Clark had organized a Freedom Train as “a campaign to sell America to Americans” to try and bolster the sense of shared ideology within the country. The train was integrated, but several Southern cities refused to allow blacks and whites to see the exhibits at the same time, and the Freedom Train skipped the planned visits. Carr’s song celebrates a new Freedom Train, free from segregation and discrimination. where “every man is gonna walk right proud with his head up high.”

So, here’s to trains, and may the Freedom Train keep on rollin’ down the track!

Here are 20 blues train songs for you to enjoy.

Trouble in Mind (1924)

In this old blues standard, things are so bad, the singer wants to end it all – he’s going to lay down his head on that old railroad iron, and let that 2.19 special pacify his mind. It never really gets to that point, happily, because, “sun’s gonna shine in my back yard some day.” First recorded in 1924, it’s been done by Nina Simone, Janis Joplin, Snooks Eglin, Lightnin’ Hopkins and many more. I like this jaunty version by Brooks Williams from his Brooks Blues album of 2017.

Railroad Blues , Trixie Smith with Louis Armstrong  (1925)

Trixie Smith, not related to Bessie Smith, paid her dues in vaudeville and minstrel shows, as well as performing as a dancer, a comedian, an actress, and a singer. Here she is backed by Louis Armstrong’s muted horn, as she is “Alabama bound” on the railroad.

The Mail Train Blues, Sippie Wallace (1926)

The Texas Nightingale recorded 40 songs for Okeh during the 1920s before going on to be a a church organist, singer, and choir director, and then eventually reviving her performing career in the 1960s. In Wallace’s 1926 Mail Train Blues she bemoans her sweet man leaving her and wants to go looking for him aboard the mail train.

Spike Driver Blues. Mississippi John Hurt (1928)

This and other songs recorded by Hurt in 1928 were not commercially success and he reverted to the farming life until being found in 1963 by Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins, and persuaded to perform and record again. John Hurt had a wonderful guitar picking style which is credited by many guitarists as their inspiration. Spike Driver Blues is a John Henry song where the “steel-driving man” dies as a result of his hammering a steel drill into rock to make holes for explosives to blast the rock in constructing a railroad tunnel.

Long Train Blues, Robert Wilkins, (1930)

Wilkins was a versatile blues performer from Mississipi who gave up playing the blues to become a gospel minister in 1936. An excellent guitarist, he came to light again in the 1960s and recorded some of his gospel blues. Long Train Blues, which he recorded in 1930 tells the tale of a lover who has run off on the train.

Too Too Train Blues, Big Bill Broonzy (1932)

There’s some nifty acoustic guitar work here by the hugely talented Bill Broonzy, with another “my baby done left me aboard the train” blues. Broonzy sustained his career successfully from the 1920s to the 1950s, performing both traditional numbers and his own compositions, recording more than 300 songs.

The Midnight Special, Leadbelly (1934)

Recorded in 1934 by Huddie William “Lead Belly” Ledbetter at Angola Prison for John and Alan Lomax, the song has been covered by a host of artists, notably John Fogerty’s Creedance Clearwater Revival. The Midnight Special is said to be the name of a train that left Houston at midnight, heading west, running past Sugarland prison farm, the train’s light becoming a symbol for freedom for the inmates. The song also references the injustice of black men being incarcerated for minor infractions.

Love in Vain, Robert Johnson (1937)

Famously covered by the Rolling Stones for their 1969 Let It Bleed album which featured some tasty electric slide guitar, Love in Vain is a Robert Johnson song recorded in his last studio session in 1937. Johnson’s guitar work is outstanding, as is his singing. The sense of loss is palpable, and you hear Johnson crying out his lover Willie Mae’s name near the end of the song.

This Train, Rosetta Tharpe (1939)

This old gospel song has been around since the 1920s and has been extensively recorded. Bruce Springsteen’s Land of Hope and Dreams takes This Train as its starting point but reworks the ideas of the original so that everybody can get aboard. Tharpe’s more original version has “everybody riding in Jesus’ name”; it’s a “clean train, which won’t take “jokers, tobacco chewers and no cigar smokers.” The song was a hit for Tharpe in the late ‘30s and again in the ‘50s. This live performance gives some sense of what an expressive and incredible performer Tharpe was, not to mention her impressive guitar chops. The 1939 version was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame

Lonesome Train, Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee (1952)

Just a great train song, with Sonny Terry’s harp driving the train down the track in this instrumental track. There are a few “whoooos” hollered along the way by the duo, who had a 35-year partnership. A masterclass in harp playing. The song was recorded by Sonny Terry in 1952 along with the Night Owls.

Mystery Train, Junior Parker (1953)

Mississippi bluesman Parker’s 1953 hit inspired a number of later versions, notably Paul Butterfield Blues Band’s take in 1965. In Parker’s version the drums mimic the rattle of the train on the track and the tenor sax the wail of the whistle. Butterfield adds a nice bit of harmonica.

Southbound Train, Muddy Waters (1957)

This is another Big Bill Broonzy song from 1957, which Muddy Waters recorded on his tribute to Broonzy in 1960, Muddy Waters Sings “Big Bill.” Broonzy had mentored Waters when he came to Chicago. Waters version isn’t too far removed from Broonzy’s, both piano driven blues, but Water’s version features some nice harp from James Cotton. The song has the singer heading South to the lowlands to escape his faithless lover.

Freight Train, Elizabeth Cotton (1957)

The song actually is about dying and being laid to rest at the end of Chesnut Street, so “I can hear “old number 9 as she comes rolling by.” Remarkable really, when Cotton said she composed the song as a teenager (sometime 1906-1912). She recorded it in 1957 and it’s been covered by many artists, including Peter, Paul & Mary, Joan Baez and Odetta. Cotton was a great guitar picker and this song has been a favourite for aspiring acoustic guitar players to learn. (Guitarist – check out Tommy Emmanuel’s lesson here (easy!!)

Freight Train Blues, Bob Dylan, 1962

Bob Dylan here echoes Elizabeth Cotton’s song in this 1962 recording from his debut album. Dylan tells a tongue-in-cheek but atmospheric story of poverty, rambling and the freight train. It’s typical early Dylan, all strummed acoustic guitar and harmonica.

Freedom Train, James Carr (1969)

A 1969 R&D hit for James Carr, Freedom Train reflects the Civil Rights movement of the sixties: “It’s time for all the people to take this freedom ride, Got to together and work for freedom side by side.” Born in Mississippi, Carr grew up singing in the church, but his R&D success led to his being called “the world’s greatest R&D singer.”

Hear My Train A-Coming, Jimi Hendrix (1971)

Hendix’s train song is typical Hendrix – overdriven, psychedelic guitar pulsing. It’s on his 1971 Rainbow Bridge album, but Hendrix performed the song in a BBC performance in 1967. He has also been recorded doing an acoustic version of the song on a 12-string guitar, giving it a Delta blues sound, Hendrix clearly familiar with the style of the acoustic blues masters of the past. Here’s some rare footage of Jimi Hendrix playing acoustic guitar.

Get Onboard, Eric Bibb (2008)

The title track of blues troubadour Eric Bibb’s 2008 album. Bibb, in his customary positive fashion, wants us to get on board the “love train.” There’s “room for everybody,” he sings as the band, including some nice harmonica, rattles us down the track.

Slow Train, Hans Theessink, 2012

Good times, bad times, tired and weary – Dutch guitarist and songwriter Hans Theessink has been singing the blues for a very long time and knows how to craft a blues song. This one is from his excellent 2012 Slow Train album, and features Theessink’s superb acoustic finger-picking and his rich bass-baritone voice.

When My Train Pulls In, Gary Clark Jr. (2013)

“Everywhere I go I keep seeing the same old thing & I, I can’t take it no more,” sings Clark, surely against the backdrop of racism in America. Hailing from Texas, the Grammy winning Clark is an outstanding guitarist and prolific live performer. This performance of the song which appears on his 2013 Blak and Blu album, showcases Clark’s guitar chops and his classy vocals.

Train to Nowhere, J J Cale (2014)

Eric Clapton recorded this previously unreleased J J Cale song on his tribute to Cale, The Breeze in 2014. The song features Mark Knopfler singing and playing guitar and is both unmistakably a J J Cale song and a train song. The lyrics look to be about that last train ride we all have to take and are a little bleak.

This Train, Joe Bonamassa (2016)

It’s full steam ahead for Joe’s train, in this case his baby who “comes down like a hammer” and “hurts him bad.” It’s all good stuff, with the usual Bonamassa guitar pyrotechnics. But Bonamassa has become a fine singer as well, which This Train amply demonstrates. The song is on his 2016 Blues of Desperation album, but there are some great live versions available too.