Chris Smither on getting older, getting wiser and where in the world he feels happiest.

“Smither is an American original – a product of the musical melting pot and one of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world.” (Associated Press)

Chris Smither has had a performing and recording career for nigh on fifty years and has just released his 18^th album, Call Me Lucky. It’s a terrific piece of work showcasing his skill and experience as a bluesman, guitarist and songwriter.

His songs have been covered along the way by artists like Bonnie Raitt, Diana Krall, Emmylou Harris and John Mayall, and he’s renowned for his rhythmic acoustic fingerpicking guitar. Long-time producer David Goodrich worked on the album with Smither, along with Billy Conway, Matt Lorenz, Keith Gary and Mike Meadows, to create a fine, bluesy album of Americana that features eight Chris Smither originals and a three nicely conceived, but surprising covers. It’s effectively a double album, the second CD consisting of a cover of the Beatles’ She Said, She Said and a reworking of five of the songs on the first.

As you’d expect on a Chris Smither album, the lyrics are sharp and laced with wry humour, without ever being cynical, the new songs demonstrating once again the importance of Chris Smither as a songwriter and artist.

Chris is touring with this album throughout the US and UK through until the Spring of next year. Be sure and catch a show! Down at the Crossroads chatted to him about the album:

DATC: Chris, Tell us about the idea behind the album, is there an overall thrust or theme of the album? And maybe a bit about making the album.

CS: At some point along the line I decided it’s time to make a new record and that means I need to write some new songs. Because I don’t write all the time, I write for specific projects. Having said that, of course, most of the songs are written within a nine months period and that usually means that they are thematically related, because they’re about what I’ve been thinking about lately. They tend to resemble themselves in some respects, but there’s no intentional feeling to the entire thing. If you’re looking for a theme, I’d say the idea behind the record is to get a new record out! [laughs]

The making of the record itself was what has become very standard for me…my producer makes suggestions…he has insights into what’s going on with me that I don’t even have yet. And at one of our meetings – we’d usually get together for a couple of days at a time – we started talking about covers, and he wanted to know if I wanted to do any covers of other people’s songs on this record. And I said well, I haven’t thought about it.

But then we were also having a conversation about Chuck Berry, who at the time was still alive – not for long unfortunately – and he had just turned 90 and made a new record. And we were wondering what Chuck Berry sounded like at 90! And then Goody [David Goodrich] says, hey, play Maybelline in a minor key – see if that sounds like a 90 year old! [laughs] So we started fooling around with it and we said, oh man we gotta do this. Because it changed the song so dramatically.

DATC: Yes, it’s fantastic. It’s like a new song…it’s like a Chris Smither song!

CS: Yes I know! And that kind of sums up this whole subject of covers. We had this on-going conversation about cover songs, and when we were down in Texas working on the record – those guys I was working with, well they stayed up a lot later than I do! I’m an old man, I go to bed at like, 11 or 12 o’clock, but they’re studio rats, they stay up until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning. And they started playing around with stuff that we had just recorded. They’d take a song we had just recorded and totally re-imagine it, the whole arrangement. I remember the first one they did, it was the punk version of Down to the South and I walked in the next morning and they said, hey listen to this, do you think you could sing to this?! And I said, yeah, I’ll give it a shot. And it was just a goof, just playing around. And so I did it, and the next night they did another one. And I walked in the next morning and they said, sing this, this is a slow version of a fast song. So we started playing around with it and by the time we had about three of them, we thought, you know this sounds pretty good, we should just include this with the record.

DATC: So these are the alternative versions on the second CD?

CS: Yeah, those are all the alternative versions. It was just sort of playing around in the studio and then saying, hey this is interesting, we should let people hear this.. And then the only song on that disk that isn’t mine is the Beatles’ She said, She said. I had learned the song when I was asked to participate in a John Lennon tribute concert about 3 years ago, and I started working on that arrangement of the song. But then I had to cancel, because I had to have a heart operation, so I never got a chance to play it! And I was fooling around with it one afternoon in the studio and Goody said, What is that? And I said, She Said, She Said, and then Matt Lorenz [The Suitcase Junkett] started in on some harmonies, and we said, yes, we should do this, we should record this.

DATC: That’s interesting, Chris. Of course, you’ve a long history as an interpreter of songs. You’re not afraid to take on classic songs that are very familiar to people. When you decide on a song you’re going to cover, how do you go about that process of re-interpretation, of putting your own stamp on it?

CS: You know, I don’t really think about it that much. First of all, I don’t really think about covering a song unless I’m really familiar with it, where I’ve listened to it a hundred times at least. So basically, I just sit down and start playing around on the guitar, and I don’t ever go back to the original. I want to depend on my own memory of what it was like, because that’ll tell me what it was about the song that impressed me the most.

DATC: With something like Dylan’s Desolation Row, of course, it was probably very difficult to get the original out of your head!

CS: It was, but, you know, even on Dylan songs, when I hear them, I tend to sing harmonies along with them, and more or less the way I think it should go [laughs], and so basically, what happens is what I remember is my own harmony of it, as opposed to the way he does it.

And when you talk about covering Dylan, when I did Visions of Johanna, that whole tune – I do it in 3/4, instead of 4/4 – because that’s just the way I hear it. All the significant lines in that song make for a perfect waltz time – it’s actually 6/8.

DATC: I read in Acoustic Guitar Magazine that they said the album was about the big things – life, love, loss. And I’ve listened to it a lot over the past week or so, and as I’ve listened to it, I get the sense that a lot of it is about just getting older, considering the ups and downs of life, distilling a bit of wisdom that comes with age. Is that about right?

CS: I think you’re right! [laughs] Yeah, I would agree with that! I can’t help it – I’m almost 74, and you start thinking about things, you know? You’re starting to get towards the end and it occupies an increasingly large share of your thoughts. So it’s maybe not surprising that that is what comes out.

DATC: Yes, in Too Bad So Sad, there are a number of lines about this process of getting older, but I love the bit where you’re kind of complaining – “yes I have taken all my meds!” I can relate to that!

I read your essay on turning 60 that you wrote a few years ago for a book on that subject. I’ve not long passed that milestone myself and it seemed like a terrible thing to happen to me, so I thought there might be a bit of wisdom in there! I’m trying to be a bit more philosophical about it now! And one of the things you said was, “I’ve got less energy than I once did, but more than a lot of people half my age” – which I thought was a good attitude. Is that still the case for you, Chris?

CS: Yeah, I think so. People find it hard to believe I’m as old as I am. Of course, when they get close, they realize! But for some reason I haven’t turned grey yet. And that’s the thing that fools people the most! They think, he can’t be that old! And you know, I keep moving – I take good care of myself, I get a lot of exercise and I’m doing well.

DATC: Chris, you’ve had a 50-year career – what keeps you going as an artist, especially the touring, which presumably doesn’t get any easier?

CS: In some ways it doesn’t get easier, but in some ways it is easier, because I can afford nicer accommodation! It’s not too bad. I have slowed down some – I’m doing just under 100 shows a year these days, which is half what I was doing at my peak. But to tell you the truth, I would go crazy if I weren’t doing this. The last few years, we’ve not booked too many dates in January or February, just because it’s too hard to get around – we live in New England and you never know whether you’re going to be able to fly out or get back home at that time of year. But – at the end of those two months, I’m going crazy! I can’t wait to get out there and play! And then sometimes I’m at home for a week and I think, oh no I’ve got to get out again, but as soon as I get on stage I realize, this is what I do, this is what makes me happy.

DATC: Is it just that interaction, that feedback, that dynamic with the audience that does it?

CS: It’s not just that. It’s a place that I go to in my head when I play. I sort of dissociate from myself and I become…not another person, but a different avatar of myself. And if I’m out of touch with it for too long, I start to miss it. And I have countless people who come up to me after shows and say, please don’t stop what you’re doing – and it’s very hard to resist that kind of response!

DATC: Going back to the album, Chris, one of my favourite songs on the album is Nobody Home, which is a kind of wry, slightly caustic take on the current state of the world. You’ve got a few things in your sights here, including social media & disconnectedness. And in one of the verses, you have a preacher  just staring at his phone – getting the news or on FB or twitter, I guess – but his mouth is shut – “there’s nobody home.” And it made me think that the very people who ought to be saying something meaningful or critical of the way things are, are just silent.

CS: You got it! I got through to you! But it’s basically a song about a person looking for help, and he’s looking at all these places and he isn’t able to find it. But I’m not too cynical. But if the mid-term elections here in the United State don’t remedy things, I might get more cynical, because I find what’s going on politically almost unbelievable.

DATC: Yes, on this side of the Atlantic, we kind of watch, with jaws on the floor, each day’s new developments. And you mention quite explicitly in that song the big White House. And the “clown with a comb over, tweeting on his phone.” Again, there’s nobody home. How does this go down with audiences?

CS: You gotta understand about my audiences – nobody would come to my show being totally ignorant of where I stand on some issues. That verse is usually greeted with a huge roar of approval!

DATC: You’re busy touring the US for the rest of the year. And then you’re coming to the UK and Ireland in January. And you’ve been coming over here for a long time. You find get good responses in Ireland?

CS: Oh yeah. It’s a joy. People ask me, what’s your favourite place to play, and I always say Ireland – people there know how to get the best out of you.

DATC: Thank you Chris!

(Photograph credit: Jeff Fasano)

 

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Ry Cooder’s searing critique of false religion

Ry Cooder has been making music and recording for the past 50 years and his latest album, The Prodigal Son, his first for six years, has been hailed as “destined to become an instant classic” (Daily Telegraph), the produce of a “musical mastermind” (Rolling Stone) and “completely fresh and contemporary” (NPR). MOJO declared it “A career-high.”

It is, indeed, something of a masterpiece – perhaps remarkable, in that it is a collection of gospel songs and the artist himself makes no claim to belief. But this is music that Cooder has always loved. “I’m not religious,” he says, “but I always felt drawn to these songs. There’s some kind of reverence mood that takes hold when you play and sing.” For Cooder reverence means “being a conduit for the feelings and experiences by people from other times, like when you stand in an old church yard and let the lonely tombs talk to you…I think any creative artist has to have a sense of a truth or force beyond the visible.”

These are songs that will speak to anyone, believer or unbeliever. The arrangements, musicianship and feeling – and the songs, what a collection of songs – are spiritually powerful. There’s humanity, decency, inspiration, hope in these songs, that anyone can feel. If you are a person of faith, however, you’ll find an extra dimension of faith, encouragement and challenge here too.

All of this much needed, of course, in these days of political bitterness, disregard for the truth, corporate greed, and desperate social inequality and injustice. So thanks, Ry, for putting the spotlight on the spiritual values that can ground us and help make us human again.

71-year Cooder plays guitar, bass and mandolin in what is mostly a carefully curated selection of blues and gospel from the early 20th Century. There are three Cooder originals, Shrinking Man, Gentrification and Jesus and Woody, the latter bemoaning the current state of the world and imagining Jesus telling Woody Guthrie “Guess I like sinners better than fascists, And I guess that makes me a dreamer too.”

Source: https://rycooder.com

Cooder’s reworking of other songs include Carter Stanley’s Harbour of Love; Blind Roosevelt Graves’ I’ll Be Rested When The Roll Is Called; You Must Unload by Blind Alfred Reed; Straight Street by The Pilgrim Travelers; William L Dawson’s, In His Care; and two songs by Blind Willie Johnson, Nobody’s Fault But Mine and Everybody Ought to Treat  A Stranger Right (“Blind Willie’s music is pure trance, it’s not 12-bar blues or any suchlike…In steel guitar heaven, I felt Willie looked down and saw that was good,” says Cooder. (Mind you I’m not so sure Willie would have been happy about Ry slipping in those couple of lines which adds Buddha to Jesus in Nobody’s Fault But Mine.)).

The choice of songs is masterful, and the treatment of each brings them bang up to date, without losing their original intent or spirit.

One of the most powerful songs on the album us You Must Unload, written by Blind Alfred Reed, who was recorded, along with The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers, at the famous 1927 Bristol Sessions (The “Big Bang” of modern country music).

The song mercilessly challenges “fashion-loving, money-loving and power-loving” Christians – arguably broad swathes of self-proclaimed believers in North America and Europe – and tells them they must “unload.” Anyone who has read their New Testament scriptures would recognize the voice of John the Baptist here, with his fiery denunciation of religious self-satisfaction, or indeed, Jesus, with his searing critique of acquisitiveness and love of money. The Old Testament prophets, too, from which John and Jesus took their cue, were unflinching in their lambasting of those who were content with religious observance but yet oppressed the poor, sought power and preferred a nice glass of wine with their feet up to helping their neighbour – go and read the eighth century prophet Amos and you’ll see what I mean.

The song starts with an amusing dig at the fashion conscious whose obsession with “jewellry encrusted high heel shoes” bars them from the joys of heaven. They sure give Ry the blues. And Jesus too.

Then there’s the money loving Christians who don’t pay their way, who think making it in the kingdom of God is easy. Pretty damning of the way a lot of us Western Christians live, isn’t it, indistinguishable from the pushing and shoving and acquisitiveness that is the hallmark of life these days. The urge for more, bigger, better, more choice. And we want it all for ourselves – cut those taxes, let those poor people stand up on their own two feet.

And then the last verse – taking aim at those power-loving Christians. Power is such a seductive thing. As if political power were somehow linked to the Kingdom of God that Jesus talked so much about. But Jesus said his kingdom wasn’t “of this world,” meaning that it wasn’t like the kingdom of Caesar or America or wherever – it isn’t based on violence, the threat of violence, money, or influence. It’s based on love, compassion, generosity. That’s why Christianity was so successful in the first three centuries before it got entangled with government and the trappings of power. Christians lived out the counter-cultural values of love and self-giving service, devoid of political power, and yet ended up attracting huge swathes of the Empire to follow Jesus. Which is what gives the lie to the support for the 45^th President of the United States by so many so-called evangelical Christians. Do they understand the message of the person they purport to follow, if they are prepared to sacrifice values of compassion, love for the stranger, truth, and human decency for the passing gratification of temporary political power? What happened to taking up the cross and following the compassionate, justice-announcing Jesus? Wherein, paradoxically, is to be found the real joy of life.

All of which makes Blind Alfred Reed’s song and Ry Cooder’s fresh interpretation so relevant and compelling right now. It strikes at the heart of a false religion that somehow feels that money and power are compatible with the gospel. They’re not. Thank you Ry for this timely reminder.

The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock’n’Roll

Randall J. Stephens, The Devil’s Music: How Christians Inspired, Condemned, and Embraced Rock’n’Roll, (Harvard, 2018)

Randall Stephens has given us a riveting account of the way in which rock music impacted the Christian world in the United States, since its emergence in the 1950s. It’s well researched and detailed, and is expansive in its scope, covering the relationship between early rock ’n’ roll and Pentecostalism, the racism inherent in early Christian reactions to the new music, the resistance of conservative religion to the Beatles and other 60s developments, and then the emergence of Jesus rock, morphing into Contemporary Christian Music and the various reactions to that.

The book is well written and never dull, deftly exploring what has been a complicated relationship between rock and fundamentalist and evangelical religion. Along the way we get something of a history of evangelical Christianity in America over the past 60 years, including the distinction between fundamentalists, evangelicals and charismatic/neo-Pentecostals, and the way in which these groups saw themselves over against the prevailing culture in the United States. I liked the quotation from Duke and Notre Dame historian, George Marsden, which Stephens mentions (albeit noting that it doesn’t tell the whole story): “a fundamentalist is an evangelical who is angry about something.”

When rock ’n’ roll first emerged, fusing blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, and country in the 1950s, American Christians viewed it as sinful, deranged, demonic, the “devil’s music.” Yet by the late 60s and early 70s, large numbers of conservative Christians had embraced rock music as a means of evangelism and praise to God. Stephens skilfully tracks this trajectory and is able to demonstrate that “much of what animates evangelical churches in the twenty-first century comes directly from the unlikely fusion of Pentecostal religion, conservative politics, and rock and pop music.”

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Randall begins by tracing the development of rock ‘n roll from its roots in southern Pentecostalism. The hard-driving, powerful music in the worship of holiness and Pentecostal services gave rise to such popular performers as Sister Rosetta Tharpe, the Godmother of Rock and Roll, with her guitar-fuelled gospel. From a background in Pentecostal religion came major figures like Johnny Cash, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and, of course, most importantly of all, Elvis Presley. Presley not only appropriated the rhythms and beat of his white Pentecostal background, but integrated black gospel into his style of singing and performing. Such integration was anathema to white southern evangelicals in the 50s who objected to the “jungle music” and “voodoo rhythms” of rock ‘n roll.

We then have a fascinating chapter entitled “Race, Religion, and Rock ‘n’ Roll,” where Randall explores the racist nature of white southern Christian reactions to the new music that was capturing the hearts of the nation’s youth. Fears about vulgarity, sexual licence, communist plots, and drinking and dancing combined with the worst of racial prejudice to fuel a fundamentalist loathing of rock ‘n’ roll.

The arrival on the scene of the Beatles in the 1960s is the subject of Randall’s next chapter. Long hair, an emergent youth culture, drugs and androgynous clothing, along with the youth hysteria that greeted the Beatles in America drew the ire and condemnation of church leaders. Billy Graham, in 1968, bemoaned the worldwide “moral deterioration,” which was a clear sign of the approaching apocalypse. Randall takes us through the fall-out in the Christian world of John Lennon’s “We’re more popular than Jesus now” remark through to the beginnings of some soul-searching amongst evangelicals about how they needed to relate to a younger generation.

The next phase of the story is the emergence of Jesus rock and its morphing into Contemporary Christian Music, and the various reactions to it. Randall does an excellent job of catching the spirit of the time in the early 70s when some Christians, led by people like Larry Norman, began to express their faith in the medium of rock music. “Why should the devil have all the good music?” Norman asked. Or indeed, long hair and hippie attire. Even Billy Graham began to wear his hair longer, as folk and rock music were increasingly incorporated into church youth events. Professional rock and pop performers flourished, including Norman, Barry Maguire, Phil Keaggy, Chuck Girard and Cliff Richard, and mainstream performers like Johnny Cash, Pat Boone and eventually, at the end of the 70s, Bob Dylan proclaimed the gospel in their songs.

All of this provoked a furious fundamentalist reaction with figures liked Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye and Jimmy Swaggert fulminating against “a musical revolution that integrated aggressive music and aggressive sex” which ought never to be mixed with the gospel. Notwithstanding this, by the 1990s, Christian pop music and rock-infused worship music had broadly infiltrated the evangelical church and Contemporary Christian Music made up a respectable share of the total recording market, returning huge revenues to successful bands through sales of recordings and merchandise.

Randall closes this fascinating study with a short review of bands and artists with a Christian outlook which have gained critical and popular acclaim, including some that attempted to crossover from a Christian market to a more general one. He notes the Christian background and motivation of U2, and amusingly recounts the late 1990s foray of crooner Pat Boone into the heavy metal arena.

The Devil’s Music is a highly engaging examination of the struggles of American evangelicalism with the emergence and mainstreaming of rock music that gives us an important insight into the nature of the modern form of this type of Christianity, its values and fears. It’s a remarkable story of shock, opposition, accommodation and finally embrace which anyone interested in both the recent history of the church or that of rock ‘n’ roll will thoroughly enjoy.

[Randall Stephens has included a great Spotify playlist based on the book here]

Mavis Staples at Union Chapel, London – 7 Things We Learned.

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Mavis Staples has had a remarkable career. She sang with her family band which moved from their church roots in the 50s to the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, before becoming a commercially successful R&B group in the 70s. Turning solo, Mavis recorded with Prince and in the last twelve years or so, has re-invented herself as a rootsy, bluesy, Americana artist, with a heavy dose of gospel. Her latest album, If All I Was Was Black addresses the broken heart of today’s America, suggesting that, despite the racism, violence and lying, redemption is possible. Mavis Staples wants to “Bring us all together as a people – that’s what I hope to do. You can’t stop me. You can’t break me. I’m too loving,” she says. “These songs are going to change the world.”

Down at the Crossroads caught her show in Union Chapel, London. Here’s what we learned:

1. Mavis Staples is a lovely person. That’s it. No qualifications. She loves her band, she loves performing and she loves her audience. And it showed from the moment she breezed onto the stage to warm applause and cheering at Union Chapel.

 

2. Union Chapel is a wonderful concert venue in north London. It’s a working church which hosts gigs by major artists and recording sessions, and has fantastic acoustics. Nobody is very far from the artist which gives the whole things a wonderful, intimate feeling. You can sign up for dinner before a gig and so get in early to nab your seat – and contribute to the church’s homeless ministry by so doing.

 

3. Mavis’s first song set the stage for the rest of her set – she sang about “love and peace,” and invited the audience to “take my hand.” “I got people who love me,” she sang, in that unmistakable voice which can rasp, croon, scat or belt it out, as the need may be. You begin to feel the love, forgetting for a while Trump, Brexit and all the other stuff that has been annoying you. We ended up, most of us strangers, holding each other’s hands and beaming like children.

 

4. Love and peace for sure – but also, she said, she was there to bring us some “joy, happiness, inspiration and positive vibrations.” And that she did for about 75 glorious minutes (too short, Mavis, but then you have just turned 79, sorry for bringing that up!).

5. And the joy and inspiration clearly comes from Mavis’s Christian faith – she unabashedly gave us the old blues song, Death Comes Creeping (covered by a host of artists, including Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell and Bob Dylan) – asking “whatcha gonna do when death comes creeping at your door?” Followed up by Far Celestial Shore, with its “jubilation, joy and exaltation when I see my lord.”

 

6. That faith is no other-worldly faith, but one that is driving for change here and now. She talked about working for justice in the 1960s, inspired by Rev Martin Luther King Jr., and about needing to continue that work, especially at the moment. “I’m thinking about going up to that White House,” she said, to the biggest cheer of the evening. Go for it Mavis!

 

7. Her five-piece band was everything you’d expect from long-time collaborators. Guitarist Rick Holmstrom treated us to a wonderful virtuosic display in a variety of styles, rewarded along the way by a fist bump from Mavis, and singers Donny Gerrard and Vicki Randel rounded out the sound, allowing Mavis to let her vocals soar with freedom.

A glorious, inspirational evening – keep going, Mavis, we love you!

Best Blues Albums 2018 – so far.

There have been a lot of very good releases this year so far. Here’s our selection of twelve of the best:

Joe Bonamassa/Beth Hart: Black Coffee

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

Ry Cooder: Prodigal Son

An album of wonderfully reinterpreted old gospel songs and hymns, from the guitar virtuoso. Highly recommended.

Dana Fuchs: Love Lives On

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

Janiva Magness: Love is an Army

Twelve hugely enjoyable songs which tap into a deep well of both Americana and Memphis soul. Read our interview with Janiva Magness here.

Ian Siegal: All the Rage

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

Buddy Guy: The Blues is Alive and Well

15 tracks from the veteran bluesman, with Guy’s still formidable vocals and blistering guitar work aided and abetted by the McCrary sisters, Mick Jager, James Bay, Jeff Beck and Keith Richards.

Keeshea Pratt Band: Believe

One very fine album of soul-soaked blues, featuring an outstanding 7-piece band and the wondrous Ms. Keeshea Pratt, whose soaring and thrilling vocals sparkle on each of the twelve tracks. Here’s our full review here.

Chris Smither: Call Me Lucky

Double album of terrific acoustic songs from the gravel voiced and rhythmic guitar picker. As usual, the songs are clever, incisive and creative. Great stuff.

Paul Thorn: Don’t Let the Devil Ride

Unabashed album of gospel music, with Paul and his band, and a group of top notch collaborators including the Blind Boys of Alabama, the McCrary Sisters, Bonnie Bishop and New Orleans’ Preservation Hall Jazz Horns, all in scintillating form. Read our interview with Paul Thorn here.

Various: Strange Angels: In Flight with Elmore James

Top notch tribute album to Elmore James featuring Bettye LaVette, Keb’ Mo’, Warren Haynes, Shelby Lynne/Allison Moorer and others

Luke Winslow King: Blue Mesa

Wonderfully upbeat, positive album of rocking blues. Read our interview with Luke Winslow-King here.

Mike Zito: First Class Life

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

 

 

 

Why Should The Devil Have All The Good Music?

Bob Dylan said he was a fan; Billboard called him “the most important songwriter since Paul Simon; he played on bills with the Who, Janis Joplin and the Doors. Larry Norman is the most important rock’n’roll artist you’ve never heard of.

Norman was the “father of Christian rock,” an outstanding performer and songwriter, who effectively launched a new genre of music, and who, to the end, fiercely held on to his faith in Jesus and his determination to be an artist, rather than simply a Christian propagandist. Gregory Alan Thornbury’s book, Why Should The Devil Have All the Good Music? (taking the title of one of Norman’s early and most provocative songs), gives us a comprehensive and compelling account of Norman’s career from his childhood in California to his early death in Oregon in 2008.

Thornbury charts Norman’s development as an artist from being a successful “secular” performer in the sixties to leader of the “Jesus Movement” in the late sixties to world-wide touring artist, and the subsequent ups and downs of a career that entailed popular acclaim, distrust and suspicion from fellow believers, betrayal from friends, physical injury and subsequent miraculous healing, and a considerable amount of both single-minded focus on his own values and vision, and naiveite on Norman’s part.

It’s a fascinating tale, woven with considerable skill by Thornbury who had access to Norman’s considerable archive of personal papers. Thornbury’s picture of Norman is sympathetic but never hagiographic, and Norman’s difficulties with other artists and various aspects of the music business are not skirted over. At the same time, Thornbury’s account of the rumour mongering, jealousy and outright opposition that Norman suffered from the evangelical church in the United States, and the outrageous behaviour of his first wife, leave one wondering how he survived with his faith intact and his commitment to his art undiminished.

Although we get a perspective on Norman’s life up until his death in 2008, most of the book deals with the twists and turns of his life up to 1981. There is an engaging story of Larry’s transition from singer in popular Californian group People! in the sixties to leading light in a social phenomenon hailed by Time Magazine as the Jesus Movement at the end of that decade, as disenchantment with flower power and free love began to set in.

Larry Norman’s 1972 album Only Visiting This Planet is considered by many, including Thornbury, to be a masterpiece and one of the best Christian albums of all time. It was inducted into the Library of Congress’ National Recording Registry as a “cultural, artistic, and/or historical treasure”. In the hard hitting Why Should the Devil have all the Good Music from the album, Norman sings:

“I want the people to know that he saved my soul
But I still like to listen to the radio
They say rock ‘n’ roll is wrong, we’ll give you one more chance
I say I feel so good I gotta get up and dance

I know what’s right, I know what’s wrong, I don’t confuse it
All I’m really trying to say
Is why should the devil have all the good music?
I feel good every day
‘Cause Jesus is the rock and he rolled my blues away.”

Thornbury does a good job of highlighting Norman’s commitment throughout his life to a very personal experience of Jesus. But this, it seems, never led to pietism or a narrow-minded exclusivism. On the contrary, right from these early days, Norman’s all-encompassing vision of what Christian faith should be about made him an incisive critic of Christian hypocrisy.

According to Thornbury,

“Unlike other Christian leaders, Larry seemed to believe that the easy relationship the Church enjoyed with American culture was more of a problem than a blessing. He somehow seemed to understand that apologetics may actually need to start with apologies: for the Church’s racism, ready acceptance of aggression, violence, and war, and for an unwillingness to listen to the concerns of a generation.”

Norman’s critique of evangelicalism still echoes powerfully, after all these years. Consider this lyric from The Great American Novel from 1972:

“You kill a black man at midnight just for talking to your daughter
Then you make his wife your mistress and you leave her without water
And the sheet you wear upon your face is the sheet your children sleep on
At every meal you say a prayer; you don’t believe but still you keep on.”

Thornbury notes Norman’s commitment to supporting organizations which sought to bring relief to the poor in various parts of the world to the end of his life.

His insistence on his music as art and not simply proselytizing, however, would bring him into serious conflict with his Christian audience, and his attempts at building a community of like-minded artists ultimately failed, at least partly because of the betrayal and ambition of people Norman considered as friends. The twists and turns of all this are engagingly and, it seems to me, quite fairly laid out by Thornbury. As are the broad sketches of Norman’s two failed marriages, the first of which you become amazed lasted so long.

Norman was a fierce critic of early “Contemporary Christian Music,” questioning its quality and artistic value, but nevertheless he was the first professional singer-songwriter to express his faith in a rock-blues genre. Thornbury notes how he paved the way for a whole new genre of music and a new generation which would acknowledge its debt to Norman’s uncompromising approach.

Friends of mine in Belfast who worked with Larry Norman and had him stay as a guest in their homes over his many visits to Northern Ireland (he was a frequent performer there during the “Troubles” when many other artists refused to come, and a 4-CD set entitled “The Belfast Bootlegs” was released in 2001) recall a Larry Norman who was unfailingly generous and kind, and whose passion and commitment as a performer was second to none.

Thornbury quotes Black Francis, former frontman for the Pixies as saying, “In my humble opinion Larry was the most Christ-like person I ever met.” That, no doubt, would have pleased Norman, who, from reading the liner notes to his 2001 album Tourniquet, was only too aware of his own failings but who was “overwhelmed by God’s incredible mercy and faithful care.”

This is a gem of a book, utterly engaging from start to finish, which will appeal not only to Larry Norman fans, but to both music fans and anyone interested in the engagement, or lack of it, between the Christian church and culture, particularly in the United States.

Gregory Alan Thornbury, Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music? Larry Norman and the Perils of Christian Rock, (New York, Convergent, 2018). $26

For more details on the books, click here.

Author G A Thornbury

Eric Bibb Interview: Still believing we can find a way to live in peace.

Eric Bibb is a star in the firmament of acoustic blues musicians. With two Grammy nominations and multiple Blues Foundation awards, he’s forged a hard-working career over five decades and gathered a multitude of fans all over the world. If you’ve ever been to an Eric Bibb concert, you’ve come away with a smile on your face that probably lasted a week. His songs are rooted in the blues but have a lightness of touch and a joy that is infectious.

He’s a very fine guitarist, song-writer and singer, but it’s the humanity, challenge and soulfulness of his performances, all spiced with a gentle humour, that linger long after the last resonating note of his guitar.

Eric’s father, the late Leon Bibb, was an activist, actor, and folk singer who marched at Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King, and Eric carries on the dream of a better world. His songs are infused with notes of challenge and gospel hope. His latest album, Migration Blues, is a record for our times, highlighting the plight of immigrants everywhere, through songs about the injustices of the American South and the hardships of those currently fleeing war and disaster. The album features the excellent Michael Jerome Browne, a Canadian Folk Awards artist of the year, and J J Milteau, top-notch harmonica player.

Down at the Crossroads had a conversation with Eric before his gig that night in the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin. The conversation ranged over music, the Grammys, immigration, war and racism – and, of course, hope for the future.

DATC: Last time I saw you, Eric, was at the City Winery gig in New York City the night before the Grammys. And you stood up and sang – I think it was “Refugee Moan,” from last year’s Migration Blues album. It was spellbinding, and we all felt the goose bumps – it seemed very significant to be singing that song about that subject right there in the heart of New York. Tell us about that song and choosing to sing it in that way that night.

Eric Bibb: I’ve been singing it like that for a while now. The response has always been remarkable. Yeah people get it, they really do and I’m thankful for that.

DATC: I was very disappointed to see the next day that the Rolling Stones won the traditional blues category that you were nominated for. Any of the others would have suited the category much better. How did you feel about that?

Eric Bibb: Ugh. It was a strange choice I thought in that category. But, I don’t really know what drives these things. My conclusion is that this is not based on serious music analysis or cultural analysis. Other factors have a role. What that mix is, I really can’t say. In the end I was happy to have been nominated, but I do think it was a bit absurd.

DATC: Yeah, I think a lot of us did.

Eric Bibb: Traditional blues album – really? Really guys? OK. And then I don’t know if politics plays a role in it, you know. It’s hard to say, I know that the Recording Academy has a first selection and then it goes out to members, who those people are…

DATC: The whole Migration Blues album bemoans the state of the world. You’ve got lyrics like: “Heart full of Trouble, weighted down like lead, temperature’s gone sky high, can’t find no work, no matter how hard I try.” In these songs I hear you addressing climate change, the woes of immigrants, the devastation of war, poverty – you must have felt quite strongly about things to make an album like this?

Eric Bibb: Yeah, I was trying to connect the dots. It’s all related. It’s good to be reminded I think. For example, it was a hot topic back in the late sixties when Dylan came out with Masters of War. But, you know, that doesn’t seem currently to be part of the big debate. Who’s manufacturing all this stuff? I mean, who’s making money on it? You’d be surprised at some of the players.

DATC: And the biggest part of the refugee problem is because of war.

Eric Bibb: This is it. It’s driven millions of people away from their homes. This is serious beyond belief. And I think if we knew the facts – which we don’t – we would be appalled. In Europe they have to deal with this flood of refugees, but the reasons behind all of this is not really talked about.

DATC: Yeah, there’s a lot of vested interests when we talk about war and conflict. But this was an album you really wanted to make, Eric, at this time?

Eric Bibb: The idea to make an album based on the theme of migration came to me from my good friend Philippe Langlois at Dixifrog Records, who is my European partner in recording and distribution, and he just said, “You know Eric, it’s a current topic, it interfaces with your own ancestral history.” So, food for thought there, and I began doing some research and I connected the current refugee crisis together with the Great Migration in the United States. Then it really started to unfold and I realized, you know, everybody’s got a migration story. Everybody’s been on the lam from some natural disaster or oppression or whatever. Which is interesting because it’s almost like if you vocally support migrants, you’re some kind of…

DATC: Some kind of left wing radical.

Eric Bibb: Yeah, yeah. Come on, get your empathy together. You were there once, too, you know, so I don’t know what’s radical or left wing about having some kind of empathy for people who are forced out to leave their ancestral homelands. But everything has become so politicized.

DATC: And I was interested in you saying in one of the songs, “Migration is not a problem, it’s an opportunity.”

Eric Bibb: It’s true. Listen, it’s because of migration that everything good about human civilization has come into being. It’s all about culture collisions, some of them gentle, some of them not, but all the forward steps of human kind have everything to do with that type of blending of the tribes. It’s obvious.

DATC: The song Blacktop – is that a version of Hayes McMullan’s Everyday Seems Like Murder Here? It seems similar:

Eric Bibb: Yes it is, I think Michael [J Browne] and his writing partner, B.A. Markus, they wrote that song inspired by particularly that line. Michael is encyclopaedic in his knowledge of the music he plays. He’s a scholar. So, that he would use that quote is not surprising.

DATC: So it’s great that he’s contributed to this album. I’ve listened to and appreciated his music for many years and it’s great to hear the two of you together.

Eric Bibb: Yeah, he’s a treasure. Michael is in the band on this tour along with Neville Malcolm on bass and Paul Robinson on drums. Michael will probably do a number tonight on his own. In some shows, Michael has been the opening act.

DATC: And then in the midst of all the reality, the darkness, on the album, you give us Brotherly Love – “I still believe, we can find a way to live in peace.” Is that what keeps you going?

Eric Bibb: It is. For all of the stuff we are fed by the major new outlets, I think there’s a lot that’s going on that is very positive in the world that just never gets publicized. I’m encouraged, just because I travel a lot and see people who really seem to understand where the world is at and what needs to be done, and seem to be on board with doing it, particularly young people.

But I see no choice but to hold out in my music and my songs a message of hope because otherwise, everything becomes pointless. And I think that that’s not the way it should be. I think we’ve definitely cocked things up in a big way and been party to people doing some major harm to the planet and to our communities. But for all of that, I actually think awareness is shifting. I think there are more and more people who are tired of conflict. I see music playing a major role in connecting cultures, exposing people to cultures that they might not have much to do with. And that produces a kind of softening. You know we’re tribalistic – we’re human – and it takes time to break down that old, almost genetic, tendency to separate “us” and “them.” But – it’s happening. And I think the young people, connected by the Internet, is a big part of it too. So, I am hopeful, despite all of the conflicts that are raging around the world. I think we’ll come out the other end.

DATC: Well, I guess if we can do it up in the north of Ireland…for many years it was “us” and “them.” But we’ve moved on a lot.

Eric Bibb: Yeah, big time.

DATC: There’s a great version of Woody Guthie’s This Land is Our Land. It just resonates so well with the whole album.

Eric Bibb: I grew up with that song. I was very happy to realize how well it fit in and how it ties things together. Particularly in this era of Trumpism. It strains the imagination to think of this guy as the President of the United States of America.

Bu these are interesting times, I think a lot of people have basically become separated from reality. You can tune into certain television channels and basically live in a bubble that has nothing to do with what is really going on in the world. I think there are a lot of people in America who seem to have the free time to sit on the couch and watch Fox News. And with a diet of that and little else, it’s very possible to get a very distorted view of the world – where a guy like Donald Trump could be appealing.

Also, mainstream politicians have also lost contact – that’s obviously the main reason why Trump could even exist as the President.

DATC: That’s why I think your art is very important. You’re connecting the history and the situation in the American South and the blues tradition with what’s going on in the rest of the world. And when you talk about Jim Crow and the sundown towns in your songs – it seems to me that the reality of that is something that large swathes of Americans haven’t ever really come to terms with.

Eric Bibb: They don’t even know it actually happened! The ignorance factor when it comes to awareness of our own history is so huge. It’s not taught properly in schools – and yet this information is out there. I think the solution is a really serious educational push to acquaint Americans with their history. And the reason it’s been submerged and marginalized is that, to say the very least, it’s uncomfortable for everybody. It’s uncomfortable to the ancestors of slaves, for the ancestors of slave owners, and it’s something people want to skim over rather than understand in depth the horrific dimensions of it and how it’s left its prints on contemporary society in a major way.

You know, when people talk about the concept of a post-racial America, I say – are you kidding me? What? Just because a brown skinned man got elected? There’s nothing post-racial about America. The poison of racism is so deeply engrained in the tradition of that hierarchy, it’s going to take a massive facing of it and re-education.

But, who knows? I see very encouraging signs in factual books and literature; I’m seeing a lot of writers – not necessarily African American writers – who are saying, “Hey, we really need to take a good look at what has really happened in this country,” starting with the genocide with the indigenous people and continuing through the slave trade, and really try to understand the stage we’re at right now. How did we get to be this very divisive society? I mean we’ve not even made a symbolic attempt at reconciliation. Like, take the Germans – they’ve done an amazing job – credit where it’s due.

Neville Malcolm plays bass on this tour with Eric

DATC: There’s a song that was on the North Mississippi Allstars album from last year, and then the Blind Boys of Alabama took it up on their Almost Home album. It’s a great song, actually, and decries the “ignorance and hate” of racism that is around today, and says, “I hate to think that our grandmothers would be broken hearted, to see their children’s children right back where we started.” It also says, “I wish we all could be colour blind,” which seems to me to be a fine aspiration, but I kind of wonder, is colour-blindness what is needed right now? Maybe coming face to face with it, coming to terms with it is what is needed?

Eric Bibb: Yes, exactly. It’s about first recognizing that – in the modern age, in the West for sure, there’s just been a tremendous prejudice against what is referred to in the news as people of colour. And this orientation is so engrained, so institutional, that people don’t think about it. This is what needs to be reversed, what needs to be addressed, in a very specific way. And it’s possible, we can do it, you know? But I agree with you, colour blindness is not the solution, we need to face the fact that people look the way they look and there’s a variety of looks and tones and get over it! And accept it and embrace it and be happy for it!

I mean we’re all African people. We all emanated from East Africa, from a brown-skinned woman!

DATC: So, tell me about the collaboration with Michael Jerome Browne, who’s a wonderful artist, great guitar player. Tell us about that.

Eric Bibb: I met Michael at Calgary Folk Festival years ago. He was playing a gourd banjo, a slave banjo – it sounded amazing – and I didn’t expect to see someone who looked like him playing it! And I thought his playing was just a revelation, so we got in touch and we started working together after a while. I know a lot of great musicians, but Michael is all on his own when it comes to his awareness and knowledge of the language of the country blues and beyond. It’s unique.

DATC: Now let me ask you this Eric – you’ve been a hard-working professional musician for a long time now. And, like the rest of us, unfortunately we’re not getting any younger – of course, you look about 15 years younger than me, at least! How tough is touring; does it seem any harder than when you were younger; or does the joy of it, what you get back from the audience sustain you?

Eric Bibb: I still have the joy of it for sure. The physical side of it – it’s not the playing, it’s the hauling of your instruments around from place to place and so on – that can be a strain. It’d be great just to be able to turn up and do the show! But I still have to be on the ground involved with the logistics and stuff. Actually, I’d like to stay home more and teach more, but I don’t want to stop touring. It’s an essential part of what I’ve enjoyed and still enjoy doing.

And the opportunity to travel so often and widely is the greater blessing. The strain of it and how it wears you down is minor compared with what it’s given me as a human being. Just to be in touch with so much of the surrounding world. It’s a huge blessing.

DATC: Eric – thank you!