We’re at the half year mark and it’s been a pretty strange year so far. The coronavirus pandemic has stopped live music in its tracks – aside from the online variety – and there haven’t been as many album releases as usual. But what we’ve had has been top notch and we’ve chosen 12 of the best.
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 81st 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.” Full review 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. Check out our interview with Rebecca and Megan here.
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 nicely phrased and bluesy vocals. Full review here.
Sonny Landreth, Blacktop Run
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.
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 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.
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&B and soul from the ever-consistent Robert Cray and his band. A 12 track set 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.
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.
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.
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.
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 barrel down through the tracks. Wainwright is a terrific pianist and singer and the band are quite masterful.
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.
And a couple of live albums worth mentioning, both from Irishmen, both sadly no longer with us. But both albums capture the dazzling talent of each man.
Gary Moore, Live from 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.
Jimmy Carter is the oldest member of the Blind Boys of Alabama, five-time Grammy winners and Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award winners. He sang with the original group, including Clarence Fountain back in the 1940s when they were at the Alabama Institute for the Negro Blind, but was too young to go touring with them at the beginning. After singing with the Dixieland Blind Boys and the Five Blind Boys of Mississippi, he eventually officially joined The Blind Boys of Alabama and has been singing with them for forty years.
From the 1980s on, The Blind Boys were able to widen their audience beyond just the black community and have enjoyed tremendous success. After their 2000 Spirit of the Century album which mixed traditional church material with songs by Tom Waits and the Rolling Stones, and which won the first of their Grammy Awards, the group has gone on to stellar success, becoming living legends in the world of gospel and roots music. In many ways, they have defined 21st century gospel.
Over the past 20 years, the Blind Boys of Alabama have worked with the likes of Ben Harper, Robert Randolph, Mavis Staples, Taj Mahal, Ruthie Foster, Bon Iver, Paul Thorn and Marc Cohn. The list goes on. Everybody, it seems, wants to perform and record with them.
Rolling Stone Magazine has called the Blind Boys of Alabama “gospel titans” and The New Yorker simply said they were “legendary.” Few would disagree.
I got the opportunity to chat to Jimmy Carter aka The Jimster for Down at the Crossroads. It was an incredible privilege to talk to a man who has gone through as much as he has, has achieved so much and is one of the most positive, cheerful people you could meet.
I asked him first of all about the Blind Boys’ 2017 album Almost Home, which was originally released by Amazon, but is now being made available to all digital music platforms for the first time in a couple of months’ time. It’s a wonderful album of mostly original songs which chronicle the lives of Clarence Fountain and Jimmy Carter. The song-writing (by the likes of the North Mississippi Allstars, Phil Cook, John Leventhal, Marc Cohn, and Ruthie Foster) is superb, the arrangements terrific and the Blind Boys’ singing characteristically wonderful. It’s an album I return to again and again.
Jimmy told me that the album is about the life he and Clarence had growing up. “Yes,” he said, “it talks about the early times of the Blind Boys. It talks about how we went to school and all that. It’s kinda like a little scene of history, you know.”
Jimmy went on to talk about Let My Mother Live, an incredibly moving and very personal song.
“Yeah, that’s a song that came straight from me. When I went to school, I was only seven years old, and I was blind. So, you can picture a seven-year old boy put in a school where he’d never been before; he knows nobody there. And I used to pray every night, oh God, let my mother live till I get through this. And he let her live until she got a hundred and three years old!
He did that for me and that’s why I love God. Everybody got their own opinion about him, but for me, I’m gonna serve him till I die.”
I asked Jimmy to tell me a bit about what he remembered about growing up as a boy in Alabama. He told me,
“When I went to school, it wasn’t a school that you’d come home every day from. We had to stay there for nine months at a time. We went to school in September and only came home in May, apart from the Christmas holidays.” It was here Jimmy first started singing in choirs.
“Yeah, I went up there and I met all the rest of the Blind Boys, and we started singing together. We had a choir, and a male chorus and we had a quartet. And the rest of it is history, my friend!”
I wondered about his visual impairment and how that has affected him and his music over the years. Jimmy was more concerned to talk about his calling to sing for the Lord.
“Well, you know,” he said, “when we started out, we didn’t sing because we wanted to be well known or famous. We weren’t thinking about that; all we wanted to do was to get out there and sing and tell the world about Jesus Christ. We weren’t thinking about no accolades or nothing like that. Because that’s what God wanted us to do.
“So, we have been blessed, we won five Grammys, we won a national Achievement Award, and God’s been good to us.”
The first song on Almost Home is the joyous Stay On the Gospel Side – “I started singing for the Lord and I ain’t finished yet.” Despite many offers to cross over and record secular songs, The Blind Boys have remained true all these years to their original calling.
“That’s right! There were a lot of them that did not stay on the gospel side. But we did. Because when we started out, we promised the Lord that we would stay on the gospel side, no matter what. And we did that. Although it gets hard sometimes, but, you know, God takes care of his own. We’re alright.”
I said to Jimmy, “Well, tell me this, when you talk about gospel music, some people think gospel music is just all about the music, but in your gospel music, it’s about the message as well, isn’t it?”
Jimmy agreed. “We have a message. Gospel is not just music, it also has a message. Somebody might say, tell me, what is gospel? When they ask me that, I say that gospel is the good news of God. That’s what gospel is.”
Jimmy Carter comes across as an incredibly positive person. My chat with him was punctuated with frequent chuckles and smiles I could hear over the phone. He told me:
“Yeah, well, you know, I’ve had my difficulties, I’ve had my setbacks, I’ve been taken advantage of at times, But it takes all of that for us to go through what we need to go through. People say, you aren’t doing anything but singing, but they just don’t know what we have to go through. We love what we do, that’s what keeps us going so much, because when you love what you do, it keeps you motivated. But it’s not easy, we have to go through a lot of difficulties.
“But by the grace of God, we’ve gone through that, and we’re still going through that, and we’re gonna stick it out until the end!”
What a fantastic attitude. I then wondered about what keeps Jimmy going, what it is about performing that has enabled him to keep on well past the time that a lot of artists might have stopped.
“I just love to go out on that stage and hear the audience respond to the Blind Boys. We go out there and say, well here we are, the Blind Boys of Alabama, and I say, I hope that we can say something or sing something that will lift you up and make you feel good. When you come to a concert of the Blind Boys, we don’t like for you to go the same way you came. We want to give you a message. When you leave us, we want you to feel differently about life.”
Despite his age and his visual impairment, Jimmy Carter frequently comes off the stage during concerts and delights audience by coming to sing right down amongst them. “Oh, I love to do that!” he said laughing.
I asked him about the Blind Boys being invited on several occasions to the White House. “Three times!” Jimmy said proudly. And what was it like singing for President Obama?
“Well, it was kinda special because he was a black president and I thought I would never see that in my lifetime. But I’ve seen it, and I’m grateful for that. We’ve sung for President Obama, for President Clinton and President Bush, and all three of them were extremely nice to us.”
The band played Free At Last at the White House on February 9, 2010.
That made me ask about his experience of the many changes in race relations in America. The Blind Boys of Alabama toured throughout the South during the Jim Crow era of the 1940s and 1950s and were a part of the soundtrack to the Civil Rights movement. And on Almost Home, they cover the North Mississippi Allstars’ Pray for Peace, which laments the changes which still need to come in the United States: “I think our grandmother would be heartbroken / To see their children’s children right back where we started.”
Jimmy said, “You know, when we started out, the South was segregated and we weren’t allowed to sing for nobody but our people. We did not know that the white people wanted the Blind Boys before we got over there. We just wasn’t allowed to give it to them. But they loved our music, and as time went on, and we got a chance to give it to them, they accepted it, they’re still accepting it, and everywhere we go we have people who come up and tell us how they have enjoyed our performances. And that’s what we like to hear!”
I just had to ask him about Amazing Grace, which the Blind Boys sign to the tune of House of the Rising Sun. I’d heard it was his favourite song.
“Yes it is. We sing that song every night. The reason why it’s my favourite song is, if it wasn’t for His amazing grace, I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now.”
So how much longer does Jimmy Carter intend to keep on singing for the Lord?
“Oh, well, it won’t be too much longer, because I’m no spring chicken [laughs]. I’m gonna have to think about retiring pretty soon! But there are two or three things I wanna do before I step down!”
He then proceeded to tell me how he intended to come back to Ireland to sing for us. Sing on Jimmy Carter, we’ve loved everything the Blind Boys of Alabama have done, and we never want you to stop.
“He’s a lovely player, a lovely singer, and a great writer – the real thing.” Martin Simpson.
(Photo: Arlene Avery)
Hailing from Statesboro, Georgia, Brooks Williams is a singer-songwriter, jaw-droppingly good guitar player, and consummate performer, whose music melds blues, Americana and folk into a heady soulful mix. If you’re one of the lucky ones to have seen Brooks Williams playing live, you’ll have come away feeling good, with a huge smile on your face. If, by any chance, you don’t already know Brooks Williams, you’ve sold yourself short – start delving into his excellent back catalogue of around 30 albums immediately.
He’s graced stages along the way with Taj Mahal, John Hammond, Maria Muldaur, Shawn Colvin, Paul Jones, David Bromberg, and more recently toured with Guy Davis and Hans Theessink. His guitar and bottleneck slide playing is legendary; he’s got a sweet, but versatile voice, and is a great song-writer with a ready wit. Watch out too for those covers he does from the blues and jazz back-catalogue as well as more recent stuff, where his reinterpretation of the songs breathes new life into them.
He tours the UK and the US relentlessly and is just about to embark on a tour promoting his album, Work My Claim, which celebrates Brooks’s 30 years as a performing and recording artist.
Gary:So, Brooks, the new album: Work My Claim, is a celebration of 30 years recording and performing. You’ve chosen 12 songs from throughout your career, (plus 4 bonus songs when you buy the CD). You’ve recorded something like 23 solo albums to date, aside from collaborative work – so a lot of songs written and recorded over the years – how did you choose just 12 songs?
Brooks; It was a difficult process. I actually spent a whole year going through the old material. You know, once I finished Lucky Star, I immediately turned my attention to this project because I knew I needed to reacquaint myself with the old songs. So, I spent about a year going through the various albums, listening and then trying to play the songs, seeing which ones felt like they were still relevant. And which ones I was interested in. Because a lot changed over 30 years. But it really was a labour of love to go through those songs.
It was great to reconnect with things and so interesting to find those true moments. Like there’s a track on the record, You Don’t Know My Mind, which is an old Leadbelly track. But when I originally learned it, of course, I didn’t know it was a Leadbelly track because we didn’t have the Internet and there was no book at the library that would help you. People at the local record shop were a good resource, but they didn’t always have all the information. I learned this track from someone on the road, just picked it up while I was travelling around and I re-created it from memory. And of course, I got it wrong. But I like it. And it shows how robust a blues song can be.
Anyway I went through all these songs and I felt like, well, if a song doesn’t want to speak to me now, maybe it’s just one that will continue to exist as it was done 20 or 25 years ago. And those are songs that I’ll still happily play in the gigs. If someone says to me, oh, I’d love to hear this old track from 1993, I’m happy to do it. I just didn’t feel it needed a place on a recording because it’s already got one.
Gary:Yeah, that’s very interesting. But isn’t it a wonderful thing, Brooks, to feel that what you’re doing as an artist has developed and there continues to be great value, and increased value, as time goes on?
Brooks: I feel like the same person who is, you know, sitting in the studio 30 years ago thinking the best was yet to come. And I still feel that now. So, I’m sitting here speaking to you and I’m actually holding a copy of the CD in my hand and thinking it really looks good. I’m so proud of the songs – but I’m still thinking, oh, Gary, I can’t wait for you to hear the songs I’m writing now! And so to always have that sense that there’s the next bit coming. And I really feel that what I’m doing is part of something that’s alive. And I don’t mean that as a reflection just on me. I just mean that music is a very alive thing. And I found a way to sort of swim with it or grab on to it or…jump on board that train.
Gary: You know, I was talking to Rory Block a couple of months ago and she’s just turned 70, I think. And she was fantastic. She said, oh, you know, I feel like I’m just getting started. And I thought that was wonderful. Having turned 60 a couple of years ago myself -which, incidentally, I still can’t believe. And hearing that was very refreshing. And hearing what you’re saying is very refreshing as well, because I know you’ve passed that landmark!
Brooks: Yes! I passed that landmark a year ago now. And I can’t believe it either!
Gary: But that’s a very positive thing to say for sure. Now you’ve got a couple of covers on the album. You’ve mentioned the Leadbelly one. And there’s Dave Alvin’s King of California and Duke Ellington’s I Got It Bad – all great songs. So why did you include them and not other originals?
Brooks: Well, as part of the process I just sent out the call through email, through social media, to people who listen to my music. And I said, this is the project that I’m working on and I would love to hear what your top five songs are. And number one for every single person who sent a response back was King of California. And so I knew without a doubt that that was going to be on there.
And I knew the Leadbelly song would be on there because I felt as though that was such an important milestone for me. To take an old blues song, but to not do it in in the style that people are familiar with and yet stay true to the song. So I kind of figured that had to be there.
And then I Got it Bad. That came about because I went in the studio to make this record and I probably recorded near on 30 tracks digitally. I recorded way more than I needed and it was very apparent straight away that, you know, some of them just didn’t have any extra life in them. They sounded fine but just didn’t have any extra life. But likewise, when I did, I Got It Bad, that one was a real standout performance. I was in the studio with the engineer, Mark Freegard, along with the studio owner, and both of them said, wow, that was really something. And I was already shifting to the next tune. But they said, hang on a second – can we go back to that? We’d like to hear that again, because you kind of went somewhere we’ve not heard you go before. And so it really was their calling it to my attention that made it be on the record.
Sometimes I was using songs I knew well just to stay warmed up in the studio. So even if I wasn’t going to use them, I thought, well, if I sing a couple of takes of this one and I know it well – and I do know the Duke Ellington song really well – I thought this will just be a bridge for me to get to the next song. But in this case, this one stuck. On probably more than two occasions I said to the various people working with me on the record, oh, well, I’m not going to put that one on. And every single time I did, everybody came back to me and said, please put that on!
There were some other songs that didn’t make the record. For example, I have a really enjoyable version of Gambling Man that I did with Hans Theessink. But I thought, well, there’s nothing I would do on this recording that’s going to be better than that. And there were some tracks from my Shreveport Sessions, which I really loved. And even though I recorded them again, it just didn’t feel like they needed to be there. You know, it was one of those gut feelings. And the other thing is that over the course of 30 years, one’s point of view changes. And so there are certain things that I wrote about in earlier years that didn’t seem quite as relevant now or maybe if I were to think about them now, I would think about them differently. I didn’t try to work with those songs.
So in the end, if there was going to be too much deconstruction, I thought, well, I’m so far away from the original, there is no sense in going with this. So, that played a big role in which songs made it.
Gary: You completely reworked Whatever It Takes from Lucky Star, didn’t you?
Brooks: Well, interestingly enough, when I write songs, I write two or three completely different versions of the same song. And I mean completely different tunes. So, the version that you hear on Work My Claim, that’s how I originally wrote the song. And somehow when I was recording Lucky Star, it didn’t seem like it had a place there. I was really kind of struggling with it. So I ended up with a completely alternate version, which is what you hear on Lucky Star. And that’s pretty much how all my original songs work. It’s a bit of a rod to my own back because it makes double the work for everything. But sometimes I don’t know what feel I’m going for until I actually go there and sort of sit in it for a while. Kind of live in that groove and those chord changes. And the basis of all this is, I start with lyrics first. And I write almost the complete lyrics without any music. By the time I get to the music, the lyrics are pretty well set. And then I have room to move.
Gary: Now, looking at this group of songs Brooks, are there one or two that mark particular points in the Brooks William story? Pivotal points maybe?
Brooks: I actually think that’s true for every song there. As I look at the list of songs, every song was important in its time. And it did something that helped take me to where I am now. So every song has a place.
Inland Sailor was the first song that I ever recorded that actually got a fair bit of radio play. I don’t really understand why it did. But that one really propelled me and actually it’s the song that took me to Ireland for the first time. It was getting played and somebody rang me up from Belfast and said, you know, we would like you to come here and play. What’s it going to take to get you here? And it opened up all kinds of doors all over the UK and Ireland. And then also in Canada. That was a real important song for me.
And the song Mercy, Illinois was the first song that I wrote that was a straight-ahead narrative song. And that was a real important turning point, because I was very young and I was looking for a kind of a local idiom, I was trying to capture that Midwestern feel. And that song ended up being one that people focused on. Acoustic Guitar magazine interviewed me about it and I ended up doing the tab and the music and the chords. And it was such a big deal because no one had ever heard of me at that point. So, every song kind of has a place in there. Each song just turned the game around at that point.
Gary: Very Interesting. And of course, a song like Frank Delandry has got its own story.
Brooks: Yeah. Well that song has been very important to me because not only is it a narrative song but it also it tells a story about a guitar player, Frank Delandry from New Orleans, who one day just mysteriously disappeared and was never heard from again. And so, his memory lives on in legend, not that dissimilar from the legend of Robert Johnson. And so that’s a great story in itself. But one of the things that was so interesting about that song is that it’s probably the first of my songs that when people would hear me play it, they would want to play it too. That had never happened before. People would actually be sending me recordings of them playing at their local acoustic club! I never had that happen before.
And then the thing I love about it is that it’s firmly set in that sort of sub-delta region of New Orleans. It’s so set in place and time. Which is a place and a time musically that has had the biggest influence on what I do. And so, I felt like I was paying homage to my elders, so to speak. I think it’s important for us to do that.
Gary: Yeah that’s true. And it’s a very appealing song, Brooks. People warm to it very readily. Now, you had some fine musicians who worked on the album with you?
Brooks: Yeah. I was so lucky. Gary, I was making the record and I put out the call to loads of people – to all my friends. And unfortunately, there were so many that were on the road, who were busy and couldn’t come and be part of it. But what I’m so pleased about is a friend of mine called John McCusker, a lovely Scottish fiddler, was able to join me. He had been on tour with Mark Knopfler all last year, and was only home in Scotland for two days. And he spent one of those days recording my album! I’m absolutely blown away by that because, you know… Mark Knopfler, Brooks Williams…come on! But I was so honoured that he prioritized me. And the same for Christine Collister – I’ve been a big fan of her singing for years. And I’ve always thought that her voice and mine would sit really well together. And she just was so generous and did a beautiful job.
And I was so delighted that I got to work with a couple of young players as well, a fiddle player from Bristol called Aaron Catlow. I met Aaron on tour in Europe last year, and I just loved his playing. And I thought, wow, this is fiddle that’s kind of folky on the one hand, but it’s kind of bluesy – that Papa John Creach kind of kind of thing that used to happen with Jorma back in the day. And yet kind of jazzy and had a Stephane Grappelli feel as well. So I was so delighted that he was able to play. He’s a very big part of this record.
And then I called on my favourite piano player, a young fella from up in Newcastle, called Phil Richardson. He’s a wonderful piano player. And when I was on tour in Germany, I met a wonderful blues harmonica player called Ralf Grottian. It was tricky to meet up with Ralf, but it was good to get him on one or two tracks anyway. And then my old friend from the USA by the name of Jim Henry, whom I made a record with back in the 90s, was able to remotely add some mandolin and some vocals.
And it was just so great that that I was able to put all these pieces together. So, I knew from the beginning, Gary, this was gonna be an acoustic album and I knew it was going to be an acoustic guitar album. I certainly had my resonator guitar and my cigar box guitar there. I had the mandolin there. But I knew once I got started that something was happening. And whenever I recorded anything with those other instruments, it just didn’t feel right. It felt very reminiscent of when I started. We only could afford, all of us in my peer group, one nice guitar. And I remember going into a guitar shop and looking at a National and thinking, oh, one of these days I’m gonna buy a National. It took me years! But I remember all the music that I created in those early days was on one acoustic guitar. So I almost felt like I was going back to my roots in that way as well.
Gary: Brooks, you’re going to go on tour to the U.S. again in March. Then you’re back in the UK and touring for months. I’m looking at your schedule, it just looks – I mean, I’m tired just looking at it! How do you have the energy to do this, Brooks? [Find Brooks’ tour schedule here]
Brooks: I have loads of energy when it comes to playing and singing! And I look after myself as well. But I know that come the end of the year, I’ll be ready for a nice, long holiday.
Beth Hart Live at the Ulster Hall: Six Things We Learned
Grammy and Blues Music Award nominee Beth Hart has had a roller-coaster of a life. After a chaotic childhood in LA, she began playing clubs in Hollywood aged 15 and recorded her first album six years later. She’s gone through the loss of a beloved sister and suffered from bipolar disorder and drug addiction. But she’s battled through and her career has flourished, with last year’s War In My Mind her ninth solo studio album. Hart has said that discovering her faith was instrumental in her recovery.
She has played and recorded, to great acclaim, with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, releasing one live and three studio albums so far. She has collaborated with Slash, Jeff Beck and Buddy Guy, and performed for President Obama and his wife. Channelling rock, blues, gospel and soul, she is a dynamic performer, an incredible singer and a great song-writer.
Her album, War in My Mind (one of our Best Blues Albums 2019) sees Hart open up herself to her audience in new ways. “More than any record I’ve ever made, I’m more open to being myself on these songs,” she explains. “I’ve come a long way with healing, and I’m comfortable with my darknesses, weirdnesses and things that I’m ashamed of – as well as all the things that make me feel good.”
Beth played the Ulster Hall in Belfast, an iconic venue with excellent acoustics, and which dates back to 1862 and along the way has hosted Led Zeppelin, Rory Gallagher, Dire Straits, Jackson Browne and a host of top classical orchestras. With a top-class band of three – Jon Nichols on guitar, Tom Lilly, on bass and Bill Ransom on drums, Beth Hart came on stage to a rapturous reception from 2,000 fans. Here’s what we learned:
1. Beth Hart is an incredible singer. She’s not only powerful, but she’s got great range, dynamics and versatility. She gave an awesome blues performance of Lloyd C. Glenn and Lowell Fulson’s Sinner’s Prayer (made famous, of course by Ray Charles), had us rocking in the aisles with Spirit of God, and then did full justice to a number of ballads and jazzy numbers.
2. Her energy and stage presence is full-on. There’s nothing half-hearted about a Beth Hart performance. The woman gives it all she’s got and then some. When she arrived on stage, she immediately stamped her personality all over it in a swirling, foot stomping, gyrating, sinuous maelstrom of movement. Much to the delight of the audience.
3. Beth Hart doesn’t just give you an incredible music performance – she puts herself out there, with a display of vulnerability I’ve never encountered in an artist before. As she gave the background and the stories to the songs from War In My Mind, you came face to face with the battles she’s fought, of a broken home, addiction, lack of self-esteem and mental illness. Her performance of Tell Her You Belong To Me (from Better Than Home), with its background of her father leaving the family home, was stunning but heart-breaking. This wasn’t just entertainment, it was an artist really opening herself up to her audience – that, I’m sure, must take its toll on the artist; it wasn’t always easy on the audience either.
4. Beth Hart’s story is one of redemption. That comes through loud and clear, in her confidence, in her delight in the music and in the gratitude she exudes. It came through the joyous Spirit of God, inspired, she said from an experience of a Baptist Revival Church which exposed her to a different kind of Christian worship from the rather formal sort she’d been brought up with. And through her faith which she referred to briefly on several occasions. Previously she’s said “When I’m really doubtful of myself, I gravitate to God. Because if my faith can’t be in me, then it can be in him.” And her redemption has come in large part through her husband Scott Guetzkow who has helped her through the dark times and is always there for her. As she emotionally sang I Need A Hero, she dedicated it to Scott, and it was a touching moment when he crept on stage to give her a hug at the song’s conclusion.
5. Turning your rockin’ electric band into a tight acoustic group for a set of jazz- and latin-tinged numbers is a neat trick, and demonstrated the versatility of Hart’s three collaborators. Baby Shot Me Down worked exceptionally well here.
6. If you’re going to sling your guitar as low as Jon Nichols, you better have long arms. I’ve seen guitarist sporting as many guitars as Jon did in a gig, but never one who played it somewhere around his knees. Quite something.
Simply put, this was a performance from Beth Hart and her band that will live long in the memory.
“A national treasure in your own back yard.” Jorma Kaukonen
Mary Flower is an amazing acoustic guitarist who specializes in Piedmont-style finger picking with dashes of Delta, ragtime and jazz. A finalist in the National Finger Picking Guitar Championship, she is also a three-time nominee for a Blues Music Award and many times a Cascade Blues Association Muddy Award winner. Living Blues magazine said that she “Marries acoustic blues with touches of ragtime, folk, and jazz…the interplay is always interesting, often provocative, and sometimes breath-taking.”
She has eleven recordings and performs regularly in the United States and abroad, including appearances at the King Biscuit Blues festival, the Vancouver Folk Festival and Prairie Home Companion.
As well as her recording and song-writing, Mary Flower is a renowned guitar instructor, teaching at festivals and guitar camps, and hosts her own guitar camp, Blues in the Gorge, each year near Portland, Oregon. In addition, she has developed five instructional DVDs and been part of the Blues in Schools program.
With a great deal of care and creativity, she brings to life older blues and roots music, and composes songs that sound like they firmly belong in America’s great roots music tradition. She recently released her eleventh album, Livin’ With the Blues Again, a 12-song set that comprises instrumentals which showcase Mary’s guitar chops, blues and gospel songs and some Mary Flower originals. Down at the Crossroads got to chat to Mary about the album and her music.
Gary: I’ve been listening to your new album quite a lot over the last the last week or so. And I’ve really enjoyed it. I mean, it’s the blues, but it’s kind of uplifting as well. So I wondered if maybe you could tell us a little bit about it, how you decided what songs would go on it and maybe a bit about the recording process.
Mary Flower: Well, I have to tell you that this was a fairly quickly recorded CD and also I didn’t have a lot of time to plan. I know people who have spent a year to record an album and I found out maybe a month and a half, I’d say, before recording times that I was going to do it.
I was approached by the Little Village Foundation, which is…I call them angels. They find people that they want to record for them. And then they record the whole thing and do the artwork and pay for everything, and then give you CDs. I was extremely lucky to be chosen for this project. They recorded five albums about the same time and the release date for all five was the same. So we did a five act concert down at the Freight and Salvage in Berkeley, California.
Jim Pugh is a Hammond B3 player, who has played with a lot of groups, including with Robert Cray. And he decided to do something that would get him off the road and do something good for people. So he started the Little Village Foundation which is based somewhere in California. Anyway. So I had very little time compared to what a lot of people have when they do a project. I just kind of chose songs that I thought that I knew well enough to be able to pull off in the studio fairly well without having to think too hard – songs that I’ve been playing that I knew fairly well. I wrote a couple of extras before I went in and I did a couple of repeats from older albums.
For the recording process we had an engineer who’s a great guitar player. And mostly the other people on the recording are Little Village artists, except for Susie Thompson, who’s a friend of mine. And so it was people I’d never met or played with before. And they just kind of brought ’em in and the Sons of the Soul Revivers were phenomenal to work with. Three guys. And they didn’t have to even think about the parts. They knew exactly what to do and they sounded really, really good. They’re incredible. Anyway, it kind of all worked out.
Gary: I wanted to ask you about your singing, because I thought your singing on the album was very good. Clearly you’re known for your finger picking prowess – and the album is bookended by two lovely instrumentals. But do you have a preference between just playing guitar or playing and singing?
Mary Flower: Yes, I do. I would prefer…well, let’s put it in terms of songwriting. Would I rather write an instrumental or lyrics? l’d certainly rather be more guitar centric than being called the singer songwriter. Writing songs is a really difficult process for me lyrically. And, you know, I can sing or not sing, but I’m happy to not be singing if that’s an option. And I love writing instrumentals. I’m passionate about that. Particularly writing instrumentals that sound like an old song. Piedmont style blues or something.
Gary: But take Living with the Blues Again, which is a Mary Flower original. When you talk about, you know, struggling maybe with writing lyrics, I just thought the lyrics on that were very strong. And some were quite amusing. And then you have “this old country’s in a terrible mass, there’s lying and cheating, hitting and tweeting…No more kindness, my friend.” Which sounded to me awfully like a comment on your tweeter-in-chief.
Mary Flower: Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, what else could it be? It was definitely a political connotation. I’m not really a political performer or someone that talks a lot about politics. But I did find that that fit in well to that song. But my audience is not going to be insulted by that – they’re pretty much in agreement, I think. But yeah. That was exactly what that was all about. And I thought it was a very gentle way to say something. You know, as opposed to some people who are just…have more guts than I have!
Gary: I thought that was nicely done in the song and so, you know, I think your lyric writing on that one came through pretty well. It kind of reminded me of a Chris Smither, song in some ways, because he’s quite clever with his lyrics as well.
Mary Flower: Yeah. Well, he’s a real lyricist. But I just find it difficult to get inspiration. If I go to a retreat where I have nothing to do but write, I can write a song! But daily life – there’s so much to do. I get distracted. and I always have to be dragged away from my house, far away from civilization to write! But I can do it when forced to!
Gary: And there are some very cheerful spots on the album. There’s A Bright Side Somewhere, which is an old gospel song, which has been done by all sorts of people. I discovered recently another nice version of that by Ry Cooder.
Mary Flower: Oh I didn’t know he did it.
Gary: Yeah, but yours is a great version. And then River of Joy. Both seem to me to be quite hopeful or inspirational songs at a time when there’s a lot of pessimism around, you know, you say “the world’s all rough and tumble, There’s a great unrest” and so on. How important are those sort of songs, those kind of upbeat songs, in times like these?
Mary Flower: I think they’re critical. I have some hope because it’s gotta turn. It’s worse than it’s ever been, but it’s gonna turn around. And I think people like being hopeful. River of Joy is one of the two songs that I had previously recorded. I had written that after 9/11 – it was my response to that. So it kind of felt like it was time to do it one more time. I’m not a religious person, but gospel music is quite moving to me. I just feel like it lifts me up.
Gary: It’s such a big part of American roots music isn’t it?
Mary Flower: Yes, it’s huge. I’m a big fan of good gospel music. And that song Bright Side I thought was a Reverend Gary Davis song until I realized it’s an old Methodist hymn. And the guys that I sang with knew it quite differently. And they kind of had to relearn the structure of the song. Everybody’s got their version of it.
Gary: So, let me ask you a little bit about your guitar playing. Obviously, you’re very skilled. You’ve been a finalist in prestigious competitions and so on. And so how did you get so good, Mary? Were you self-taught? Did you have teachers? How did you get to the skill level you have?
Mary Flower: I am completely self-taught. I grew up in a small town where nobody played guitar. And, you know, it was during what we call the folk scene of the 60s, late 60s, and all I heard were the commercial renderings from people. I didn’t really understand the roots of the music until I went to school at Indiana University, which has probably the greatest ever ethno-musicology school in the country.
John Cephas
And a lot of musicians came there and, as I began to dig a little bit deeper, I realized that some of the Peter, Paul and Mary songs, were written by Reverend Gary Davis. I started hearing the roots. And as I got older, I began to delve into the people who played the early country blues and early Piedmont style blues. Then I met John Cephas, who is one of my heroes. And John Jackson, two Piedmont style players. I spent time with both of them, not really learning from them, but playing with them, you know? And as I went around to these guitar camps, which were really fun, I learned. I mean, I watched other people. I watched how they taught. I watched how they play. And that really helped me in the beginning. And then I kind of found my own way.
But I try to not copy. I mean, unless I decide I’m going to do a note for note version of somebody’s song. I try to kind of use their style in a way with my own playing, with my own writing. And I turn it around a little bit. I try to never steal. I mean, you won’t hear me sound too much like Robert Johnson, although I could if I wanted to. Plenty of people that do that. I try to make it my own, I guess.
Gary: So how do you do you do that? When you’ve identified a song that you think that might work for Mary Flower, how do you go about the rearranging, reinterpreting?
Mary Flower: I try to be true to the form and perhaps play it in a different key, make my own arrangement. But keep it recognizable. I don’t want to take it too far away from where a song was written. But probably the hardest thing for me is if I’m learning a song that was recorded by a man. Many times I can’t sing those lyrics or I can’t sing it in the key that they recorded. So, I’ve got to make some changes. All of that can be a bit of a struggle. It’s really hard to take a song and make it mine if it’s written by a guy. And so many times it is.
Gary: Do you ever change lyrics then so you can sing it?
Mary Flower: Yes, I have been known to do that! If I were doing a Robert Johnson song, I can’t sing, “I’ll beat my woman until I’m satisfied.” So yes. I’ve been known to change a bit here and there.
The other problem is understanding lyrics from the recording. That can be super hard and I get really frustrated. You’d think this song must have lyrics on the internet. Wrong! Because they couldn’t understand the lyrics either! So, yes, it can be really hard to find the correct interpretation of the song.
Gary: A good example of that is Blind Willie Johnson’s Latter Rain. Because if you go and look for the lyrics of that, you’ll find all sorts of strange things because Johnson was a Pentecostal and there’s a bit of Pentecostal theology that read a text in the Old Testament about the “latter rain” falling on the crops which they took to refer to the Spirit falling in the last days. So that’s what the song’s about, because Johnson’s Pentecostal movement felt that they were in the days of the latter rain of the Spirit coming down. But unless you understand that you would misinterpret what Johnson is singing, which sometimes can be difficult. So that’s a prime example of a prime example of what you’re saying.
Mary Flower: Yeah. And there are so many dialects as well. In the Southern States, it’s really hard to understand those guys so much of the time. Another positive point for writing my own!
Gary: So if someone was starting out on a journey wanting to play acoustic blues guitar, people who come to your to your workshops and so on – who would you advise them to listen to?
Mary Flower: Well, I would say Blind Blake, because he is the top of the heap as far as I’m concerned. I know maybe seven people who can imitate him well, who can play just where he’s playing. But if I want a gentler approach, I would start with Mississippi John Hurt, whom everybody loved because he was a sweetheart. Although his songs sound easy, they’re not really, but they’re a good place to learn. And I’d also say Elizabeth Cotton, who also had a gentler approach. And, you know, she wrote Freight Train, which is very cool.
These guys teach you pattern picking, and how to incorporate a melody. But when people try to learn syncopation, that’s what throws everybody. It’s so complex. And really the guys who play that are really imitating a piano, and it’s easier to play syncopation on a piano than it is to play it on a guitar. So that’s what tends to throw people.
That’s kind of what I spend a lot of time teaching in these workshops because a simple melody isn’t very interesting. People have to learn to vary it from measure to measure. But John Hurt, he is a great place to start.
Gary: Very good. Who then are the guitarists that you like to listen to these days?
Mary Flower: Well, I don’t do a lot of listening, and I’ll tell you why. I hear music all the time. I mean, I had a four-hour rehearsal yesterday with my little string band! But of course, Ry Cooder. And then some of my friends who are not maybe nationally known or internationally known. Pat Donahue is one of my favourite players of all time.
I still hear people say to me, “You know what, you’re so good. Why have we never heard of you?” That’s why I get on tour. And Pat’s another one of those. Even though he was on Prairie Home companion for years and had millions of people listening to him every week. And then there’s Paul Geremiah whom I knew. Sadly, he’s had a stroke and I don’t think he can play anymore right now. But he was the best of the best when he was touring. These are some of the top, top guys. Oh, and John Cephas and John Jackson I guess I should put it in that category, as far as heroes of mine go.
Gary: So let me ask you a little bit about the blues. You’ve been nominated for Blues Music Awards, and a lot of your music revolves around the blues. What is it that attracts you to this music, Mary?
Mary Flower: Well, there’s so many different kinds of blues. The Chicago style was mostly electric, and I’m not really interested in that. I’m interested in the Piedmont style because it is complex and challenging. And oddly enough, it was played mostly by blind men. Go figure on that one! They were phenomenal. But I don’t know – it speaks to me, it’s got an edge to it. And I can write songs that work in that genre. I mean, I can write folk songs if I need to. But I really like the challenge of trying to make it sound like it’s an older song.
Gary: This is music that’s been around for a long time, that does seem to have an enduring appeal. Generation after generation discovers something fresh in it and it seems to have that continual attraction and pull.
John Jackson
Mary Flower: And I also think that the people who are really good at it have been working all their lives toward getting it right. That to me is worth a lot right there. Let’s put it this way – there are not a lot of jerks playing this kind of music! If they are, they don’t last. They are people who are putting their best foot forward and being true to the to the genre.
Take John Jackson, the Piedmont style player from Virginia, who is no longer around, and was probably the closest thing to John Hurt. He lived a fabulous life. And I think everybody was so touched by him. He just had a halo around his head! He played this music and spoke with an accent that nobody could quite understand. But he was such a great guy. And that really appeals to me and speaks for something.
Gary: Yes, that’s very interesting that you say that, because over the last two, three years I’ve talked to quite a lot of blues musicians…like Eric Bibb, Chris Smither, Rory Block,Hans Theessink, Luther Dickinson and quite a few others. And they’ve been generous with their time in talking to me and never critical of other people. So, yes, I think you’re right to say that. [when you’re finished here, check out the interviews by clicking the link]
Mary Flower: Oh, by the way, I’ve invited Eric to teach at my camp next year, and we’ve had Michael Jerome Brown in the past. He’s a wonderful player.
Gary: Yes, he’s a fantastic player. I saw him touring with Eric Bibb in the last year. And he has an encyclopedic knowledge of the blues and blues history.
Mary Flower: Yes, he taught at my camp and made a big impression a couple of years ago. So hopefully we’ll get Eric Bibb next year. And it look like we might have Jim Kweskin for the jug band-y stuff. Anyway, that would be quite a year if I can get who I want.
Gary: So tell us about your teaching, Mary, because I know that’s a big part of what you do.
Mary Flower: Well, I have my own guitar camp that happens here in early October. And it’s been hugely successful. We’re going on our seventh year, I think. And I bring in three nationally known people, and then get 50 students. So teaching is something I love to do. And it also balances me out. I don’t have to be on the road all the time. And I teach at other people’s guitar camps as well.
My camp is called Blues in the Gorge and it’s in the Columbia River Gorge at a place called Menucha. There’s something on my home page of my website about the dates for next year, which is early October. [check it out here] It’s 5 days – three intense days. And it’s a lot of fun. Everybody who comes is gracious. A lot of these camps turn into party camps, but that’s not what this is. People take it seriously and a lot of really great, great people show up for it.
Gary: That sounds fabulous and a lot of fun. Mary, it’s been lovely talking to you. Thanks so much for your time.
John Mayer and his band played a sold-out concert at the 3 Arena Dublin to 13,000 adoring fans, who sang along and cheered every song from Mayer’s extensive back catalogue. The band was made up of eight exceptionally talented musicians, including Isaiah Sharkey, Pino Paladino, Aaron Sterling and David Ryan Harris, and singers Tiffany Palmer and Carlos Ricketts. These are seriously fine musicians, who gelled together wondrously and, when given an opportunity to shine, did so with considerable aplomb.
Now emerged from “the lean years,” as he calls them, with the indiscretions and missteps of his earlier, tabloid-filling career recognized and put behind him, Mayer set the scene for the concert with Changing from his latest album, The Search for Everything – “I am not done changing.”
It was the man’s 42nd birthday, duly noted by the crowd which spontaneously burst into “Happy Birthday” after the first song, and then by the band, interrupting the next song and non-plussing Mayer completely. It was a nice moment.
Here’s what we learned:
1. John Mayer is seriously talented guitarist, coaxing that crystal clear, clean, characteristic John Mayer voice and tone from his PRS Silver Sky guitar. As Eric Clapton has said, “he’s a master guitarist,” and his consummate skill was on full display, effortlessly moving around the fretboard, playing jazzy fills, bending notes flawlessly, moving fast, moving slow, on the beat, syncopated – and all the time drawing you in, charging everything with emotion. Mayer alternated the PRS with his Martin acoustic, and demonstrated with the latter in the likes of Neon you scarcely need a band when you can exploit the full potential of the instrument.
2. He wasn’t the only seriously talented guitarist on stage – aside from the wonderful bassist, Pino Paladino, we had the prodigious Isaiah Sharkey and David Ryan Harris. Sharkey was a revelation, at 29 jaw-droppingly good. He and Mayer had one or two good old guitar duels to great effect, Sharkey giving as good as he got, and a few occasions when they harmonized effortlessly in perfect time. It was a great night for guitar aficionados.
3. John Mayer has great back catalogue. Over nearly three hours, he took us on a tour of his previous albums from the last 18 years and you realized afresh how good a songwriter he is. The songs are musically sophisticated, never same-y, usually with jazzy underpinnings, and yet there’s inevitably a great hook or a great melody. The Dublin crowd sang along to nearly everything, but of course the big hits like Neon, Gravity, Slow Dancing and Waiting On the World to Change went down a storm.
4. The man is a seriously good blues musician. We didn’t get too much opportunity to appreciate this last night, but his soloing during Helpless was sophisticated blues playing at its best. No mindless widdling here.
5. Mayer’s rhythm section is much more than a rhythm section. You don’t have to be called Aaron to be a great drummer, but clearly it helps – Aaron Draper and Aaron Sterling gave it all they had and then some, doing more than just underpinning the band. As did the wonderful Pino Paladino – it was only a pity we didn’t get the chance for some solo work from Mr. Paladino during the evening.
6 .Covers are usually a good idea, and we got two. Mayer took the stage after the break on his own and treated the crowd to Springsteen’s Tougher Than the Rest, including a little bit of Springsteen-esque harmonica playing. Then the talented David Ryan Harris tackled Prince’s none-too-straightforward Beautiful One, showing off his exquisite falsetto vocals.
7. Waxing philosophical can be dicey. But I think Mayer just about pulled it off, in his pre-song riff about battling anxiety. He then launched into The Age of Worry from the Born and Raised album, which was complemented by a video backdrop complete with lyrics. “Smile in the age of worry.” Good advice.
Drew Holcomb and The Neighbors is an Americana band based in Nashville, which has been performing and recording since 2006. They have now released six very fine albums, choc full of good tunes, good musicianship and good feeling. Along the way, they’ve played on stages with Ryan Adams, the Avett Brothers, John Hiatt, Needtobreathe and others. Last year Holcomb relaunched the Moon River Music Festival in Chattanooga which had sold out crowds and featured artists like Margo Price, the Avett Brothers, Mavis Staples, Jason Isbelland Brandi Carlile.
The new album from the band, Dragons, is an upbeat, infectious affair, with songs co-written by Lori McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Zach Williams of The Lone Bellow, producer Cason Cooley, and Ellie Holcomb. You’ll find yourself humming along, tapping your toes and generally the better for having listened to it. It’s an assured slice of sunny Americana. That’s not to say it’s in any way trivial – Holcomb says he has never worked harder on his song-writing than on this album, and the lyrics are in turn wryly amusing, clever, poignant and serious about themes like grief and getting older.
One of the album highlights is You Want What You Can’t Have, featuring Lori McKenna. It’s got an infectious rhythm and tune, but Holcomb says it deals with the “fight for contentment in a world of comparison, greed and dissatisfaction.” And then there’s the title track, Dragons, an out and out country song with an inspirational message which evokes the spirit of Holcomb’s grandfather – “Go swimming in the ocean on New Year’s Day, Don’t listen to the critics, Stand up and bear witness, Go slay all the dragons that stand in your way.” Good advice – but maybe I’ll not plunge into the north Atlantic just after Christmas!
We talked to Drew about the album:
DATC: Drew, the new album, Dragons, is terrific. One of your best, for me, up there with my own favourite, Good Light. You’ve said it was largely inspired by the quote, “Always be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle.” Can you tell us a bit more about that?
Drew Holcomb; I think there is a lot despair, apathy, and hopelessness in our world today. There is also too much “othering” and marginalizing. I find empathy and loving the stranger to be a baseline moral value that we must cultivate in our lives. I want my music to be something that brings people together, while also not being escapist. I think telling my own story is the way to do that.
DATC: Can you tell us a bit about, first of all, writing the songs on the album (I gather some were co-written), and then the recording of the album?
Drew: I wrote “Family” and “See the World” first, by myself, then started writing alongside other friends who are artists and songwriters. Lori McKenna, Natalie Hemby, Sean McConnell and others.
DATC: The first song, Family, is a great opener, a joyous celebration of family, even though “it ain’t always pretty, drive you insane.” How important has family been to you?
I have over thirty cousins, dozens of aunts and uncles and I grew up 5 doors down from my maternal grandparents. I am the 2nd of 4 children and we have 3 of our own now. Family is very important to me. Family has been a majority of the cast of characters in my life.
DATC: You’ve got some great collaborators – as well as Ellie, you have Lori McKenna, The Lone Bellow and Natalie Hemby. Can you say a bit about working with these artists and why you had each one on these particular songs?
Drew Holcomb: I usually don’t co-write but decided to give it a try this record, and it was mostly with people who I already love and trust. We had a great time. “Dragons” for instance was written with Zach Williams from the Lone Bellow, and it all started about a conversation about the big personalities of our grandfathers. The writing with these friends was very narrative and personal.
DATC: You Want What You Can’t Have is a jaunty, toe-tapping song, but it’s got a bit of a punch, with “we want the spark, but we don’t want the burn, we want the love, but we don’t want the hurt,” doesn’t it?
Drew Holcombe: Yes it does. “Some people stay up all night, praying for a child of their own…” is also a gut-wrencher. Lori and I wanted to say something unifying and universal and stinging while also looking in the mirror. Saying hard things to the world while preaching them to yourself always makes the medicine go down better!
DATC: And Maybe kind of continues the theme with “everything is never enough…maybe we’re not supposed to try everything.” It’s a pretty explicit comment about the consuming, individualistic society we’ve become. You don’t shy away from making that sort of serious point in your songs. How much is that informed by your faith and how do you tread the line between that and not wanting to be overly explicit?
Drew Holcomb: I honestly don’t think about the “line,” I just write what I want to write and let the chips fall. This song, “Maybe” was written about a conversation about the never-ending pressure to be interesting on social media. Sometimes what we need is less, not more.
DATC: I love the positivity of title track, Dragons – can you say something about the background to that song?
Drew Holcomb: My grandfather was a pretty legendary guy… He was a surgeon during World War Two, took his family to Kenya for a year in the late 60’s to do surgery there, he loved to play golf, tennis, fish, hunt and do taxidermy. He died about 17 years ago and this song is about a dream of him coming back to give me advice.
DATC: You’ve just organized another Moon River festival – tell us something about that and what the festival is all about.
Drew Holcomb: It’s really just about great music, a great location, and community. We have been doing it for 6 years, and it keeps growing and getting better and better. It has sold out in a day for the last two years. This year was especially fun for me because we had Brandi Carlile headlining and we closed the festival with John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery” together.
DATC: More generally, Drew Holcomb and the Neighbors have become pretty successful, but I’m sure it’s been a tough ride at times. Did you ever feel like giving up?
Drew Holcomb: All the time… Making your living as a creative person is a roller coaster of self-doubt, high highs and low lows. There have been many times in the last 15 years I have thought about giving up. The travel is brutal, the sleep, eating etc. on the road is hard on your body, and you are opening up your soul on stage every night in hopes that the crowd reciprocates, which is not always the case.
DATC: Finally, Drew, what sort of music does Drew Holcomb like to listen to and who, would you say are your favourite songwriters?
Drew Holcomb: I listen to lots of things. I would say my favorite bands of the last 15 years have been Avett Brothers and Wilco, but I honestly listen to everything.
Larkin Poe are the Lovell sisters from Atlanta, Georgia. “I’m not Larkin, and she’s not Poe,” quipped Rebecca Lovell during their sold-out gig at Inchyra Arts Club near Perth, Scotland, where Lins Honeyman from the Gospel Blues Train and Gary Burnett from Down at the Crossroads had the opportunity to talk to these hugely talented artists.
Larkin Poe, actually, is an ancestor of the sisters and relative of the famed author Edgar Allan Poe. The pair launched the band in 2010 after a few successful years as a bluesgrass group along with their elder sister, Jessica, and have developed their own distinctive sound, a unique, blues-based Americana rock, which draws deeply on the well of traditional blues but adds their own very modern, high- energy take, featuring gorgeous harmonies and exhilarating electric slide guitar. American Songwriter said of them: “This isn’t your basic Stevie Ray Vaughan-styled blistering blues rock. It’s far more primal, malicious, and unsettling.” That’s true, but what’s also true is the warmth and good humour that’s folded in, which makes their performances massively appealing. [check out our review of their concert here]
The sisters have performed triumphantly at Glastonbury Festival in England, featured on T-Bone Burnett’s Lost Basement Tapes, been nominated for a Blues Foundation Award, and released four studio albums, the most recent of which, Venom and Faith, has reached number one on the Billboard Blues Album Chart and met with considerable critical acclaim.
Lins and Gary sat down with Megan and Rebecca prior to their gig to talk about the blues and their approach to making music, and found two highly articulate young women brimming over with enthusiasm for their music and life generally, and who had thought deeply about their musical heritage. Lins began by commenting on how well Venom and Faith has been received:
Rebecca: Oh yeah. I think this is one of the first tours that we’ve been out and folks are showing up really powering for the lyrics and a lot of the songs off the album. So in that respect it feels like it’s been well loved so far. We appreciate that!
Lins: Yeah, we’ve played quite few tracks on the show as well. And I know, Gary, it was certainly one of your best albums of 2018.
Gary: Yeah. We feature a “best of” album list at the end of every year. Venom and Faith definitely had to feature in our top few albums. It’s a great album, really, really good.
Rebecca: Thank you! We’re very proud of the way it came out. You know self-producing has been a fairly recent affair for us and it’s definitely been very natural. I think Megan and I enjoy the process of, you know, being siblings in the studio, just sort of allowed to have our own private language and to work really lean, mean and fast.
Megan: Absolutely. And Peach, our previous album to Venom and Faith was also produced by the two of us and we’ve just so enjoyed the freeing experience of it being just the two of us in the studio. It’s been so much fun to make these albums.
Lins: And being sisters, it must work for you and against you in certain ways?
Rebecca: Absolutely. I think that we have very limited experiences when it doesn’t work for us. Obviously having a sibling dynamic can be a very volatile and powerful relationship! I think it’s meant that over the years we’ve learned how to treat each other with respect and care, and, you know, I think of the Black Crowes who are not touring together because they have such big feuds and things like that, and we will not have that happen.
Gary: Well, tell us about the album’s title. It seems a little strange – Venom and Faith – conjures up for me strange religious sects handling snakes or something in the Appalachian hills!
Rebecca: Absolutely! That was that was part of the inspiration and it’s drawn from the lyrics of one of the tracks, Honey Honey. Yeah…I do like the juxtaposition of the two words and the fact that it does conjure up those images of a southern American Gothic type. Yeah, backwoods country church, where you’re sort of rolling the dice and…there is something, I think, in our music that summons up some of those sort of feelings. And, you know, some of the flavors of our music go from the dark to the light, tabbing some beautiful moments but also some grungy moments. So, it’s trying to represent that light and shadow, and Venom and Faith I felt was the right title.
Gary: Yes, it’s fabulous. And you’ve done some fantastic versions of old blues songs along the way – the Skip James song, Hard Time Killing Floor Blues on this album is probably the best cover of that song that I’ve heard. The Skip James version is very dark, but somehow, although you keep to the tradition, you manage to bring something fantastically fresh to it.
Skip James
Rebecca: That means so much! That is really one of our favorite songs that we’ve ever run across. We heard that song and we were just immediately obsessed, and the fact that it’s so modal, and major and minor, and it just it makes you feel a very specific way. And so we wanted to pay tribute to that.
Megan: And Skip James is one of the first blues guys that we really, really fell in love with. He’s definitely a mutual love of Rebecca and me.
Gary: And how do you go about choosing some of these old blues songs that you’ve done? You’ve done a few of them – some Son House and Robert Johnson and so on. How do you go about choosing and how do you go about interpreting a song?
Megan: I love this question. The answer to both those questions is kind of a gut feeling! Like, well we’ll stumble across a song that just feels right!
Rebecca: I think also it’s songs that we wish we’d written, like when you stumble across something that feels akin to something that you would have made up yourself. And so, then, the true nature of what the song should be or how we should interpret it – it just sort of feels like you’re rewriting it yourself. And to me that’s part of the beauty of American roots music – the fact that this is a very historic and, by American standards, ancient genre and yet you know there is so much shared feeling. The fact that it is one hundred years since the song was written means nothing. It still feels as relevant to us as it probably did to the people that were writing it. And so that’s really special.
Lins: And these songs, as you say, are ancient in American terms. But a hundred years is quite a sizable chunk between the original and doing a cover version. What makes these songs stand the test of time in your opinion? Because something must be great about those songs.
Rebecca: This is something Megan and I have talked about quite a bit – and that is, that the songs lyrically deal with matters of the human condition. You know, there is very little artifice in a lot of traditional blues tunes, just very raw emotions, very laid bare struggles of how to deal with your humanness, how to deal with sorrow, how to deal with being down and out. And I think that in our own specific ways, we can all relate to those feelings. So, to me, what really stands the test of time is a song that doesn’t deal too much with, you know, synthesizers or pop production, it really is about just the soul of the song.
Lins: Yes. It’s just getting down to the basics, isn’t it? It doesn’t mince its words. One such song which as far as I’m aware is not on any of your albums but I came across it on your Facebook feed, is a version of Blind Willie Johnson’s Soul of a Man. That was an incredible performance from the two of you. Any plans to put that on an album?
Megan: You never know! I guess it’s always unwritten and that that’s what’s exciting about the future.
Lins: And another song that we should mention – I think it’s from your Peach album – was John the Revelator and that recently got played at the end credits of the Fox TV series Lucifer.
Rebecca: It was very exciting! Again. I think it’s great to let these old songs, that have meant so much to so many people, have new lives in such unexpected ways. You know, I will admit though, we hadn’t watched the Lucifer TV show, and so of course we were hop-skipping into this one episode and telling our parents to watch it and not really knowing the premise of the show, and it’s a bit of a twisted kind of crazy show! But that was really fun. Just to see our music presented in this unexpected way.
Lins: It’s a great version as well. I mean, there have been so many versions of John the Revelator – every blues artist is probably done a version, but yours is up there!
Bessie Jones
Gary: I love the first song on Venom and Faith, Sometimes, the Bessie Jones song. The song sounds very up to date, but when you go back and listen to the original, with the clapping and so on, you’re tapping right into the whole spirit of that. What drew you to that song?
Rebecca: Well just the energy, I mean. And also, the power of her voice and the claps. It’s captivating, you know, and it’s a field holler, man, where you can feel the purpose of that song. And also, just wanting also to represent a Georgia girl – Bessie was from Georgia. And there was something we liked about that as well. It’s just a feel-good song.
Gary: Yeah, great song. I was also thinking about, you know, when we think of the blues we often think about the male artists, but of course in the history of the blues, the women were some of the biggest artists. And they’ve been ignored at times. How true is that still today – is it still difficult for women in this industry?
Rebecca: That is that is a complicated question with a complicated answer! And I think that different people would answer it in different ways. But I do think that you’re right, you know, historically women were absolutely the pioneers of blues and pop music, and they were some of the biggest pop stars of their time, at the turn of the century. And it does feel distinctly unfair that they are forgotten. That the role that they played in terms of pioneering the genre gets waylaid with time.
But, you know, we have had a very positive experience. I think that our parents raised us to kick the door down and do what it is that we want to do. And I think that that has served as well in the industry. Not willing to compromise. I mean, yeah you know, you can’t compromise who you are because that’s all you’ve got, right? Who said that? Janis – Janis Joplin. I like that’s all you’ve got, so you might as well just stick to your guns and by hook or by crook make the media that you want to make. And I think if more artists took that stand they’d be better – male or female.
Megan: Bottom line it’s hard to be in the industry, regardless of gender!
Rebecca: Yeah, and it’s so competitive. The music industry is so intensely competitive that you have to be willing to show up and work hard and be very tenacious. Extremely. Yes, so I think the short answer would be we haven’t felt our gender has had too much of a sway on our career thus far. And I think that that’s how it should be, that the art should speak for itself regardless of class, color, creed, gender, all the above. It should just speak to people and that should rise to the surface.
Lins: And what comes across is that the music is authentic – we’ve touched on that earlier on, that really with all your albums, the music comes across as being really, very real. Is that a specific thing in your head when you set out to record an album – that you’re gonna have to be as real as possible? Or does it not enter into your head and you just do it naturally?
Rebecca: No, it has entered our heads! I think that we have made records that we didn’t feel like they sounded like us. The studio can be a bit of a void sometimes. You can get in there and know who you are, but then technology allows you to try and create this hyper-perfect-ized robot version of yourself that’s auto tuned half to hell and everything’s grid aligned. And that doesn’t feel human anymore. And I think that we’ve made a distinct decision over these years to try and under-produce our records in order for the humanity in who we are as individuals to show through.
Megan: Which is part of the reason why we decided to self-produce because we definitely had that specific goal in mind. So, we knew going into it that we weren’t going to pick ourselves apart and that what we loved about discovering the blues was the raw nature of it and to try and keep some of that in the music. Leave the humanity in if possible.
Lins: And there are some great moments because you’ve also introduced some electronic elements later on the album which is great – just takes your kind of music into sort of a different level as well. Now, we’ve talked about our sort of favorite songs on the most recent album. What about yours?
Megan: Depends on the mood. But I’ve really, really enjoyed playing Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues every night. Because Rebecca brought that song very late in the recording process. In fact, I think it was written while we were in the studio. One of the last ones to show up and I just knew immediately when I heard that song it was gonna be one of my favorites. I was so excited to record it, so I would definitely put that as a top contender for me.
Rebecca: Thank you! I think that probably in terms of melding the old with the new, my favorite would have to be Fly Like an Eagle because that does feature a lot of the pop production. You know, we love Tom Petty – Tom Petty is one of the top pop guys ever, because he was a dude that could punch you straight out with a verse and then, bam, you’re into the chorus, and it’s that pop song structure. And I think that that’s been a big marker for us in wanting to do the blues, but also to marry it with more of a pop arrangement, and introduce, you know, a more modern-day sound palette, And Fly Like an Eagle was really fun – we’re from Atlanta, the home of hip hop, so you gotta throw it in!
Gary: But that’s the thing that I think is very appealing about your music. You’ve got this traditional blues underpinning, but you’re bringing the all these modern sorts of influences to bear. I was talking to Bruce Iglauer from Alligator Records recently and he was saying that what he looks for in an artist these days is that traditional base, but really bringing their own stamp to it. And it seems to me that you’ve really been able to do that these last couple of records.
Rebecca: Well I think just by not wanting to be in a time capsule is very important. Because there is zero, zero interest in us in being puppets of something that has already been. Because this is music that has been very real to people for a very real reason, and it served a very distinct purpose, and we don’t want to just piggyback off that. You know, we feel a deep respect for the blues and the masterful artists that pioneered the genre but we have to make it in our own way in order to, you know, not be talking out of our asses, pardon my French. But it’s true, you know, we’re growing up in the 21st century as white women and we want to be as authentic in that way with our own story as we can. Innovation is required!
Lins: Let’s talk about the guitar side of things. Megan, did you get it as a Christmas present as opposed to Rebecca, or how did you end up playing the slide? It’s an amazing sound and along with the voices, it’s what defines the Larkin Poe sound.
Megan: So yeah, we grew up listening to Alison Krauss and Union Station, and that’s of course featuring the legendary Jerry Douglas. So I definitely grew up with that kind of earworm. That sound in my head. And when we quit our classical violin lessons in our teens, we heard bluegrass for the first time and we decided we wanted to quit our classical lessons and hop over onto some acoustic instruments, y’know.
And I tried to play guitar and banjo and mandolin, but I guess me and fretted instruments don’t go well together! So I saw a dobro being played and that’s when I made the connection between the sound that I grew up listening to and what that instrument was. And it was dobro, so I start playing dobro, and later on when we started Larkin Poe, we wanted to experiment more with an electric sound.
Rebecca: So the lap steel just made sense, and kudos to Megan because you were, what 14 when you picked it up? It’s a very awkward instrument to play in just about every way, and the fact that you typically play it seated. And so Meghan, you’ve been very innovative in the way that you’ve repurposed slide – and she had this little contraption built so she can stand and walk around and rock out while playing the slide, and do it very effortlessly, especially considering just how challenging an instrument it is to play.
Megan: It’s not a very common instrument. I don’t know why, because it’s such a versatile instrument and it’s so expressive. What I love about it is the vocal quality of the instrument. I love to sing with Rebecca, I love to sing harmony. You know, we grew up singing harmony together, but I consider my voice to be the lap steel, not necessarily my actual voice!
Lins: And there’s something special when your voice intertwines with the lap steel, that’s just so much special.
Megan: It’s very fun. We certainly enjoy it especially a song like Good and Gone from the record. You know we so enjoy twinning together.
Lins: Fantastic. Excellent. It’s been a pleasure talking to you. Thank you!
“It’s easy to love this duo’s brand of barnstorming blues.”
Larkin Poe are the Lovell sisters from Atlanta, Georgia. “I’m not Larkin, and she’s not Poe,” quipped Rebecca Lovell during their sold-out gig at Inchyra Arts Club near Perth, Scotland. Larkin Poe, rather, is an ancestor of the sisters and relative of the famed author Edgar Allan Poe. Rebecca and Megan, formally trained musically, got into bluegrass in their teens and, after forming the band, have developed their own distinctive sound which is a unique blues-based Americana rock. Adept at taking traditional blues and bringing them bang up-to-date at the same time, the pair are exceptional musicians, wonderful singers and high-powered performers. And, as we discovered in an interview with Larkin Poe before the gig – thoroughly nice people, who give thoughtful consideration to the roots tradition that underpins their music.
Photo: Robbie Klein
The band played at a most unusual venue – a refurbished cattle byre in a sprawling country estate in Scotland, Inchyra Arts Club. With a vaulted timber roof, hard wood floors and original wood used wherever possible, it’s got great acoustics and can pack in around 600 people. It’s a unique, welcoming space and made for a great atmosphere to welcome the Lovell sisters and their band.
Broadcaster Lins Honeyman, from The Gospel Blues Train radio show and I had the opportunity to interview Larkin Poe and then attend the gig. Here’s what we learned:
This was a performance full of energy, passion and joy from the opening Trouble in Mind (not the traditional version, by any means!) to the glorious Robert Johnson Come On In My Kitchen The Lovell sisters and the two other members of their band didn’t hold back throughout the whole captivating set. They seemed to be enjoying it just as much as the packed crowd, with smiles aplenty from the duo and plenty of chit-chat to engage the audience from live-wire Rebecca.
Walking through the audience while playing scorching lap steel slide guitar is quite a trick and one which Megan Lovell pulled off with some aplomb, much to the delight of the Inchrya fans, who quickly whipped out their mobile phones to record and photograph. I’ve only seen this done a few times, most notably Buddy Guy – and it sure is a crowd pleaser.
As I listened to Venom and Faith (the band’s latest acclaimed album) in the safe confines of my car, I tried to categorize it – is it blues, Americana, rock or even at times pop? In the full throttle, ear-bending cauldron of Inchyra Arts Club, with the hair-flinging, guitar-slinging, leather-jacketed Rebecca, and the searing sounds of Meghan’s slide guitar, there was no doubt that this was rock music. Blues-infused, genuine, old-fashioned, full-bodied, head-banging, modern rock. Glorious.
The banjo can hold its head up in a rock concert. Yes, really. It featured in two songs, fully amped up, California King and John the Revelator, with a banjo solo taking pride of place in the latter. In the middle of all this high-energy, full-throated rock concert, we get a banjo solo!
Megan Lovell is a terrific slide guitarist. A classically-trained violinist, she took up playing slide guitar as a teenager and, boy, she can make that thing sing. Nothing like some lap steel slide to conjure up the ghosts of the old Delta blues masters.
You can successfully talk about something serious in a rock concert. Before launching in to Mad as Hatter, Rebecca Lovell appealed for a more sympathetic attitude toward mental illness, and dementia in particular, talking about her own family experience. For those of us who have seen the devastating effects of dementia in their family, it was really something to hear:
Time is a thief It’ll steal into bed and rob you while you sleep You’ll never feel it It pulls off the covers, and rifles through your head Then you’ll wait to find you can’t remember what you just said.
Larkin Poe is firmly underpinned by the blues. They played Leadbelly’s Black Betty, Son House’s Preachin’ Blues, Willie Johnson’s John the Revelator and the superbly reworked Hard Time Killing Floor Blues from Skip James. The band is respectful of the tradition, but not bound by it and their versions of these classic songs are some of the very best I’ve heard.
If you can ever get to Scotland, be sure and make you way to the Inchyra Arts Club. More importantly, check out the incredibly talented Larkin Poe.
A Satisfied Mind was written by Joe “Red” Hayes and Jack Rhodes and first recorded by Porter Wagoner in 1955, scoring him a #1 Country hit. Hayes explained the origin of the song in an interview: “The song came from my mother. Everything in the song are things I heard her say over the years. I put a lot of thought into the song before I came up with the title. One day my father-in-law asked me who I thought the richest man in the world was, and I mentioned some names. He said, ‘You’re wrong; it is the man with a satisfied mind.’”
The song has been recorded by a great many artists over the years, notable by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. Cash’s first version was released in 2004 on the Kill Bill: Volume 2 soundtrack, but it later appeared on his posthumous 2010 album American VI: Ain’t No Grave. It was a song Cash had been singing since the 1950s from the time when he didn’t have enough of his own songs and needed covers, but he liked it very much. Like the rest of the songs on American VI, the song is poignant, and sounds like the wisdom of a man who is near to the end and has an urgent message to convey.
Money can’t buy back
Your youth when you’re old
Or a friend when you’re lonely
Or a love that’s grown cold
The wealthiest person
Is a pauper at times
Compared to the man
With a satisfied mind.
Cash doubtless knew his time had “run out,” but the song lyrics seem to very aptly fit the faith that sustained him:
But one thing’s for certain
When it comes my time
I’ll leave this old world
With a satisfied mind.
Bob Dylan recorded A Satisfied Mind twice, first in 1967 on a version that wasn’t released until 2014 on The Bootleg Series Vol. 11: The Basement Tapes Complete, and again for his 1980 Saved. Dylan’s version on this much pilloried album is masterful, all bluesy and gospel at the same time. He begins virtually unaccompanied, with his wonderful gospel singers harmonizing and some sparse piano. The stripped back, emotion-laden approach highlights beautifully the potency of the song’s message in a way that most other versions I’ve heard fail to do. Throughout the song Dylan moans in the manner of an old gospel blues artist, giving us ample time to ponder the question of what really satisfies in life.
On Saved,A Satisfied Mind bleeds into the excitement of the title track, a rocker which provides Dylan’s answer to the opening song’s question. “I was blinded by the devil, born already ruined,” Dylan sings, urgently pointing to his discovery of the reality of a mind unsatisfied by fortune or fame. But now, “by his grace I have been touched, by his word I’ve been healed,” that unsatisfied life saved by his new-found faith.
I got to thinking about this song after reading Charles Duhigg’s article in the New York Times Magazine, Wealthy, Successful and Miserable. Duhigg says that “The upper echelon is hoarding money and privilege to a degree not seen in decades. But that doesn’t make them happy at work.” He recounts attending his 15th anniversary reunion with his Harvard MBA class and being shocked at how many were just plain miserable. These were people all earning huge salaries and working in prestigious companies, and yet who felt like they were wasting their lives. One person was earning $1.2m a year, hated his work, and yet felt he could not afford to take a pay cut to a mere $600,000 in order to take up an opportunity he really fancied.
As Hayes and Rhodes’s song says,
But little they know
That it’s so hard to find
One rich man in ten
With a satisfied mind.
Upon further research, Duhigg discovered that around 50% of American workers are professionally miserable – and this in a boom economy. There is an underlying sense that what they are doing day by day just isn’t worth the huge effort many of them have to put into it.
Our economics-driven market drives ever greater production and consumption. It’s hard not to buy into it, so pervasive is the advertising industry assailing us at every turn, online or off. You need this, you have to have it, you’re not complete without this. So it goes, relentlessly, every day. We work ceaselessly, we consume, we sleep, we get up and do it again. But, as the old saying goes, who says on their death bed – “I wish I’d spent more time in the office.”
Money can’t buy back Your youth when you’re old Or a friend when you’re lonely Or a love that’s grown cold.
Or as the ancient Psalmist of Israel said, “Do not be overawed when someone gets rich, and lives in ever greater splendour; for they will take nothing with them when they die, their splendour will not descend with them. (Psalm 49:16-17)
Joe Hayes said of his song, “It has been done a lot in churches. I came out of the Opry one night and a church service was going on nearby. The first thing I hear was the congregation singing ‘Satisfied Mind.’ I got down on my knees.”
Good place to start, maybe, to get some perspective and maybe, a satisfied mind.
[Some other fine versions of the song include:
Ben Harper and the Blind Boys of Alabama on There Will Be A Light
