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

 

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

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

Hans Theessink

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

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

3. The touring life: Eric Bibb told us he doesn’t “want to stop touring. It’s an essential part of what I’ve enjoyed and still enjoy doing” The physical side of it, however, “especially the hauling of your instruments around from place to place and so on – that can be a strain.” Chris Smither who still plays over 100 shows a year says he’s slowed down some, but admits in some ways it’s become easier – “I can afford nicer accommodation!” Luke Winslow-King, way younger than both these artists, confessed he’d “like to settle down and lead a more normal life, have a more stable relationship, have a home life as well. But I’ll never stop touring and taking this music around.” It’s the love of the music, the love of performance which keeps these fantastic people going – for which we are all grateful.

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

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

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

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

Photo: Mike White

Despite the difficulties we face inside ourselves or without, our artists expressed hope for the future. Eric Bibb said, “I see no choice but to hold out in my music and my songs a message of hope because otherwise, everything becomes pointless.” And when we asked Shemekia if, as she looks around at America today, she has cause to be hopeful, she replied, “Totally, it’s still the greatest country on earth. I love it and it will always be my home.”

Talking about the need for faith, Bryan Lee said that “we just need to go to that place of sanctuary, where it’s real still, it’s real quiet, where you can really touch the good Lord and find answers to your problems,” while Mandy Brooks insisted that “God gives us the strength to “press on” and “move on up”.”

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

Check out the interviews:

Ana Popovic

Brooks Williams & Hans Theessink 

Bryan Lee 

Chris Smither

Dana Fuchs

Eric Bibb 

Janiva Magness

Luke Winslow-King

Mandy Brooks 

Paul Thorn

Shemekia Copeland

The Steady Rollin’ Blues Tour – Brooks Williams & Hans Theessink

Brooks Williams and Hans Theessink are seasoned blues troubadours who play to knowledgeable audiences across Europe and the United States. Brooks hails from Statesboro, Georgia (yeah, he’s got them Statesboro blues) but is now based in England, while Hans is based in Vienna, Austria.

Both are fabulous guitarists, have a deep appreciation for, and knowledge of, the blues and the social history of the blues, and are engaging and absorbing performers. Going to a concert given by either man will entertain you, challenge you, and above all, send you home satisfied with a big smile on your face.

Getting both playing together for an evening, swapping songs, alternating the lead vocals, harmonizing and trading guitar licks would be really something, then, right? Well, the two guys have embarked upon a joint tour of Great Britain this month, playing 21 gigs in 21 days. Not to be missed – check out the schedule for the Steady Rollin’ Blues Tour here.

And, be sure and get yourself a copy of Brooks Williams’ new album, Lucky Star, out in July which features a couple of tracks with both Brooks and Hans playing together.

Down at the Crossroads spoke to Hans and Brooks before their evening in the Core Theatre in Solihull and asked them about their life in the blues and life on the road…

DATC: How do you two know each other and how did this tour come about?

Brooks: Well, I’ve known of Hans since the very beginning of my career. And we did meet at the Philadelphia Folk Festival in 1996, but we met properly for the first time when we went to Dallas in 2005, at an anniversary concert for a great venue called Uncle Calvin’s. And we have mutual friends and that was kind of the connection. And then a couple of years ago I did the tour here with Guy Davis. And about half way through the tour, it just occurred to me that the audience really like it when we did stuff together – it became apparent that that was the point in the evening when the show just took off. Even though each of us could do our own thing, there was something magical happened then. So, I started thinking that perhaps this could be thought of as something that happens every 18 months.

And the first one at the top of my list was Hans. ‘Cause I just thought our styles would complement each other. And I was really excited about the possibilities. And thankfully when I presented the idea to Hans, he said, yeah, let’s go for it.

Hans: And we also said we’d not do separate sets and then two songs together at the end. Let’s do the whole thing together. So we swop songs, but we’re on stage playing together all the time.

DATC: And what sort of music can people expect?

Brooks: Blues, but a range – some country blues, a little bit of Texas blues, some of the Delta in there, some really nice Broonzy-style finger picking. Stuff that we love, and we bring it together through the process of how we interpret songs.

DATC: And when you talk about re-interpreting songs – how do you go about that, when you pick up an old blues song, and feel, yeah, that might work. How do you reinterpret that from the original?

Hans: Well, you couldn’t reproduce it. So you can only go another way. I try to get the feel of a song, try to crawl into that.

Brooks: For me, there’s usually one lyric in the song that I latch onto. I mean I’m into the whole song, but there’s usually one lyric that’s my cue. So, we’re going to do Backwater Blues and when I was doing the arrangement for that – and there are so many beautiful arrangements, there are some great ones – but the line that caught me was, I think it’s at the end of the 4^th verse, where it says there’s going to be a lot of people with nowhere to go. It’s talking about the storm and the rain, there’s going to be a lot of people homeless. So, I thought, what kind of mood would there be in the guitar part, if that’s the line you’re ultimately going to get to? And so that affected the tuning that I used, the little guitar figure. And then as Hans and I do it, Hans brought this, almost moving bass line – almost like a kind of slowed down blues bogey, like a blues shuffle. It just great. It’s got great power, but it’s got a little edge of desperation. And it was just that lyric that it should all feel like that. Now I know that’s miles away from other versions, but I really like that lyric and where it takes me.

Hans: And I also think it’s good that it’s miles away from other versions! But then we have a song like Deep River Blues, which is pretty close to the original.

DATC: So for each of you – what do you admire about the other person’s playing and performing?

Hans: Well, Brooks has this great thumping guitar style, and beautiful slide playing. We both obviously listen to the same people – Mississippi John Hurt and Fred McDowell and people like that, so even though we come from places far apart, we both have the same kind of general influence. So when we talk about music or listen to records, we obviously know the same things.

Brooks: One of the things that I’ve always admired about Hans’s playing is something I would have aspired to in the early days when I was listening to his Flying Fish record. It’s that way of keeping the bass going – either alternating bass or thumping bass – but doing lovely figures at the same time. So it’s like two or three parts all at once. It moves the way a piano player moves. I like to hear motion. And Hans has a great sense of the songs that he chooses to cover. And a great sense of bringing all this to his own writing, that same feel, that same tradition – so you can put a song from the ‘30s and a song of Hans side by side, and they sit very well right next to each other. The lyrics are poignant and relevant in both cases.

Hans: And even though a song might be slow, it’s all, like, groove oriented. Which is very important, not to lose the groove. And it might be really slow, like behind the beat, or whatever, but it’s still moving and that groove is really important. And Brooks has got that totally.

DATC: And you mentioned Mississippi John Hurt. You get that in a player like John Hurt don’t you?

Brooks: Yeah, that fingerpicking, the way the thumb moves, yeah.

DATC: You mentioned some of the country blues players. When you think back to the context in which they played, the situation they were in, the instruments they played, what do you admire about some of those players?

Brooks: One of the things that grabs me about those early blues players is that they were so far ahead of the curve, so to speak, they were creating something that really hadn’t been created before. When I was learning to play and learning to play slide guitar, there were lots of people I could get ideas from. But with some of the early players, you get the idea there might have been only one other person they possibly could’ve listened to – or maybe in some cases, no one else! There wouldn’t have been the access to records – it would all have happened because they crossed paths with other musicians.

Hans: I’m sure a guy like Charlie Patton had nobody to lean on. They just created their own thing.

Brooks: I know the world has changed many times over. But fundamentally they were trying to make their way in the world and make some sort of living, to make a way in the world playing music, and that is powerful, considering what some of those players would have been up against, socially, economically. Those were some pretty huge mountains to cross, and just the fact that they did it and we’re still listening to it. And it’s still vibrant!

DATC: So both of you play to audiences in Europe and the US – is there still an appetite for this sort of music where ever you play?

Hans: People come and like the hand made feel of things – things happening on the spot, the voice and the guitar and that’s it. And they can see what we’re doing.

DATC: And it’s real music.

Hans: And sometimes we fly off, we get into some improvised bit, and people enjoy that. They can see that its happening here and now and it’s never going to happen again. And that’s the big charm of this kind of music

DATC: What about the demographic – is there a younger audience for this type of music?

Hans: I find that the audience is getting up there! But there’s always young kids in the first row who want to play guitar and want to see what fingering you’re using. But I think the general audience is getting older.

Brooks: One of the things I’d like to see – and I’ve been thinking about this pretty seriously for about a year – how can one expose people to the wonderful flexibility in the blues so that they can see how vibrant it can be for them? It would be exciting to see it moving forward in some way – I’m not sure what that way might be. And the two things that I’ve seen in my travels that keep the blues vibrant in the ears and eyes of people is firstly, blues has such a direct link to rock and roll, so that even some kid who is 13 and wants to play rock guitar, they’ve figured out they need to know how to play blues guitar; that that’s part of the process. So that’s a cool thing. The other thing is that when you find an audience that has figured out that this music – even though it’s set in a time and place and an economic and social situation – that it’s as relevant now for people as it was back then. It’s very alive. Even though some of the language in some of the older songs may be a little bit foreign to our ears, it’s really vibrant music.

DATC: And – unfortunately – increasingly relevant in the world we’re now living in.

Brooks: Yeah, absolutely.

DATC: You’ve both had long careers. What ways has the music industry change for you as a recording and performing artist?

Hans: Well, lots of colleagues complain it’s not working as well as it used to. I must say, on my part, I cannot really complain. For my part, I’m pretty happy, but I guess for new kids starting out, it must be difficult to get your foot in the door.

Brooks: The changes haven’t affected me. I had my best year in 28 years, last year! I’m still travelling that little bit under the radar and so some of the changes that might slow some aspects of the industry down, actually don’t reach me. And because there is less opportunity to hear roots music on the radio, people go online more to listen to online radio and what is interesting is they’re getting turned on to artists they wouldn’t otherwise know of. And so I’ll show up in a little town where I’ve never been and someone will say, oh I heard you on such and such a radio station which you only can get online.

Hans: Or you get somebody from Nepal ordering a CD! You know, I think continuity is really important. To keep doing what you’re doing, so people know what to expect. And if you do quality work over the years, that’s what they’ll expect. Keep doing what you love doing. And if people catch your enjoyment, you being happy doing what you do, that really rubs off.

DATC: So on that point Hans, we’re all getting a bit older – how does touring feel compared with when you were younger, and what is it about what you do that keeps you going?

Hans: I still enjoy playing and playing for an audience. Now this tour is a pretty hefty one – something like 21 days of concerts. So it’s good that we are sharing the stage and swapping songs, so you’re not singing every song! But I really enjoy playing, and as long as the health situation is good, that’s the way to go.

Brooks: You know, for the first 10 or 15 years of my career, I had to constantly just stay on task. I don’t know whether it was just me, or the nature of the travelling, I had a young baby at home, I was married and it just seemed like a lot of burden. But what has been an absolute pleasure in the last decade has been being able to sit back and enjoy – really enjoy – what it is I am doing. And to look ahead at a year and say, “Hey wouldn’t it be great if Hans wanted to come over, and we’d do a tour, and what about three and a half weeks, wouldn’t that be great?” And if we could just dream that? And here’s it’s happening and that’s really exciting. And I feel like, if at all possible, as long as I can keep playing, I’d like to have experiences like the one we’re having now – where it’s fun, it’s interactive, where I’m learning, where I’m loving the music and the audiences. And then, after the tour is over, Hans will do some solo shows and I’ll do some solo shows, and we’ll each play with our bands – but we’ll go back to all of that a little bit richer, and more inspired. It’s like, now, I’m finally at a point in my life I can enjoy it!

Hans: It’s exciting to do things you haven’t done before. Like, when we took off last week, we just said, here’s a list of songs, you pick one, I’ll pick one – and here we go! This is great.

DATC: And this sort of enthusiasm for sure comes across to your audiences. Great, thanks guys and best wishes for the rest of the tour!

 

A Transatlantic Blues Summit

Hans Theessink and Terry Evans: True & Blue (Blue Groove, 2015)

This album is a complete joy. From the delightful laid-back groove of the Hans Theessink’s guitar picking on the opening song, Demons, to the cheery Glory of Love to the oh-so-cool slow blues of Vicksburg is My Home, to the toe-tapping Cross Road Blues to the rollicking final number, Tears Are Rolling, I had a huge smile on my face.

Recorded live in Vienna, this album captures two of the world’s finest acoustic bluesmen at the top of their game – Hans Theessink, Dutch blues master and Terry Evans, soulful blues exponent from Vicksburg, Mississippi. Theessink’s guitar work is rhythmic and masterful throughout, and the contrasting timbres and styles of both men’s voices – Evans’ soulful, tenor, with judiciously injected falsetto, and Theesink’s rich, lazy baritone – combine to enrich and enliven the songs. Both artists appear to be enjoying themselves enormously, as, indeed, does the audience.

Some people think the blues are simply about bad times and feeling bad – one listen to this album will thoroughly disabuse you of that idea. The blues here are fun, playful and entertaining. But in the hands of these two masters, we discover the blues to be the most honest, down-to-earth and authentic music you can listen to.

Fourteen songs to enjoy, then, six of which are Theessink’s own compositions, one Terry Evans’ song and the rest are blues songs you’re sure to be familiar with – like Glory of Love, Bourgeois Blues, Maybellene and Talk to Your Daughter. How many ways can you play a blues song? With guys as creative as these, there is seemingly no limit. Each song gives us different arrangements, licks, dynamics and grooves, and the enjoyment just keeps building throughout the set.

For me, this is the best blues album I’ve heard so far this year. Don’t hesitate – go get yourself a copy.

Hans Theessink: A life in the blues

Hans Theessink, is one of the fiercest acoustic players in Europe and one of the top acoustic blues stars worldwide, a man who has played with the best and is one of the best, American or European, black & white, old and young, since the 1960s.This guy is the real deal, simply a blues master who is as good as it gets on every level. www.thecountryblues.com

Photo courtesy Beate Sandor

DATC: Hans, you’ve been playing the blues, releasing albums and entertaining people for over 40 years now. It’s clear from listening to your music that you have a deep appreciation and love for the blues – how did this all start, how did this music come to make such a deep connection with you? – particularly for someone from the Netherlands and not some Southern USA state!

HT: Actually I’m celebrating “50 Years On The Road” this year! My musical journey started when my dad gave me a mandolin. A few years later I got my first guitar and just loved it. I liked the songs that I heard when the skiffle craze hit Europe. Exciting music; later on I learned that they actually were adaptations of southern folk and blues (Leadbelly e.g.). I didn’t know of the existence of the blues as a musical  genre; just loved to play around with what I knew. One night I heard Big Bill Broonzy on the radio – a revelation to me that touched me and sent the shivers down my spine. Great guitar playing and a voice full of emotion. Big Bill Broonzy set me off on my blues journey.

Over the years I’ve met quite a few colleagues in different parts of the world that had a similar key experience. It’s probably just about having your feelers/antenna out and tuning into the signal! For a kid from the Netherlands this music was exotic, new and exciting. I suppose that if you grew up around it somewhere in the south, it was more like a common everyday kind of thing. Maybe the guy next door was a great bluesman but you probably didn’t think too much of it unless you had your antenna out and were tuned into that certain something. Of course I travelled to Missisippi and other southern states to experience the blues in its original surroundings. That was like blues heaven to me – I sucked it all in.

When I started working with African American tuba player Jon Sass, I played my kind of blues to him, and he said: “My grandfather in W.Virginia used to play like that.”  That was his natural family connection, but musically he had classical training and was much more into James Brown, Steely Dan and jazz. The blues came back to him via Europe so I suppose it’s a two-way system.

DATC: The blues arose in the context of black experience and suffering in the Southern States in the early part of the twentieth century. How aware are you of that as you sing the songs you sing? How straightforward is it for a white European to perform the blues?

HT: Of course the blues hails from southern black context where hardship and suffering was a daily experience but that’s most likely also the reason why this music is so vibrant and appeals to people all around the globe who have had their share of troubles too. Most people can relate to a person/musician that survives all the hardships helped by the power of his/her music. The feel of the music is glorious and comes across to anybody with some sort of sensitivity. Maybe people in Europe (and N. America for that sake) sometimes tend to romanticise the black blues experience. I’ve met and played with lots of blues old-timers over the years; they all had one thing in common: a great sense of humor and their own kind of philosophy and wisdom about life. Great people to be around.

For all of them “Blues is a feeling” – it’s not about a million notes but about the feeling and the emotions in the music and their performances were a 100% all the time. If you feel it and are earnest about it, you can do it; black, yellow or white, young or old.

I’m not a Mississippi sharecropper or Louisiana cotton picker – I’m alien to that side of the blues experience but there are many other aspects of human condition, love, death, hardship, joy etc. that I do understand very well as a common human experience. So I got plenty of things to sing about from my own experience and use the country-blues vehicle as a musical art-form. I just love the sound of the blues. It got a hold of me when I was a kid and heard Big Bill Broonzy on the radio – a key experience to me – so I suppose that I just do the music that I love and enjoy doing. Since the early nineties I’ve had collaborations with Terry Evans – one of the great american voices – who hails from Vicksburg MS and is old enough to still have had the cotton picking experience. On our latest duo album Delta Time Terry does a haunting version of J.B.Lenoir’s “Down In Mississippi” that silences audiences all over the world; people sense the truth and feel the urgence of hard times and prejudice that the song relates.

DATC: How often do you get to play in the US and how you been received there?

HT: Some of my earlier records were released on the Flying Fish label out of Chicago in the late eighties. (Unfortunately Flying Fish stopped their activities after the untimely death of record boss Bruce Kaplan). These records made some impact and I got really good reviews that led to invitations from clubs and festivals in N.America. I’ve made regular trips to N.America ever since that time. The reception has always been really good and for me it was a real bonus to bring American style music back to the US by Europe. Playing at the New Orleans Jazzfest and the Chicago Blues Festival were highlights and a wonderful experience for me.

DATC: As you look around, how healthy is the blues in Europe – in terms of both performing artists and in terms of the appetite of audiences?

HT: I think it looks pretty healthy. Blues societies get established in many places and do a great job spreading the news. Also lots of younger musicians seem to be drawn to the blues or a blues based kind of music. There’s an audience there, especially if you – like me – have built up a following throughout the years. Young musicians probably may find it a little harder to make a name for themselves. My brand of acoustic blues-based music attracts audiences that listen carefully. The music takes center-stage – be it in small intimate clubs, concert halls or big festivals.

DATC: I’m sure you’d say there have been many influences on your music and your guitar playing – are there any in particular that stand out?

HT: There are so many but I should probably mention Broonzy, Mississippi John Hurt, Yank Rachell (mandolin), Sleepy John Estes, Fred McDowell, Brownie McGhee, Mance Lipscomb, Blind Willie Johnson… I’ve had the pleasure of spending time and playing with Yank Rachell, Honeyboy Edwards, Louisiana Red, Champion Jack Dupree, John Jackson, Sam Chatmon, Odetta, Wilsson Pickett, Luther Allison, Bo Diddley, Son Thomas, Taj Mahal, Henry Townsend to mention a few. I suppose they’ve all influenced me more in the sense of feeling and understanding the music than guitarlines and notes. But of course you pick up things left and right. I’m self-taught and learning to play wasn’t easy in the east of Holland in the early sixties – no teachers, books or videos. Brownie McGhee was the first bluesman that I saw live in concert. I sat in the first row and watched carefully what he did – my introduction to fingerpicking: thumb + 2 fingers. All of a sudden I was able to figure some things out – a real eye-opener that gave me a direction.

DATC: You always make playing the guitar look so easy and effortless. Any advice for aspiring acoustic blues players?

HT: Play, play, play – that’s all I can say. Go to see other good pickers play and play with other people. If you’re dedicated and have the love for the music and your instrument, someday it will fall into place.

DATC: Hans, congratulations on your album, Wishing Well. About half the album is traditional songs and the other half has your own compositions – some of which, like Early This Morning Blues, sound like traditional blues songs. Tell us a bit about your song-writing, Hans – is that something that comes easily, naturally to you?

HT: Actually I already have another album 65 Birthday Bash recorded live in 2013 and released in april 2014!

Wishing Well is from last year and a pretty laidback kind of album. Songs that have accompanied me throughout my musical career (e.g. Brownie McGhee’s Living With The Blues that I picked up when I saw Brownie at my first ever live blues experience – or Wayfaring Stranger that I picked up from Johnny Cash at a dressing room session before a concert – I was the support act). Songwriting comes quite naturally to me. I don’t write all the time but I’ve probably written 3-400 songs over the years and whenever I get some good idea or have a certain experience that’s worth a song, I get going. I suppose that’s a good way too to find your own personal expression. I’ve included a few lyrics: Big Bill’s Guitar (about hearing Broonzy and playing his guitar in Chicago) and Mississippi (written after my first trip to the state). [Click here]

DATC: You seem very much at home performing and recording gospel blues songs or songs with  spiritual content  – your album Jedermann is full of such songs, whether it’s Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down, or Oh Sinner Man or Way Down in the Hole; and some of the songs from your collaborative album with Terry Evans have a gospel feel, not just Heaven’s Airplane. How do these songs fit in the overall blues genre? And how well do you relate to them?

HT: Musically it’s more or less the same idiom and both are closely related. Gospel puts “God” or “The Lord” where the blues puts “My baby” – just about. Bluesmen like Fred McDowell used the same musical vehicle to play and sing gospel style material and blues.

I especially like the vocal aspect of the gospel sound – with its emotional output and great harmonies and spirituality. Especially on our latest collaboration Delta Time where, besides Ry Cooder on guitar, we were backed by Willie Greene and Arnold McCuller with their great gospel blues voices we got a gospel inspired sound. I think it has a lot to do with the voices and 3- or 4 part harmonies. Terry, Arnold and Willie all sang in church when they came up and know how to wrap their voices around a song. We’re not trying to put a religious viewpoint across though – just enjoy singing together and I think it really fits well with the blues. In my band I work with 3 singers from Zimbabwe – a similar thing: rich harmonies with an African twist. To me the human voice is the greatest instrument and singing with others is an inspiring and glorious experience.

The Jedermann Remixed album is more explicit with its spiritual content. I was asked to do the soundtrack for this film based on an old medieval morality play where religion and the fight between good and bad, “God” and the “Devil” play a big role.

DATC: Finally, Hans, what does the rest of 2014 hold for you?

HT: Just had my 66th birthday on April 5th – where we had 2 great “Birthday Bash” concerts with myself and musical friends here in Vienna (where I make my home). I’m trying to work a little less as I get older but it’s hard to say no and I’m still playing many concerts all over Europe in 2014. I play lots of solo gigs but also duo’s and bandgigs – keep it interesting and varied. There are no plans for N.America this year but I may come over in 2015.