Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Blues Hall of Fame inductee, Mavis Staples has had a remarkable career. She sang with her family band which moved from their church roots in the 50s to the vanguard of the Civil Rights movement in the 60s, before becoming a commercially successful R&B group in the 70s. Turning solo, Mavis recorded with Prince and in the last twelve years or so, has re-invented herself as a rootsy, bluesy, Americana artist, with a heavy dose of gospel. Her latest album, If All I Was Was Black addresses the broken heart of today’s America, suggesting that, despite the racism, violence and lying, redemption is possible. Mavis Staples wants to “Bring us all together as a people – that’s what I hope to do. You can’t stop me. You can’t break me. I’m too loving,” she says. “These songs are going to change the world.”
Down at the Crossroads caught her show in Union Chapel, London. Here’s what we learned:
Mavis Staples is a lovely person. That’s it. No qualifications. She loves her band, she loves performing and she loves her audience. And it showed from the moment she breezed onto the stage to warm applause and cheering at Union Chapel.
Union Chapel is a wonderful concert venue in north London. It’s a working church which hosts gigs by major artists and recording sessions, and has fantastic acoustics. Nobody is very far from the artist which gives the whole things a wonderful, intimate feeling. You can sign up for dinner before a gig and so get in early to nab your seat – and contribute to the church’s homeless ministry by so doing.
Mavis’s first song set the stage for the rest of her set – she sang about “love and peace,” and invited the audience to “take my hand.” “I got people who love me,” she sang, in that unmistakable voice which can rasp, croon, scat or belt it out, as the need may be. You begin to feel the love, forgetting for a while Trump, Brexit and all the other stuff that has been annoying you. We ended up, most of us strangers, holding each other’s hands and beaming like children.
Love and peace for sure – but also, she said, she was there to bring us some “joy, happiness, inspiration and positive vibrations.” And that she did for about 75 glorious minutes (too short, Mavis, but then you have just turned 79, sorry for bringing that up!).
And the joy and inspiration clearly comes from Mavis’s Christian faith – she unabashedly gave us the old blues song, Death Comes Creeping (covered by a host of artists, including Mance Lipscomb, Fred McDowell and Bob Dylan) – asking “whatcha gonna do when death comes creeping at your door?” Followed up by Far Celestial Shore, with its “jubilation, joy and exaltation when I see my lord.”
That faith is no other-worldly faith, but one that is driving for change here and now. She talked about working for justice in the 1960s, inspired by Rev Martin Luther King Jr., and about needing to continue that work, especially at the moment. “I’m thinking about going up to that White House,” she said, to the biggest cheer of the evening. Go for it Mavis!
Her five-piece band was everything you’d expect from long-time collaborators. Guitarist Rick Holmstrom treated us to a wonderful virtuosic display in a variety of styles, rewarded along the way by a fist bump from Mavis, and singers Donny Gerrard and Vicki Randel rounded out the sound, allowing Mavis to let her vocals soar with freedom.
A glorious, inspirational evening – keep going, Mavis, we love you!
Eric Bibb is a star in the firmament of acoustic blues musicians. With two Grammy nominations and multiple Blues Foundation awards, he’s forged a hard-working career over five decades and gathered a multitude of fans all over the world. If you’ve ever been to an Eric Bibb concert, you’ve come away with a smile on your face that probably lasted a week. His songs are rooted in the blues but have a lightness of touch and a joy that is infectious.
He’s a very fine guitarist, song-writer and singer, but it’s the humanity, challenge and soulfulness of his performances, all spiced with a gentle humour, that linger long after the last resonating note of his guitar.
Eric’s father, the late Leon Bibb, was an activist, actor, and folk singer who marched at Selma with Dr. Martin Luther King, and Eric carries on the dream of a better world. His songs are infused with notes of challenge and gospel hope. His latest album, Migration Blues, is a record for our times, highlighting the plight of immigrants everywhere, through songs about the injustices of the American South and the hardships of those currently fleeing war and disaster. The album features the excellent Michael Jerome Browne, a Canadian Folk Awards artist of the year, and J J Milteau, top-notch harmonica player.
Down at the Crossroads had a conversation with Eric before his gig that night in the Tivoli Theatre in Dublin. The conversation ranged over music, the Grammys, immigration, war and racism – and, of course, hope for the future.
DATC: Last time I saw you, Eric, was at the City Winery gig in New York City the night before the Grammys. And you stood up and sang – I think it was “Refugee Moan,” from last year’s Migration Blues album. It was spellbinding, and we all felt the goose bumps – it seemed very significant to be singing that song about that subject right there in the heart of New York. Tell us about that song and choosing to sing it in that way that night.
Eric Bibb: I’ve been singing it like that for a while now. The response has always been remarkable. Yeah people get it, they really do and I’m thankful for that.
DATC: I was very disappointed to see the next day that the Rolling Stones won the traditional blues category that you were nominated for. Any of the others would have suited the category much better. How did you feel about that?
Eric Bibb: Ugh. It was a strange choice I thought in that category. But, I don’t really know what drives these things. My conclusion is that this is not based on serious music analysis or cultural analysis. Other factors have a role. What that mix is, I really can’t say. In the end I was happy to have been nominated, but I do think it was a bit absurd.
DATC: Yeah, I think a lot of us did.
Eric Bibb: Traditional blues album – really? Really guys? OK. And then I don’t know if politics plays a role in it, you know. It’s hard to say, I know that the Recording Academy has a first selection and then it goes out to members, who those people are…
DATC: The whole Migration Blues album bemoans the state of the world. You’ve got lyrics like: “Heart full of Trouble, weighted down like lead, temperature’s gone sky high, can’t find no work, no matter how hard I try.” In these songs I hear you addressing climate change, the woes of immigrants, the devastation of war, poverty – you must have felt quite strongly about things to make an album like this?
Eric Bibb: Yeah, I was trying to connect the dots. It’s all related. It’s good to be reminded I think. For example, it was a hot topic back in the late sixties when Dylan came out with Masters of War. But, you know, that doesn’t seem currently to be part of the big debate. Who’s manufacturing all this stuff? I mean, who’s making money on it? You’d be surprised at some of the players.
DATC: And the biggest part of the refugee problem is because of war.
Eric Bibb: This is it. It’s driven millions of people away from their homes. This is serious beyond belief. And I think if we knew the facts – which we don’t – we would be appalled. In Europe they have to deal with this flood of refugees, but the reasons behind all of this is not really talked about.
DATC: Yeah, there’s a lot of vested interests when we talk about war and conflict. But this was an album you really wanted to make, Eric, at this time?
Eric Bibb: The idea to make an album based on the theme of migration came to me from my good friend Philippe Langlois at Dixifrog Records, who is my European partner in recording and distribution, and he just said, “You know Eric, it’s a current topic, it interfaces with your own ancestral history.” So, food for thought there, and I began doing some research and I connected the current refugee crisis together with the Great Migration in the United States. Then it really started to unfold and I realized, you know, everybody’s got a migration story. Everybody’s been on the lam from some natural disaster or oppression or whatever. Which is interesting because it’s almost like if you vocally support migrants, you’re some kind of…
DATC: Some kind of left wing radical.
Eric Bibb: Yeah, yeah. Come on, get your empathy together. You were there once, too, you know, so I don’t know what’s radical or left wing about having some kind of empathy for people who are forced out to leave their ancestral homelands. But everything has become so politicized.
DATC: And I was interested in you saying in one of the songs, “Migration is not a problem, it’s an opportunity.”
Eric Bibb: It’s true. Listen, it’s because of migration that everything good about human civilization has come into being. It’s all about culture collisions, some of them gentle, some of them not, but all the forward steps of human kind have everything to do with that type of blending of the tribes. It’s obvious.
Eric Bibb: Yes it is, I think Michael [J Browne] and his writing partner, B.A. Markus, they wrote that song inspired by particularly that line. Michael is encyclopaedic in his knowledge of the music he plays. He’s a scholar. So, that he would use that quote is not surprising.
DATC: So it’s great that he’s contributed to this album. I’ve listened to and appreciated his music for many years and it’s great to hear the two of you together.
Eric Bibb: Yeah, he’s a treasure. Michael is in the band on this tour along with Neville Malcolm on bass and Paul Robinson on drums. Michael will probably do a number tonight on his own. In some shows, Michael has been the opening act.
DATC: And then in the midst of all the reality, the darkness, on the album, you give us Brotherly Love – “I still believe, we can find a way to live in peace.” Is that what keeps you going?
Eric Bibb: It is. For all of the stuff we are fed by the major new outlets, I think there’s a lot that’s going on that is very positive in the world that just never gets publicized. I’m encouraged, just because I travel a lot and see people who really seem to understand where the world is at and what needs to be done, and seem to be on board with doing it, particularly young people.
But I see no choice but to hold out in my music and my songs a message of hope because otherwise, everything becomes pointless. And I think that that’s not the way it should be. I think we’ve definitely cocked things up in a big way and been party to people doing some major harm to the planet and to our communities. But for all of that, I actually think awareness is shifting. I think there are more and more people who are tired of conflict. I see music playing a major role in connecting cultures, exposing people to cultures that they might not have much to do with. And that produces a kind of softening. You know we’re tribalistic – we’re human – and it takes time to break down that old, almost genetic, tendency to separate “us” and “them.” But – it’s happening. And I think the young people, connected by the Internet, is a big part of it too. So, I am hopeful, despite all of the conflicts that are raging around the world. I think we’ll come out the other end.
DATC: Well, I guess if we can do it up in the north of Ireland…for many years it was “us” and “them.” But we’ve moved on a lot.
Eric Bibb: Yeah, big time.
DATC: There’s a great version of Woody Guthie’s This Land is Our Land. It just resonates so well with the whole album.
Eric Bibb: I grew up with that song. I was very happy to realize how well it fit in and how it ties things together. Particularly in this era of Trumpism. It strains the imagination to think of this guy as the President of the United States of America.
Bu these are interesting times, I think a lot of people have basically become separated from reality. You can tune into certain television channels and basically live in a bubble that has nothing to do with what is really going on in the world. I think there are a lot of people in America who seem to have the free time to sit on the couch and watch Fox News. And with a diet of that and little else, it’s very possible to get a very distorted view of the world – where a guy like Donald Trump could be appealing.
Also, mainstream politicians have also lost contact – that’s obviously the main reason why Trump could even exist as the President.
DATC: That’s why I think your art is very important. You’re connecting the history and the situation in the American South and the blues tradition with what’s going on in the rest of the world. And when you talk about Jim Crow and the sundown towns in your songs – it seems to me that the reality of that is something that large swathes of Americans haven’t ever really come to terms with.
Eric Bibb: They don’t even know it actually happened! The ignorance factor when it comes to awareness of our own history is so huge. It’s not taught properly in schools – and yet this information is out there. I think the solution is a really serious educational push to acquaint Americans with their history. And the reason it’s been submerged and marginalized is that, to say the very least, it’s uncomfortable for everybody. It’s uncomfortable to the ancestors of slaves, for the ancestors of slave owners, and it’s something people want to skim over rather than understand in depth the horrific dimensions of it and how it’s left its prints on contemporary society in a major way.
You know, when people talk about the concept of a post-racial America, I say – are you kidding me? What? Just because a brown skinned man got elected? There’s nothing post-racial about America. The poison of racism is so deeply engrained in the tradition of that hierarchy, it’s going to take a massive facing of it and re-education.
But, who knows? I see very encouraging signs in factual books and literature; I’m seeing a lot of writers – not necessarily African American writers – who are saying, “Hey, we really need to take a good look at what has really happened in this country,” starting with the genocide with the indigenous people and continuing through the slave trade, and really try to understand the stage we’re at right now. How did we get to be this very divisive society? I mean we’ve not even made a symbolic attempt at reconciliation. Like, take the Germans – they’ve done an amazing job – credit where it’s due.
Neville Malcolm plays bass on this tour with Eric
DATC: There’s a song that was on the North Mississippi Allstars album from last year, and then the Blind Boys of Alabama took it up on their Almost Home album. It’s a great song, actually, and decries the “ignorance and hate” of racism that is around today, and says, “I hate to think that our grandmothers would be broken hearted, to see their children’s children right back where we started.” It also says, “I wish we all could be colour blind,” which seems to me to be a fine aspiration, but I kind of wonder, is colour-blindness what is needed right now? Maybe coming face to face with it, coming to terms with it is what is needed?
Eric Bibb: Yes, exactly. It’s about first recognizing that – in the modern age, in the West for sure, there’s just been a tremendous prejudice against what is referred to in the news as people of colour. And this orientation is so engrained, so institutional, that people don’t think about it. This is what needs to be reversed, what needs to be addressed, in a very specific way. And it’s possible, we can do it, you know? But I agree with you, colour blindness is not the solution, we need to face the fact that people look the way they look and there’s a variety of looks and tones and get over it! And accept it and embrace it and be happy for it!
I mean we’re all African people. We all emanated from East Africa, from a brown-skinned woman!
DATC: So, tell me about the collaboration with Michael Jerome Browne, who’s a wonderful artist, great guitar player. Tell us about that.
Eric Bibb: I met Michael at Calgary Folk Festival years ago. He was playing a gourd banjo, a slave banjo – it sounded amazing – and I didn’t expect to see someone who looked like him playing it! And I thought his playing was just a revelation, so we got in touch and we started working together after a while. I know a lot of great musicians, but Michael is all on his own when it comes to his awareness and knowledge of the language of the country blues and beyond. It’s unique.
DATC: Now let me ask you this Eric – you’ve been a hard-working professional musician for a long time now. And, like the rest of us, unfortunately we’re not getting any younger – of course, you look about 15 years younger than me, at least! How tough is touring; does it seem any harder than when you were younger; or does the joy of it, what you get back from the audience sustain you?
Eric Bibb: I still have the joy of it for sure. The physical side of it – it’s not the playing, it’s the hauling of your instruments around from place to place and so on – that can be a strain. It’d be great just to be able to turn up and do the show! But I still have to be on the ground involved with the logistics and stuff. Actually, I’d like to stay home more and teach more, but I don’t want to stop touring. It’s an essential part of what I’ve enjoyed and still enjoy doing.
And the opportunity to travel so often and widely is the greater blessing. The strain of it and how it wears you down is minor compared with what it’s given me as a human being. Just to be in touch with so much of the surrounding world. It’s a huge blessing.
I got to see Keb’ Mo’ play live for the first time a few months ago. That was very cool – he’s a skilled performer, had a great band and the joy of the music just oozed out. I discovered a few of his Christmas songs a couple of days ago and they got me thinking. Jingle Bells Jamboree features Mo’s characteristic, rhythmic guitar picking and celebrates a family Christmas, complete with presents under the decorated tree, children anticipating Santa Claus, and mum and dad in the kitchen cooking the turkey. But in the middle of the song, suddenly it doesn’t matter if “there are stockings on the wall, ‘cause what matters most is peace on earth and good will to all.” And then, “the more you give, the more you will receive.”
Then in We Call It Christmas, Mo’ sings, “It’s all about peace, no fighting anywhere. Knowing there’s enough for everyone to share.” Living, he says, is all about “getting into the spirit of giving.” “It’s all about love, and how much we can give, when we open our hearts…”
And then there’s Keb’ Mo’s Shopping on Christmas Eve, featuring some very nifty solo guitar work. It’s about the guy who leaves all his shopping until the last minute. Christmas shopping – arghhh! Well, those presents aren’t going to buy themselves are they? But there’s something pretty unsavoury about the advertising and the pressure – earlier and earlier each year, it seems – to go out and spend. (Check out George Monbiot’s recent piece on how we’re manipulated by the corporate machine)
Peace, giving – right at the heart of what Christmas is. Because of the utter self-giving love of God in the baby of Bethlehem. “Peace on earth,” sang the angel heralds of this extraordinary birth. Could it be? Is there an alternative to the headlong race into consumption and self-centredness that surrounds us, and the hate-filled war and terror besetting so much of our world? The first Christmas shouts a resounding yes, and with it challenges each of us to “get into the spirit of giving.”
“It’s all about love, and how much we can give, when we open our hearts…”
Check out Scottish musician and broadcaster Lins Honeyman’s excellent blues radio show. You can “listen again” over the next week to this broadcast, which features an interview with Gary Burnett about his book, The Gospel According to the Blues.
The book dares us to read Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount in conversation with Robert Johnson, Son House, and Muddy Waters. It suggests that thinking about the blues-the history, the artists, the songs-provides good stimulation for thinking about the Christian gospel. Both are about a world gone wrong, about injustice, about the human condition, and both are about hope for a better world. In this book, Gary Burnett probes both the gospel and the history of the blues as we find it in the Sermon on the Mount, to help us understand better the nature of the good news which Jesus preached, and its relevance and challenge to us.
Is your dad a music fan? If so, then, here’s your Father’s Daypresent sorted!
Here’s what Michael C. Bailey said in his review in All ABout Jazz:
“Burnett considers the blues backwards 2000 years through a prism of Christian Practice. His focus is less the place of Christianity within the perspective of the blues as the blues as a metaphor of dislocation, loss, forgiveness, and salvation. The social and cultural circumstances that gave rise to the rich land in the Mississippi Delta has been played out many times. It is an archetype: a persecuted minority endures the injustice of a class-ridden society, ultimately ending as refugees and exiles in and out of their own lands. The parallel with the Old Testament and mid-Twentieth Century Jews cannot be overstated. The early Christians in Rome are another example. The Psalms have as their progeny the blues of the Delta region. These are songs expressing the range of emotions experienced not only because life is hard, but because it is made harder by others.
Burnett injects the concepts of justice and endurance into the comparative discussion making a convincing argument for the temporal relationship between The Beatitudes and the whole corpus of Delta blues. Burnett’s is a keen cultural analysis occurring at a high emotional and intellectual level. This book is for anyone interested in the blues as a part of the civilization that grew out of Christianity. The pertinence is plain regardless of what religious or anti-religious winds happen to be blowing. History is history, let us learn from it.”
There have been a few blues songs along the way which have addressed the subject of war directly. African-American servicemen served in segregated units in both world wars and despite continually demonstrating bravery and loyalty, faced considerable discrimination.
More than a million African-Americans served in the armed forces during WW2, despite being barred from the air force and the marines, and only being accepted as cooks and waiters in the Navy. Outrageously, black soldiers had sometimes to give up their seats in trains to the Nazi prisoners of war.
Despite this, we have a few blues songs supporting US war efforts. Sonny Boy Williamson, in his Win the War Blues from 1944 says that he
“…wants a machine gun
And I wants to be hid out in the wood
I wants to show old man Hitler
That Sonny Boy don’t mean him no good.”
Echoing wide felt sentiments about the enemy, he goes on to say,
“I wants to drop a bomb, um
An set the Japanese city on fire
Now because they are so rotten
That I’d just love to see them die.”
In 1966, Allen Orange, in his VC Blues, expressed the patriotism of the soldier to his loved ones back home:
“Remember that I love you and my country
For this I don’t mind dying“
But there are quite a few other songs which protest against war. In 1949, Lightnin’ Hopkins released War News Blues, which highlights the suffering of the innocent in conflict:
“You may turn your radio on soon in the morning, sad news every day You may turn your radio on soon in the morning, sad news every day Yes, you know, I got a warning, trouble is on its way
Poor children running, crying, “Whoa, mama, mama, now what shall we do?”
In modern warfare, the people who suffer most from war are civilians, particularly women and children. There are no such things as “precision strikes” which only kill enemy combatants. Wars are not fought these days in “battlegrounds;” they are fought in people’s towns and homes. Aside from the human cost, they leave lasting damage in the form of ruined civic infrastructures and poisoned natural environments.
A few years later in 1962, Lightnin’ Hopkins reflected on the downside of the upcoming Vietnam war in War is Startin’ Again:
Woe, you know this world done get tangled now Yeah, I believe they gonna start war again
Yeah, there gonna be a’mothers start to worry Yes, there’s gonna be many a girls will lose a friend
Three years later J.B. Lenoir, in his Alabama Blues would lament that “Uncle Sam gonna send me away from here” and wonder “when will all wars come to an end?”
Nina Simone, focused on the negative impact of war on those at home in Backlash Blues, 1967: “Mr. Backlash, Mr. Backlash
Just who do you think I am
You raise my taxes, freeze my wages
And send my son to Vietnam…
Do you think that all coloured folks
Are second class fools?”
It is commonly put about that spending on “defense” (a euphemism for war) benefits an economy. In reality, spending those same dollars on peaceful industries, on education, on infrastructure would produce more jobs and in most cases better paying jobs. Military spending diverts public funds into increasingly privatized industries and is a very poorly accountable form of public spending.
But perhaps the hardest hitting song was Champion Jack Dupree’s,Vietnam Blues, in 1972. He understood that those hardest hit by war are always the non-combatants:
“Well, I feel so sorry for the people over in Vietnam
It’s a whole lot of pain, Uncle Sam don’t understand
Why don’t you leave Vietnam? Leave those poor, poor people alone.”
It was time for “Uncle Sam [to] pack up, pull out, and go home.”
Fast forward to 2012 and we have Dan Mangan’s compelling Post-War Blues. He notes the cynical way that some politicians are wedded to the need or the benefits of being at war and are prepared to pay for it with their children’s education – “Let’s start a war for the kids, a purpose for which to unite… find them a foe for the fight.” The official video for the song is potent, showing young people in school exchanging books and musical instruments for weapons. It hits a positive note, however, before the end, showing the young people refusing to be drawn in to the politicians lies about the war and “coming to” from the “deepest sleep of my life.” But the horror of war is highlighted as the song and video ends with footage from nuclear explosions and burning, exploding buildings.
Very roughly, the world spends $2 trillion every year on militarism, about half of this by the United States. This U.S. spend is roughly half of the U.S. government’s discretionary budget each year. It is expensive to wage war, but the costs to the aggressor, enormous as they are, are small in comparison to those of the nation attacked – death counts, obviously, which have grown dramatically in recent times and have shifted heavily onto civilians rather than combatants; but also war can bring disease, traumatisation, homelessness, poverty and a host of other miseries.
The wars we are sold by our politicians lead us to think that we are simply killing evil people who need to be killed to protect us and our freedoms. What happens in reality, however, is the one-sided slaughter of children, women, the elderly, and ordinary citizens. And what of regime change and nation-building? Scholars at both the Carnegie Endowment for Peace and the RAND Corporation have found that wars aimed at nation-building have at best an extremely low success rate in creating stable democracies. Humanitarian or philanthropic aims get lost along the way.
The idea of a “good war” or a “just war” becomes ridiculous when one looks honestly at independent reporting on wars. As Edwin Starr’s song says quite simply: “War – What is it good for? Absolutely nothing, Say it again, war, What is it good for? Absolutely nothin…”
If you want to think more about the futility of war and about the alternatives – check out the World Beyond War website here. And if you want a really radical alternative – check out the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 5. 43-44: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.
“War” is a Viet Nam war protest song written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong in 1969. It was a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 chart the following year. It has been famously covered by Bruce Springsteen, added to the set list for the final few shows of his Born in the USA Tour in 1985. The September 30, 1985 performance as a part of his 1986 box set, Live 1975-85. The Boss has continue to play the song at his concerts over the year.”
It’s a powerful piece of lyricism, asking the very basic question: War – what is it good for? In our world there are over 40 armed conflicts going on right now, with innocent women and children as the primary victims. We might well ask – what’s it good for?
“You have heard that it was said, You must love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who harass you.” Jesus of Nazareth
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War is something that I despise
For it means destruction of innocent lives
For it means tears in thousands of mothers’ eyes
When their sons go out to fight to give their lives
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War
It’s nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
War is the enemy of all mankind
The thought of war blows my mind
Handed down from generation to generation
Induction destruction
Who wants to die
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
War has shattered many young men’s dreams
Made them disabled bitter and mean
Life is too precious to be fighting wars each day
War can’t give life it can only take it away
War
It’s nothing but a heartbreaker
War
Friend only to the undertaker
Peace love and understanding
There must be some place for these things today
They say we must fight to keep our freedom
But Lord there’s gotta be a better way
That’s better than
War
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
Say it again
War
What is it good for
Absolutely nothing
