Bob Dylan called him “one of the wizards of modern music.” His biographer, Ian Zack, called him “one of the world’s greatest, if not the greatest, of all traditional and ragtime guitarists” And for Alan Lomax, the folklorist, he was “one of the great geniuses of American instrumental music.”
We’re talking about Rev. Gary Davis, the blind son of dirt-poor sharecroppers in South Carolina, who went on to exert a major influence on the folk scene of the 1960s and the early rock scene of the 70s. Yet for most of his career, he refused to perform blues music publicly until the latter years of his life.
He was remarkably musically gifted and his guitar virtuosity was an inspiration to people like Jorma Kaukonen, Bob Weir, Stefan Grossman and many others. Davis was born in 1896 in the Jim Crow South Carolina, became blind as a small child, and was abandoned by his mother. Raised in poverty by his grandmother, it was a thoroughly unpromising start. But she made sure young Gary went to church where he sang in the choir. He took up the guitar early, playing spirituals in earshot of his grandmother and other songs learned from traveling minstrel shows when she wasn’t listening,
He began to have real success as a musician in his late teens at picnics and in string bands, then playing on street corners for nickels and dimes, eventually adopting the rambling lifestyle of the wandering bluesman. But, at the age of 38, when his mother was dying, Davis experienced a vision, where an angel, appearing as a child, called him to God. Right there, he says, he “surrendered and gave up. Gave up entirely.” He soon was ordained as a Baptist minister.
He now harnessed all the musical skill he had amassed in playing ragtime, jazz, blues, and minstrel music and his considerable creative energies in composing and playing spiritual songs in pursuit of his new calling in life. There had been a great change.
One of Gary Davis’s song which reflects this is simply called Great Change Since I Been Born, and I got to thinking about it, when a good friend of mine, Gary Bradley, an Irish musician, sent me a recording he had made of the song for use in the book launch of my new book.
The reason I wanted the song is because my book, Paul Distilled is about the thinking of the apostle Paul, whose letters form part of our New Testaments. He, too, experienced a great change – from a man of violence to a man promoting love and peace, because of his own encounter with God. Specifically, meeting the resurrected Jesus on the famous Damascus Road. In his letters, it’s clear that he thought the epoch-shattering event of Jesus’s resurrection meant the possibility of transformation – both personally and for the world. A transformation based on love. These short thirteen letters of Paul dropped a depth charge of thought into the ancient world, whose effects are still being felt in the world. Can love really change the world? According to Jesus, and the greatest exponent of the meaning of his life, Paul – a resounding Yes!
Gary Davis eventually made has way to New York City, where his incredible skill and talent became appreciated and where he was eventually persuaded to perform more than just spiritual songs in the 1960s Though his faith was still intact, the good Reverend clearly struggled with alcohol and was known to be pretty foul-mouthed and angry at times. As Bob Dylan observed in Solid Rock,
“It’s the ways of the flesh to war against the spirit
Twenty-four hours a day, you can feel it and you can hear it”
He was reflecting, of course, St Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he talks about doing the things he doesn’t want to do and not doing what he knows he ought to do. We’ve all been there. The good news, is that a great change is possible. A life empowered by the Spirit of Jesus “is life and peace.” The secret is, in Gary Davis’s words, to “surrender and give up. Give up entirely.”
“Every night I do a show and I meet people afterwards and they tell me their own stories. When I get off-stage, they thank me for songs I’ve written. They tell me that this song saved their life; that song saved her dad’s life…”
Rory Block is a multiple Blues Award winner, an exceptional acoustic guitarist and has been playing the blues for the past 50 odd years. In this terrific interview, she told us she feels inspired, motivated and like she’s just getting started. In Part 1 of the interview, she talked about getting her Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year award, her celebrated “mentor series” of tributes to the country blues legends, and the making of her new album of Bessie Smith songs, A Woman’s Soul. In Part 2, below, she talks about Robert Johnson, overcoming stage fright, and reminisces about meeting Son House and Rev. Gary Davis.
Gary When you’ve been taking on an old blues song, whether it’s a Robert Johnson song or Mississippi John Hurt song, I guess you’re always trying to make it fresh for a modern audience. You’re capturing this style, something of the essence. But how do you go about that, you know taking a one of those guy’s songs and making it fresh?
Rory Well I don’t think it’s something that you that you consciously do. I don’t consciously say, I better do this a little different. With the Robert Johnson tribute, that was an example of where I didn’t want to do it differently. For me Robert Johnson is the top of the mountain. He is the master of that style. It doesn’t get any better than that. So it’s not like somebody is waiting for me to do it my way.
And that doesn’t diminish me as an artist. It just means that I’m not going to come up with a better way. So, I wanted to get right down to something that I felt I really understood. I heard him first in 1964 when I was 14 years old and I immediately knew that he was the top of the mountain. I mean it was so great. So, I said, I’m going to crack this code – from I first heard his music, I had some kind of a connection to it and I was very focused on it. I want to talk about that again in a second, where I had an interesting background that I think gave me a certain edge when it came to being able to play something very close to what he was playing.
And so I just said, I’m going for the way he did it, both vocals and guitar. I wanted it to be accurate and measure by measure. I think there’s not a better way than his way – I started with that. I’m not going to create a better way than his way. I’m going to do it his way. What does that evoke? Remember with the classic painters of yore. They started their careers by copying the paintings of Masters stroke for stroke because that taught them. You need to know to the best of your ability how to do what they did. So that’s how I approached Robert Johnson. I said, he’s the top and I’m the student. So, I approached it that way.
So that leads to, why do I think that I could do that? Well, the first type of American roots music that I was exposed to was Appalachian. This early mountain, country music later evolved to bluegrass and later evolved to today’s country music. The earliest mountain music had a style of banjo playing called claw hammer. And my dad played that. My father was also a country fiddle player – that was Irish music, music from the British Isles from Ireland, Scotland and England. All the people who came over here brought their music and their music evolved and changed and grew. But much of it was as written in the old style.
So there was my dad playing this really wonderful old mountain style of banjo playing called frailing, and there’s a lot of old timey music players who know exactly that style. Plucking up and slamming down was part of it. Chicka-boom, chicka-boom, chicka-boom, and it was a very unusual hand movement. Well, that translated totally into Robert Johnson, because my dad had shown me how to do that when I was a kid. So, there I was going chicka-boom, snapping up and thumping down. My dad had a thumping style on guitar and on banjo, but he played fiddle very beautifully. But his banjo playing as he showed it to me was a huge help for me when I started playing this percussive style, like when I watch Son House hitting the strings, hitting the guitar with his whole hand. Wham! You know, like a drum. And that style was completely comfortable for me because of what I had learned from my dad. And so, I feel like that gave me an edge. Because I was able to play the percussive style that a lot of those blues players were playing, in a very comfortable way. It was right there for me because I had been working on that already since 1964.
Then after Robert Johnson came Son House, and on those two recordings I felt very much like I wanted to capture the original formats of the songs. But then after that I began to do it a little different. Oh you know I was really having a lot of fun! It was starting to feel like, if I wanted to put an overdub on that wasn’t part of the original arrangement, that was okay, and you know, it got a little looser with Skip James, with Fred McDowell, Mississippi John Hurt. I started putting slide solos on top of songs and then that really opened up the idea that the arrangements could be what whatever I felt I wanted to do. With Robert Johnson I had to do it like him. With Son House. I wanted to do it like him too, but maybe with a little more variation. But after that, I thought, well this could really open up and just not be in the expected direction all the time.
Gary That’s very interesting. Now the music that you play, Rory, is mostly nearly a century old and is from a different time, a different social context. What would you say is the enduring power of the blues? What makes it still relevant?
Rory Well, first of all if you took away all of our electrical stuff and all of our technology, we’d all just still be like the people we’ve been over the thousands and millions of years – you know, essentially still all human. We all cry, we all laugh, we all hurt. We all are excited and happy. We all are essentially the same. We’re all from the same seed – everybody. So, if you take away the trappings of what makes this century and what makes it that century, then nothing has changed. It’s essentially the same message, the cry from the soul, you could say. It’s all the same deep emotions. Look at the Irish and English, and the ballads from that part of the world from years and years ago passed down through the centuries and the ages, and they’re all about the same things that we feel and care about now and today and same thing – blues. Same thing with all forms of music that have a storyline. We’re still talking about the same stuff that we all understand.
Gary So along the way and all the ups and downs of your career as a travelling musician, did you ever think about giving up, just thinking this is too hard, especially in the early days. I can’t do this anymore.
Rory All the time! [laughs] Except now. Yeah, it’s like every time I went into the studio – and I’m thinking it happened very much with Mama’s Blues which is before the mentor series – where I just thought, I’ll never sing again. You know that feeling has come over me so much. Not really now, I just have to say, I’m on my stride! I don’t question myself that much now, but there was that day where I went into the studio to do a vocal on the next record and I thought, well all that stuff I did in the past was just by accident. Yeah, but I’m never gonna be able to do it again. And I had that feeling every time, and every time things wouldn’t go well. Look, I’ve been in a field of music that has been so marginalized for so long and all I ever heard was, you’re never going gonna make it singing blues. It’s a curiosity but it’s a thing of the past. Wake up! The message is, become a commercial artist, that’s where the career is, that’s where the money is, that’s where the success is. What you want to do, you’re never going to make it. A lot of people told me that and I felt very discouraged. But I kept on – music is all I know how to do; I couldn’t have gone off and chosen another career because music is what I know how to do. And why did you choose blues? Because blues is what I love.
But that was kind of why I kept on and kept on. But I always felt discouraged. I felt like I’m nowhere, nobody. I’m never going to be a thing, you know. And then there would be these surprises that would happen that would just make me feel like this could this could work. And these little joyous moments, moments where I said this is working, this is great. When Stevie Wonder came and played in the studio on my record a million years ago now, I said, this is the finest moment of my musical existence, if nothing else good ever happens! I’m content with this one. It was so sweet, it was so great.
And it’s still great to this day. Bonnie Raitt played on my record…Mark Knopfler – there are some wonderful people who’ve been generous and just were willing to appear on one of my recordings and that meant the world. So good things would suddenly happen out of the blue. And then I would get nominated. All of a sudden, I start getting nominated. You never know! But there was much discouragement, but always a tremendous amount of love for the music just sort of kept me on the straight line. I did band and songwriting stuff for a while – no problem there. I love that too. And then there was the Lovin’ Whisky song that became a hit record in Holland – I have a gold record for that – and then it kind of spread around different parts of Europe, and then it became much more well-known in the United States as a kind of ricochet across the ocean. [Check out the story behind the song below]
Gary And presumably what you get from your audiences when you’re performing is a big thing as well.
Rory It’s huge. I had to overcome fear and stage fright that was really debilitating. I was the worst, fearful. I have a book about my life called When a Woman Gets the Blues which is now completely totally politically incorrect from start to finish and I’m sure I’ll have to hear about it sooner or later, but when I wrote it, it was what was on my mind at the time. But I have a chapter on stage fright where I say that having been raised feeling that I was like the Little Match Girl, I just didn’t feel like I was anybody that anybody would care about. I was very insecure and that’s part of my story. I was told that I was not worthy. I went out into the world knowing that I was attached to this music and that I had capabilities and that people went, wow, when I was just a teenager, how did you learn that? Where’d that come from? I knew I had this talent, but I also had this terribly unworthy feeling as a person. So, I went on stage in the beginning totally terrified. I felt like I was just going to completely mess up and I just was so afraid and for about five years I never opened my eyes. I just shook with fear on stage and it was always humiliating and embarrassing, and I’d get off stage and I would think, Man that was horrible.
Then I had like a series of revelations about it. One of them was, wait a minute, what are you putting yourself through? The people in the audience didn’t come there because they hate you! They came there to hear your music, so that sort of means they like you! And I had this whole realization that I was like a little kid kind of hiding behind my mother’s aprons with fear and I was bringing this fear onto the stage and it was misplaced. So, I thought, well,l this is just my office. This is where I go to work every day or every night or every weekend. What reason do I have to be any more afraid of going to my office than all the other people who go to work every day in their office and they’re not, you know, cowering in fear. So, I had this revelation that these people in the audience were my friends, and I was able to come out of that debilitating stage fright and come to a point where I felt I’m in a roomful of friends, a really wonderful safe place and I can talk to them. And that’s how I relate to my audiences and they’re wonderful people.
By the way, every night I do a show and I meet people afterwards and I go, wow, people are so much more wonderful and real than you think looking at the news. When you’re face to face, person to person with the real people that are out there, you realize people are still good at heart, they’re wonderful, and people tell me their own stories. When I get off-stage, they thank me for songs I’ve written. They tell me that this song saved their life; that song saved her dad’s life. It could be anything. When people come up to me, they get real, they go, “thank you for writing Lovin’ Whisky – I stopped drinking two weeks ago.” And I go, thank you for telling me.
And somebody would write me about such and such a song, and say, I was going to kill myself…but I changed my mind. Oh man, if I’ve done one thing like that! So, I got to the point where before going on stage I had no routine – I didn’t do any deep breathing, I didn’t do anything – but I thought, if I could just do one good thing for one person, I’m good with that. I just wanted to be used to do something good for someone. And every night someone or multiple people in the house would verify that feeling that they didn’t feel alone because I wrote an embarrassing song about my own life and decided that it didn’t matter if I was embarrassed by it in case it helps someone else. And it always does, because our stories are universal.
Gary Fabulous. I really wish we could go off on a number of different tangents here it’s been very, very interesting. But I guess we’ll probably have to come to a close or else we could be here all day! It’s been absolutely fascinating. But I can’t let you go and not ask about the Reverend Gary Davis who is a particular favourite of mine. He’s just a wonderful guitarist and yet Rolling Stone magazine had no room for him in its list of 100 greatest guitarist, which is absolutely amazing.
I read Ian Zack’s Say No to the Devil. I don’t know if you’ve read that biography of Davis – it’s very, very good. Actually it’s a heart rending story, seeing Davis’s struggle and poverty, and yet seeing the level of his expertise and musicality. So, tell us a little bit about going to see Gary Davis for guitar lessons and what your impressions of him were.
Rory I was absolutely blinded with admiration with every one of the original blues players whom I met. Every one of them – it was like the light shining, reflecting from them, beautiful light that was beyond blinding and amazing. And Reverend Gary Davis was no different. I mean I just was in awe.
I was 15 and I was not a student by the way. Stephan Grossman was my first boyfriend and he would take me all these places because he knew everybody – all the record collectors, all the musicians. In Europe they were starting to play some really cool songs. There was Eric Clapton who was playing Robert Johnson stuff and including country blues influences. The Beatles were doing it, and so we knew that on the other side of the ocean people were aware of the blues, but you could count us on two hands – the record collectors, the people looking for the early blues players, and the people playing, you could count on maybe a hand or two. So anyway, Stefan knew all these people and he would take me everywhere, we’d go backstage to meet them every time someone was rediscovered because he would know about it. We would end up doing things like going to Mississippi John Hurt’s home and that sort of thing, and Son House would come and visit Stefan at his parents’ house and I was there too.
So we went to Reverend Gary Davis’s apartment in the Bronx and sometimes David Bromberg would be there too. Only a handful of people were there. Roy Bookbinder, Woody Mann, a few others. Jorma [Kaukonen], told me and he didn’t actually meet Reverend Gary Davis but he just immersed himself in his music which is also a deep and real way to get to know the music. Like me and Robert Johnson. So anyway, Reverend Gary Davis was awesome and beautiful. He was witty, he was funny, sharp, quick. He was a phenomenal player, as you know. But he didn’t stop and say, you put the second finger of your index finger on the third fret and so on. He didn’t teach you anything like that, he just played. And he and Stephan would just sort of roast each other. I mean when Gary Davis would start, you had to keep up with him if you wanted to be his student, and he would just play and he would be, I think correctly, saying, I’m showing you my hand. You see what I’m doing? Now do it. So that was like the hard knock school of great guitar lessons and then he would sort of really tease Stefan, if Stefan didn’t pick it up immediately. He was so funny and he’d rib Stefan, but Stefan kept up with him, and they would go back and forth. Stefan learned it that way, and so did David Bromberg and Roy Bookbinder. That’s how they learned. That was really being an apprentice, I think.
Gary Fantastic. Thank you Rory. Thank you for being so generous with your time.
“I feel like I’m on a roll. I know what I’m doing here. I’m focused. I’m excited about it, I’m on the road and I know what my destination is. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that as clearly as I feel it now.” Rory Block
Rory Block is one of the world’s greatest living acoustic blues artists. She’s been honing her guitar skills since she was a teenager in 1964 in New York City, and has devoted her life and career to performing the blues. Her talent has been recognized many times by WC Handy and Blues Music Awards in the US, as well as gaining accolades and awards in Europe. She has just won Acoustic Artist of the Year in the 2019 Blues Music Awards.
Over the years Rory has performed with a host of other top artists like Keb’ Mo’, Bonnie Raitt, Stevie Wonder, Taj Mahal, Mark Knopfler, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Jorma Kaukonen…the list goes on. As the New York Times put it, “Her playing is perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends.”
Rory Block grew up in the New York of the 50s and 60s, in the world of Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur, and the folk revival which saw country blues artists like Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Fred McDowell and Son House rediscovered. Her personal encounters with these influential blues masters of the 20th century left an indelible mark on her and has inspired her music and performances ever since. Not least in her highly acclaimed set of tribute albums to Robert Johnson, Bukka White, Skip James, Mississippi John Hurt, Rev. Gary Davis, Fred McDowell and Son House. In these she has masterfully recreated the music of these seminal artists, reinterpreting the songs for a new generation.
Down at the Crossroads was delighted to get talking to Rory, and found her undaunted by the prospect of getting older, as inspired and excited about her music as ever, embarking on a new multi-album project which pays tribute to the woman blues artists of yesteryear, and generally loving life.
We talked to her about her life in the blues and her new album A Woman’s Soul: A Tribute to Bessie Smith. So interesting and wide-reaching was the discussion, we’ve split in into two parts. Here’s Part 1 –
Gary Rory, Congratulations for having won that Blues Music Award. But I know of course that you’ve won many blues music and W.C. Handy awards and others over the years. How satisfying is that sort of recognition for you?
Rory It really does mean a lot. I think it’s fabulous to be nominated. Actually, it’s a shock! When I was first nominated, I couldn’t believe it. It was just so you know – so justifying – it makes me feel like my work, it means something. People are noticing, people care. Sometimes we can get in a bit of a low spot where we think nothing that you’re doing adds up to anything. Anybody can have that feeling. And so, a nomination in itself tells you that you shouldn’t be discouraged, that something is going right.
But I used to tell myself, don’t worry, because I had been nominated a number of times before winning the first time, and I was pretty much satisfied with that and I wasn’t expecting to win. But I secretly wished that someday I would! But I kept telling myself not to think about it. And when I did win, it was a sweet thing and it did really make me feel joyous and happy. And then most recently I thought, well, I’ll never win again, I’ve got my five awards. That’s more than enough. So, I was going to the awards fully expecting not to win because I’m not that much of a social media person and these days you just really need wide reach, lots of attention given to social media and I’m not so great at that at all. I mean, I don’t post anything myself. Without my husband nobody would see anything! But I just thought well, I’ll just be so happy with the nomination. And so, when I heard my name in the distance, I didn’t even know my category had been called. And I thought, Oh my God, I think I might have just – could it be? And I thought I better go and see! So, I kind of went up the back steps to the stage and then they were all looking towards me coming up and I thought, this could be that I just won – it was so far from my mind at that point! It was as if I just thought that’s part of the past.
So it’s really meant a great deal to me because I felt like somehow it was really a validation of my work – that it is being appreciated. I think that’s the beauty of it, honestly, it is a good feeling.
Gary Yeah. All these years in your long career and it is still being appreciated.
Rory Nice. I feel energized and so does my husband Rob. In fact, I feel like I’m just getting started! Even without the award I feel like I’m on a roll. I know what I’m doing here. I’m focused. I’m excited about it, I’m on the road and I know what my destination is. I don’t think I’ve ever felt that as clearly as I feel it now.
Gary Well that’s absolutely fabulous, because as people get older, sometimes they just kind of drift a little bit. They think it’s all behind them. But you know I think what you’re saying is fantastic, that you feel you’re on a roll, that you’ve a lot more to do. That’s brilliant.
Rory Yeah. I mean, honestly, that’s the whole thing about “older or younger” whatever it may be – when it really comes down to it – getting older or passing years is only what you make it. You know, you may make a disadvantage of it, but honestly, I don’t go there. I see it as an advantage. Now maybe I’m crazy, but I see it as a real opportunity to know more, to do more with what you know, to feel more…your fruit ripens! And to me it’s like I don’t feel old. What are you talking about? For me, it’s just like I feel more secure. I’m more clear that this is what I was put here to do. You know, really, I see it that way. I was put here to do it. And man, I’m just getting started! I don’t feel a limitation at all and I don’t feel old – my goodness, not at all.
Gary Well that is fantastic. That was very refreshing to hear you say that. And congratulations on the Bessie Smith album which has been very well acclaimed and very well received. Tell us a bit about why you wanted to make this album.
Rory Well, you know that my previous project is the mentor series. I have to back up and just talk about that if I may, for a second, because it makes the other thing make more sense. I was raised in an environment and in a family where you didn’t talk about your accomplishments. It was not OK. Whatever that moral system is where some of us were raised to go, “Don’t boast, don’t tell anyone.” And I never spoke about the people that I knew in person and I never spoke about, “well you know I actually spent time with Son House” – I never spoke about anything from the past. And then one day it just hit me, like, I really want to talk about this! I thought I ought to tell my story a little bit and that’s when I started writing my book. And I ought to record records that celebrate the people that I knew in person. So, after the Robert Johnson tribute, which was however many years ago and won Acoustic Album of the Year, I thought it really should be followed by Son House. Whom I knew and had spent a fair amount of time with. And then I thought, you know, I really should try and explain that this is someone who inspired me in person, because in retrospect, how rare is it to have spent time with him? I just thought well, everybody spends time with someone else, and everyone spends time with Reverend Gary Davis and Mississippi John Hurt! But it really turned out that good fortune had put me into the right place at the right time and I was able to briefly meet these absolutely phenomenal, influential founding masters of blues.
So that led to the mentor series – six CDs to blues masters whom I met in person. And it was nothing to do with whether they were women or men. These were the blues people who were rediscovered and brought in to Greenwich Village where I lived. If they had brought Bessie Smith back (she was deceased at that point) – I would have been overjoyed to meet her too. But with no choice on my part, these were the blues masters who I was introduced to as a young teenager. So those six CDs concluded the mentor series.
And everyone was saying, What are you gonna do to follow up? And then I thought, this really needs to be about my favourite women of blues, and so “the power women of the blues” is my new theme. And it was a no-brainer to start with Bessie Smith. No, I didn’t meet Bessie Smith but that’s not the criterion of this new series. It is those who I dearly loved who were a huge part of inspiring me. And I don’t even know who I’ll pick from here because there’s such a broad range of names and great artists. You could do tributes just about for the rest of one’s life and never run out of inspiration. But to choose Bessie Smith was easy for me because I grew up listening to her music.
Gary Actually it was the women blues artists in the first instance that were the really big stars even before the men wasn’t it?
Rory You know that’s a good point and I’ve heard nobody say that, but I think you’re right. Yes, there was Bessie Smith, Ida Cox, Ma Rainey, Memphis Minnie, all who actually attained real name recognition. They toured the world with bands – Bessie Smith was playing with Louis Armstrong and she played for luminaries around the world and she was a big star. So yeah, I think that’s that is a good point.
Gary Then you get through to somebody like Sister Rosetta Tharpe who maybe isn’t exactly blues but I mean she was a big star.
Rory Yeah. That’s totally correct. And one of my challenges is how modern do I get? Bessie Smith was still recording, maybe overlapping in some of the years of the early country blues acoustic artists. But then there were the ones who are even beyond Bessie’s decade and I’m going to I have to limit this to 1940, 1950, 1960. So that’s a challenge that I haven’t yet sorted out. I suppose it really shouldn’t matter that much and I should just pick my favorites!
Gary Yeah, it’s very interesting. All those wonderful tribute albums you’ve done to the country blues guys – they were all fine guitarists and I guess this is an understandable thing for you to do to pay tribute to them by picking up something of their style and at the same time making it your own. But I guess the process is really rather different with somebody like Bessie Smith who sang with a big band. How much of a challenge was it and how did you go about reinterpreting the songs?
Rory I’m glad you asked because that was a huge challenge and I was thinking I really wouldn’t manage it very well. But I figured it out! But in the beginning, I thought, How will I play all these jazz chords because I’m not a jazz player? And I started listening to it and I thought, this isn’t going to come out right. This is never going to work, it’s not going to have any credibility. And I started trying to do the basic tracks which come first on the album. As I started working on them, I thought, I can’t get these chords, they’re over my head. But then, somehow or other it began to fall into place.
I start with a simple rhythm track that I do myself, by the way, with little boxes and Bongo things – mostly boxes and tubs, an oatmeal box, literally, and serving spoons and wooden spoons. And I create a basic track which gives it a much more alive feel than a generated click track. I wanted a more organic sound. So, if I make my own click track that translates into a much more natural feel in the end. I’ve discovered this and it’s really my thing. It’s a way to make it sound more organic, because there’s gonna be the human variation on the beats and they’re not just computer generated. So then I play the acoustic layer of the chords to the best of my ability. And then I put on overdubs, once I get that.
So, the challenge was to get the chords right. And I was scratching my head, wishing I’d had jazz training, but I managed, and all of a sudden, it got easier! And then I would move on and put the bass part on. I was listening to the parts of the band members on her great tracks and the bass player is astounding! So I tried to do that and I followed along, translating what I could, and I think I did a pretty much a note for note type of translation in the beginning. And then after a while I stopped doing that. It was perfect for the first few tunes to use as much as possible the actual notes played by the bass player. Then after a while I just started getting the bass groove to my guitar down and I just started playing and it felt like this is working. So after that, it just opened up and I thought, I can do this! And then I would layer on my slide parts. And then once it gets rolling, then it’s like, this is fun!
Gary So you basically did everything on the album yourself by the sounds of things?
Rory Completely, yes! There’s nobody else but me! That’s the way it’s been for a while and I’ll tell you why I started doing it. And there is no other good reason other than that in the beginning we couldn’t afford anything. Back in the days when they were making big L.A., New York records, if you look back at the budgets for a star from the 70s, we’re talking like, a half a million dollars to make an album. And then times changed and those little acoustic artists came along and we’d make albums at studios that weren’t charging three and four hundred dollars an hour, but maybe 40 dollars an hour. We’re like, oh this is so great! But I had one day in the studio with luminary players where a band came in – the soul people from Philadelphia and so on – and it was a ten thousand dollar day! You know, I mean, my goodness people don’t have that kind of budget money anymore now.
At one point I used Stevie Wonder’s backup singers on a certain record but that was back when people were giving me budget money to pay for that stuff. But then it just kept getting less, and it wasn’t because you were becoming less known or because people didn’t care about your music or your career wasn’t growing, it was because everything was restructuring. Record companies’ budgets went down, down, down. Everybody I know has had the same experience. So, in the end I said, I’m going to sing these myself, I’m going to play this myself. It was literally you had to do it if you wanted to have a band sound in this little niche that I’m talking about. So, I just came up with it and it right away felt like it could work. And so, I’ve stayed with that and now it’s like it’s what I do.
Gary Now you just mentioned singing. People will always remark that on your fantastic guitar work and your slide playing, but in listening to this album, I must say, I was very taken with your singing. Obviously, you couldn’t try to imitate Bessie Smith – but the singing on this is terrific. What had you to think about in your approach to the singing?
Rory Getting the right amount of soul. You know, it’s really about the soul and putting yourself into it the whole way. I had to add power. But listen, I’ve been singing Mississippi John Hurt, I’ve been singing Reverend Gary Davis, I’ve been singing Robert Johnson, so I understand that you can’t do a weak vocal. I have to give my all because these artists are just so amazing that I really don’t want to miss the mark. I know I have to give everything that I’m capable of and so that’s how I that’s how I approach it – I go, you better get this right! This is not about getting by. This is about giving everything you can give. And as you said earlier, you also have to put something of yourself in there, otherwise you’re trying to be someone else.
Gary Yeah. And every occasion, whether it’s a Robert Johnson song or Mississippi John Hurt song, I guess you’re always trying to make it fresh for a modern audience. You’re capturing this style, something of the essence. But how do you go about that, you know, taking one of those guy’s songs and making it fresh?
Rory Well I don’t think it’s something that you consciously do. I don’t consciously say, I better do this a little different. With the Robert Johnson tribute, that was an example of where I didn’t want to do it differently. For me Robert Johnson is the top of the mountain. He is the master of that style. It doesn’t get any better than that. So, it’s not like somebody is waiting for me to do it my way.
And that doesn’t diminish me as an artist. It just means that I’m not going to come up with a better way. So, I wanted to get right down to something that I felt I really understood. I heard him first in 1964 when I was 14 years old and I immediately knew that he was the top of the mountain. I mean it was so great. So I said, I’m going to crack this code – because I knew about the guitar playing, I feel like I’ve known from the time that I first started listening to him and tried to play the music, I had some kind of a connection to it and I was very focused on it. I want to talk about that again in a second, where I had an interesting background that I think gave me a certain edge when it came to being able to play something very close to what he was playing.
Check out Part 2 of our interview with Rory Block here, where she talks about meeting the seminal country blues artists, dealing with stage-fright, and sitting in guitar lessons with Rev. Gary Davis.
Gospel blues has a long history reaching back to the likes of Blind Willie Johnson and Rev Robert Wilkins right through to recent work by Kelly Joe Phelps and Ry Cooder. It’s not surprising, given the close relationship between the spirituals and the blues. It’s a genre rich in musicality, spirituality and inspiration. Here are 16 gospel blues songs that are really worth listening to.
Blind Willie McTell: I’ve Got to Cross the River of Jordan
Nobody can sing the blues like Blind Willie McTell, sang Bob Dylan. True, but McTell also left us a fine collection of gospel blues songs, including River of Jordan, which focuses our attention on the inevitable journey we all must take across Jordan – on our own, facing the consequences of our lives. There’s some fine slide playing on the song and McTell’s vocal performance is strong and compelling. The song is essentially another version of Nobody’s Fault but Mine.
Arguably Willie Johnson’s masterpiece, it is making its way across the universe as part of the musical offering on the Voyager space craft. Recorded in 1927, it features Johnson’s inspired slide playing which creates an incredible other-worldly, eerie effect and his agonized moaning. You really cannot hear the words of this old spiritual which focuses on Christ’s trial in the Garden of Gethsemane, but Johnson’s vocals and slide work more than evoke this terrible hour. Click here for our more detailed look at this song.
Rev. Robert Wilkins: Prodigal Son
Wilkins’ compelling retelling of the gospel story of the prodigal son was recorded in 1935, six years after he had recorded the same song with secular lyrics. Now, having turned his back on the blues and an ordained minister, he re-recorded the song, and eventually performed it at the Newport Folk Festival in 1964. For more on the song, go to here.
Skip James: My God is Real
The music of Skip James, the most enigmatic of all the Delta blues figures, was ominous, bleak and mysterious, made primarily for his own emotional release. James was an exceptional guitarist, with a trademark E-minor tuning and an eerie falsetto vocal delivery. After making some seminal blues recordings, in 1931 he moved to Dallas, where he served as a minister and led a gospel group. His My God is Real, speaks of a deep, very personal experience of faith.
Josh White: My Soul is Gonna Live with God
White was a prolific blues artist and civil rights activist in the first half of the twentieth century. He took a clear anti-segregationist and international human rights political stance and recorded a number of political protest songs. He also recorded gospel songs under the moniker, The Singing Christian. His 1935 My Soul is Gonna Live with God puts his guitar playing chops and his fine singing on display and focuses on the Christian hope for after death.
Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Rock Me
Rosetta Tharpe was a major star during the 1940s and 50s and was an inspiration to the early generation of rock’n’roll artists. She grew up immersed in the church and her faith was a constant inspiration to her music throughout her life. Rock Me, one of her most loved songs, was written by Tommy Dorsey and first recorded by her in 1938. An instant hit, the song contains various Biblical and hymn references. Isaiah 41 comes to mind: “For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.” The song was also another of Blind Willie McTell’s gospel recordings, under its original title, Hide Me in Thy Bosom, in 1949.
And check out this fine recent version by Brooks Williams, accompanied by Hans Theessink:
Mississippi Fred McDowell: You Got to Move
Fred McDowell’s song was brought to prominence by the Rolling Stones on their Sticky Fingers album. It’s essentially a song about the Christian hope of resurrection – “when the Lord get ready, you got to move!”
For a great recent version, check out Paul Thorn’s take on his Don’t Let the Devil Ride album. Check out our conversation with Paul, including his comments on the song here
Sister Fleeta Mitchell & Rev. Willie Mae Eberhard: Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down
Most people are more familiar with Robert Plant’s version of this old spiritual, but Fleeta Mitchell and Willie Mae Eberhard’s stripped down version which appears on Art Rosenbaum’s 2007 album of traditional field recordings is well worth checking out. The song is based on Jesus’s words in Luke’s gospel when he said, “I saw Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” For Christians, the power of evil personified by the “Adversary” is under judgement because of the coming of Christ and ultimately we are not to despair, because good will triumph under the Lordship of Jesus.
Mississippi John Hurt: Here Am I, Oh Lord, Send Me (Don’t You Hear My Saviour Calling?)
John Hurt is renown for his blues and his rhythmic, alternating bass guitar style, with fast syncopated melodies. Reputed to be a gentle soul, his music is quite transcendent, whether blues or gospel. Here Am I, Oh Lord Send Me is a fine example of his technique and is based on Jesus’s words in John’s gospel about the fields being ready for harvest. The song has a devotional feel about it, with the singer offering himself for God’s service.
Rev. Gary Davis: I Am the Light of this World
Born blind, black and in the American South, Davis had little going for him, and yet he became a master of the guitar, ending up in New York City where he was recognized for the musical genius he was. Davis stayed faithful to his calling as a minister of the gospel until he died and only in the last decade of his life was he persuaded to sing blues songs publicly. His ragtime, blues and gospel performances are all outstanding. I Am the Light of this World recalls the words of Jesus in St. John’s gospel.
Check out Ian Zack’s riveting biography of Gary Davis – reviewed here.
Larry Norman: Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music?
Blues-based rock, rather than strictly blues, but this song from Only Visiting this Planet in 1972 puts to rights the misconception that the blues is the devil’s music. Norman, the father of Christian rock, takes up the line from Salvation Army founder William Booth almost a century earlier and then proclaims loudly, “there’s nothing wrong with playing blues licks.”
And in a similar vein, check out Lurrie Bell’s The Devil Ain’t Got No Music, from his 2012 album with the same title.
Eric Bibb: I Want Jesus to Walk With Me
Often played by Eric Bibb in his concerts, he captures completely the dual nature of this old spiritual – on the one hand mournful about the trials and tribulations of life, and yet hopeful about the reality of the presence of Jesus in the midst of those trials. As Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
From the 2012 album, Blues for the Modern Daze, Walter Trout’s dazzling technique, intensity and emotion seizes you, along with the hard-hitting lyrics. The song recalls the story of Cain and Abel in Genesis 4 and calls for more neighbourliness in our relations. Trout reminds us that “Jesus said to feed the hungry, Jesus said to help the poor,” and finishes he song with a searing criticism of modern “so-called Christians” who “don’t believe in that no more.” For more on the song go to here.
Ry Cooder: Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger Right
Ry Cooder has produced one of the best gospel albums ever in Prodigal Son, reviving and updating a number of old gospel songs as well as a couple of his own. We could have picked almost any song from the album for inclusion, but his excellent version of Everybody Ought to Treat a Stranger right is surely a song for our times, with xenophobia at an all time high. Strangers, sojourners and immigrants were all to be treated with care and welcome according to the Hebrew bible – “And if a stranger dwell with you in your land, you shall not mistreat him. The stranger who dwells among you shall be to you as one born among you, and you shall love him as yourself; for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God,” (Leviticus 19:33-34). And reflected in the words of Jesus in Matthew 25 – “I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me … When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? … Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.”
Phelps’s 2012 album, Brother Sinner and the Whale, is arguably the best gospel roots album ever. Phelps’s guitar work and slide playing, as always, is immaculate, and the songs are a remarkable testament to Phelps’s rediscovered faith. They brim with creativity, inspiration and spirituality. His reworking of the old hymn, Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah is masterful, but we’ve chosen his own Goodbye to Sorrow here, which is simply a wonderful song and packed with theology:
“My God came to earth a humble man
As part of a divine and master plan
When they crucified our Saviour He set the captives free
That death would lose dominion over you and over me
I have said goodbye to sorrow as I lay before the cross.”
Click here for Down at the Crossroads’ comments on this album here.
Blind Boys of Alabama: Nobody’s Fault But Mine
Singing together since 1944, the Blind Boys have been singing blues tinged gospel for an awfully long time and you’d be hard pressed to pick the best of. For a good list, check out Paste’s take here. We’ve gone with this sparse arrangement of another Blind Willie Johnson song, Nobody’s Fault but Mine, which is full of the personal regret and heartache. The plaintive harmonica, the slide guitar and the tight harmonies combine to make this an outstanding version of the song.
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We’re talking about Rev. Gary Davis, the blind son of dirt-poor sharecroppers in South Carolina, who went on to exert a major influence on the folk scene of the 1960s and the early rock scene of the 70s. Yet for most of his career, he refused to perform blues music publicly until the latter years of his life.
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