Dom Flemons: Many Pieces to the Puzzle

It’s fitting that Black Cowboys, the latest record from writer, storyteller, historian, and songster Dom Flemons, was released on Smithsonian Folkways, the non-profit label arm of the eponymous museum and its Center for Folklife — the album plays and reads like a museum exhibit in musical form. This collection of songs, from traditional Western folk melodies to African slaves’ field hollers to Flemons’ timeless originals, celebrates the heritage of African American cowboys in the Wild West.

The existence of black cowboys has largely been omitted from the greater historical record, relegated to forgotten dime store novels, dusty biographies, and seldom-sung songs. The commercial narratives that took the nation by storm in the last century, such as Wild West rodeo shows, singing cowboys, and myriad television shows and films, largely centered on whiteness and white heroes as the keystones of the pioneer West. Flemons understood the larger, more complicated picture — in part due to his African American and Mexican American heritage and growing up in Arizona. With this record and its exhaustive liner notes he brings these integral stories, these neatly interlocking puzzle pieces of black identities shaping the American West, out into the mainstream.

When I listen to this record and read through the liner notes it strikes me that the crux of the entire project is revisionist history and figuring out how to undo it.

One of the things I’ve found most interesting about the issue of revisionist history is that it creates even more weight to the work of people like Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, because you start to understand why they were working for civil rights and first-class citizenship, compared to second-class citizenship. Up to that point, no matter how far you got in the status as a citizen, you could not be considered a first-class citizen if you were an African American person. This becomes extremely prevalent when speaking of early Western history. To put a black person on the same level as a white person was taboo up until even the late 1970s and early ‘80s. Nowadays it’s really hard for people to grasp that concept. When you aren’t in control of the narrative, you’ll find there are holes in it. My notion has been to add and to elevate different parts of the narrative so that when you bring all of the narratives together you get a truer picture of what the history is supposed to be. That was part of the reason I felt that this album was very important to get out there.

Being from the Southwest, I know that it’s a diverse community. The story isn’t just black and white. There are the Native American populations as well as the Mexican American populations and the different refugee groups as well. The Southwest and Western culture tends to have a very diverse population, because the open expanses of land give a lot of room for people to build a new life for themselves. Where there aren’t a lot of people, you don’t want to upset your neighbor, because they could help you in your time of need. When you read about the cowboys you start finding that the ideas of discrimination and segregation in the classic sense break down in certain situations where, because of the lack of numbers, everybody had to be working together. That called for a brotherhood and a kinship between all these different cultures, in a way that is very unique and is very reassuring, especially in modern times when it seems that the whole world is connected, but we still feel like, “Why have we never been able to get along?” But you find in different situations along the way people have figured out how to work together and get along with each other just out of necessity.

Are people surprised by the concept of the album? I can just imagine someone saying, “Black cowboys? That’s a thing?” How do you unpack for people that black folks have been everything and everywhere, just like white identities?

It’s a matter of perspective and a matter of representation in the mainstream. When it comes to cowboys, three things happened. First, you had the birth of dime store novels, sensationalized Western fiction that were written by people [back East]. They took Western stories and created a sensational picture of Western culture. It’s interesting to read about these too, because you do have several pulp novels that feature black cowboys in them, so you still have a bit of that culture in there.

The second wave was Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. It was the first internationally recognized Western program. [Buffalo Bill] was definitely a Confederate-leaning individual, even though he was part of the communities in Kansas that fought against slavery. Buffalo Bill, he had black friends, he had Native American friends, he was good friends with Sitting Bull. But at the same time, ideologically, when the Wild West show went out there [on tour], it painted Buffalo Bill as a white savior, at the forefront of all of this. With it being presented at Madison Square Garden and all over the world, including Australia, Germany, England, France, and Spain it painted the picture of Western American culture being a white phenomenon and having white heroes that are in the forefront. That’s the second level.

The third thing that really cemented the image of the cowboy in place were the singing cowboys: Gene Autry, Tex Ritter, and a whole slew of other folks following behind — like Jimmie Rodgers, the father of country music. That set the stage for the cowboy being a white man in a cowboy hat and chaps, saving the day. It caught on with the adults and the kids, and the kids carried on these same traditions. Once you see that sort of representation and there’s no narrative that conflicts with that, there’s no need to consider that there might be a different narrative.

Now we’re over a hundred years down the road from all three of those things. The idea that black cowboys are representative of cowboy culture is something that’s been chipped away for many years. When it comes to representation and African American culture in the West you’ll find that there are a lot of pieces to the puzzle.

How do you take an album that might come across as a “time capsule” or historic novelty music and show it’s more than just a bridge to yesteryear? How do you view this music today, in a modern context?

There was one thing that really set this off. At first I faced that problem. Of course, I had my interest in cowboy music in general; I love Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, Riders in the Sky, etc. That interested me in general, but I came into this particular issue as I started trying to make this into a compelling narrative so that people won’t just pass it off as nostalgic music.

I was talking with my father about one of the cowboys I was reading about, a fellow by the name of Nat Love, who was one of very few black cowboys to write an autobiography. He worked out of this town called Holbrook, Arizona. Then he became a Pullman porter working on the railroad lines. The history of Pullman porters was what we would call a catalyst for the early civil rights movement. One of the main Pullman porters, a man by the name of A. Philip Randolph, started the very first all-black union called the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. Black people who were Pullman porters were able to elevate themselves socially, because they began to know the most prominent white patrons from traveling with them. At first they just worked for tips, but then they wanted to work for a salary, so A. Philip Randolph helped the porters raise their wages.

The porters were also the connecting point between every black section of town in the United States. When it came to delivering the all-black newspapers and when it came to 78 RPM records, the porters had supplies that they would sell to people. They connected the North, South, East, and West of the United States. Later on, in the 1940s, ‘50s, and ‘60s, Randolph was one of the people who helped Martin Luther King Jr. organize the bus boycott. My father told me that; he was a porter for a chair car, the local/regional train car.

Seeing that someone like Nat Love was a cowboy and later a Pullman porter connected this ancient story of dusty old cowboys on the range into a very modern African American context. That was how I connected the narrative so it would be modern. This gave me a strong sense of why we don’t think about black cowboys. White cowboys continued to ranch and become proprietors on their ranches. But of course in the African American community nostalgia, looking backwards, thinking about the old home place is a whole different story. Cowboy music is connected to country music and one of the biggest parts of country music is nostalgia. In the African American community, nostalgia has always been a double-edged sword.

When I hear you talk about your connection to your music, the dots seem to connect pretty directly, but you’ve put in time, done the research, given it care, and given yourself an in-depth education. How do we make it as easy as possible for people to also trace those threads without all of the rigorous work you put in? Or do you think that work is necessary and maybe something everyone should experience?

Well, I think technically everyone should work through all of that. That’s something that I would like to have happen.

Especially since there are so many of us who haven’t had a choice but to put in that work.

Absolutely. [It all started for me by] being a big fan of Texas country blues music, which is part of my grandfather’s culture. It was very natural to listen to people like Lead Belly, Henry Thomas, and Lightnin’ Hopkins even. All of that stuff is black Western culture from the descendants of these cowboys. I wanted to bring that stuff into a single room. I also went to the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada, and I met several of the cowboys. Don Edwards, a legendary cowboy singer who has spent a lot of time talking about the influence of black cowboys, told me about how all the black cowboys were called black vaqueros. He told me about Mexican vaqueros and how they were the original cowboys. It opens up Spanish and Mexican culture being part of Western culture starting three hundred years before the time period we cover on the album. That’s a piece of the puzzle.

It’s obviously a very complicated and complex puzzle, but it’s not necessarily more complicated than just the narrative of America we’re already familiar with — the melting pot of cultures and backgrounds. It’s a matter of putting those pieces together. You’re adding more colorful pieces to the puzzle they already have half-built in their heads.

Overall, I really wanted to be able to give Black Cowboy 101. Like the quote from Mike Searles that I used in the introduction. When people think of the birth of the West they think of it as the birthplace of America. If you think of it as only white America, you would get the impression that only white people are true Americans and everyone else is an interloper. If you start adding these other people — Mexican vaqueros, African American cowboys, and even Native American cowboys — you get a better sense that it’s not only the birthplace of America, but it’s always been multicultural, from the beginning.


Photo by Timothy Duffy

Bringing It All Back Home: A Conversation With Luke Winslow-King

Luke Winslow-King has been drawn to the blues since he was a kid growing up in Cadillac, Michigan. At 14 years old, his namesake blues band was playing clubs and festivals around the Midwest. Whatever he lacked in life experience, he made up for it with prodigious guitar work and an easy stage presence. Yet any lingering innocence would have eventually fallen away following 15 years of living in New Orleans, spiked with a couple of international tours.

Now in his mid-30s, Winslow-King’s pedigree in the blues is far more defined after enduring a divorce, the loss of his father, a couple of friendships falling apart, and the deaths of more than a few musical influences. In other words, he’s no longer just a boy with the blues. In fact Blue Mesa is Winslow-King’s first new album since he moved back to Cadillac from New Orleans last year. Considering what he’s been though, his writing offers a streak of hard-won optimism in songs like “Better for Knowing You” and “After the Rain,” elevating Blue Mesa beyond just another breakup record.

At what point during the making of this record did you move back to Michigan?

It probably was right after we recorded it that I moved to Michigan. I went on tour for three months, so I didn’t live anywhere. Then I moved to Michigan after the tour. I was in transition at that time. I’ve spent the better part of 15 years in New Orleans. Some of that time was spent in New York or on the road, but I’ve been in New Orleans pretty solid since 2001 or 2002. I learned a lot; the city has been great to me. It’s been an incredible place to get my career started. I’ll enjoy going back there soon, but I’m just ready for something else right now.

Was there a moment where you said, “All right, I’m changing”?

Yeah. I went through a divorce there and did some editing as far as my friend group goes. Now I just want to be in a place with nature and family so I can focus on my career in a different way. When I’m home, I’m off. When I’m on the road, I’m on the road. In New Orleans, you come off the road and you’re in this music scene where you’re playing every night or every other night when you’re home. It’s nice, man. I’ve been enjoying fishing, and bowling, and canoeing, and cross country skiing. It feels real to be back home. I’m enjoying it.

Has that helped your creative mindset?

I think so. I’m feeling less pressured to write and do business and just being like, “You know what? This is my life.” I’m going to follow it through and do the best I can. If people like it, cool. If they don’t, then someone else will. just keeping at it and trying to keep it real rather than force anything. I think that’s how the record comes off a little too. I quit telling the band what to do and just let them do what they do best. If I didn’t like it I would tell them but usually I was just like, “Sure. Sounds great, let’s go for it.” I think there’s a certain breath of freedom in it.

You’ve got a lot of tasteful playing on this record. How did you learn the skill of not overplaying or just ripping through your songs?

Just listening, and years of playing, and learning how to speak through the guitar. The guitar doesn’t necessarily have to sound like a guitar. You can speak a language through it or sing through it. My guitarist Roberto Luti, who is not touring with us because he’s back in Italy, is my guitar maestro. He is our unicorn for gathering the spirit and learning how to be very tasteful and minimalist on a guitar. I’ve learned a lot watching him too.

How did the Italian recording sessions for this album come about?

Well, we were hitting the road pretty hard in Europe this summer for eight weeks or something like that. We had a five-day break in the middle of it and we were in Italy anyway. Roberto is from there, so he knew people who owned a really nice studio. It ended up being this cool getaway up in the mountains in Tuscany. We had the tunes ready enough. We had to rehearse a little to get ready for the session but the tunes were at that perfect point where they weren’t over-rehearsed.

We caught a really cool moment, which is really important in a session. We were comfortable with each other and the material. We all needed a break, but we were still excited about the music. Everyone was laid-back. This is the first album where I’ve kept all my live vocals. Usually I go back and do an overdub session, which a lot of people do, but it felt nice to be like, “This is natural and real.” All the takes on the solos and guitars are live. There are keyboard overdubs and edits here and there, but it’s mostly all live.

It makes sense to do it that way, rather than get it so perfect that it’s too polished.

There’s a sweet spot – you obviously have to know the songs well enough. I’m a huge Bob Dylan fan and listen to records like Desire. You can tell the rhythm section has maybe never heard the song before. It makes for an awesome recording. Everyone is on their toes.

You had a blues band when you were a teenager in Michigan, right?

Yeah. I grew up in northern Michigan and I started the Winslow-King Blues Band when I was 13. We played a few music festivals. My parents used to go see me play at bars on the weekend. I’ve come back to a sound that’s a lot more similar to what I was playing when I was 14 years old, which is like an electric trio with a Stratocaster playing blues. The difference is I’ve lived between then. I’ve explored folk music. I had classical string quartets on my first album. New Orleans jazz was mixed in there for a while. I tried jazz, a lot of different styles.

Now I’m playing original music that I can stand by. There’s a lot more diversity in it, of course, but it feels good to come full circle and be back to my roots. A lot of my friends back home were like, “When are you going to rock again? I remember when you were young you used to rock.” Even my dad was like, “I liked it when you rocked.” I’m back to that, so it feels good.

I wonder what that’s like for people who remember you as a teenager, and now you’re back home as an adult. They have to reevaluate you and you have to reevaluate them at this stage. Has that been the case for you?

Well, that’s what’s so great about going home and being back with your old family and friends. It’s a very understanding reevaluation. You are who you are. The friendships go beyond whatever music you’re playing or what notes you’re playing. I’m glad to be back home and have salt-of-the-earth friends. My best friend was a logger and now is a sand miner; my other best friend is a fishing guide and snow plow truck driver in the winter. It’s cool to have friends who are concerned with normal daily life. You can go fishing and hang out and not have everyone be into cool music everywhere you go.

This album has very cinematic moments too. A lot of it felt like it could be placed in movies on the closing credits. Are there soundtracks or composers that you consider primary influences?

Yeah. I’m a huge Ry Cooder fan. That’s one of his things that he’s been known for and made a career out of. I’m also a big fan of Neil Young’s soundtrack for the Dead Man movie. I’ve always really liked that and listen to that in the van sometimes. I went to school for classical music and I’ve always loved great classical music. I also love Clint Eastwood. I’ve been watching a lot of Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone movies and hearing that stuff too. It’s not necessarily stylistically what I want to do but I love how evocative some of those sounds are and how much they bring the listener to the setting. It would be cool to be able to do that in my own way with my music.

Are there any filmmakers other than Clint Eastwood that have affected the way you see your art?

I’ve watched all five Rocky movies and all the Rambo movies this winter, I’m embarrassed to say.

No, don’t be embarrassed. Rocky won an Oscar.

Chris Davis, my drummer, is a huge, huge Rocky fan. We just went to Philly and ran the stairs while we were there. Honestly we’re in this Stallone phase. Roberto, our Italian guitarist, always says ‘Stallone-ay’ which we love. Honestly, Rocky is a really inspiring movie. I appreciate that Stallone did that movie on a shoestring budget and was inspired to make it himself. Right now Rocky has been what I’m all about. It’s that underdog mentality. Even though everyone makes fun of Stallone and it is so cheesy, and some of the acting is so terrible, there’s a really beautiful sentiment in that movie about going the distance.

 


Photos by Victor Alonso

The Heritage of New Orleans’ Jazz Fest

Three hundred years ago just about now — May 7, 1718, so legend has it — representatives of the riches-minded colonial French Mississippi Company decided that a malaria-infested swamp in the crescent bend near the base of the river for which it was named would make a great place for a port settlement. Nouvelle-Orléans they called it.

Thanks to them, over the course of the next couple of weekends, not too far from that original settlement, you can find a spot where, depending on how the breezes are blowing, you will be able to hear five, six, maybe seven kinds of music all at once. This is music representing cultures from all over the world — from Haiti, from Mali, from Cuba, from Brazil, from Nova Scotia, from the bayous and prairies just a few hours away, and from Congo Square on the edge of that former swamp. Music originated by escaped slaves, by French refugees booted out of Eastern Canada, by Irish dockworkers, by free people of color and landed aristocrats, by Baptist celebrants and Catholic congregants and European Jewish immigrants. Oh, and of the indigenous tribes who were there long before the Europeans. Blues, gospel, country, rock, salsa, merengue, Celtic, hip-hop, bounce, rara, R&B, Cajun, zydeco, klezmer, funk, brass bands’ Mardi Gras Indian chants, and real Indians’ pow-wow chants. And jazz, of course, both traditional and modern, just for a start.

And while you’re standing there, in that same spot, you can savor the irresistible aromas of cuisine from just as many traditions, all blended together in ways that have come to be associated with this place, which we now know as New Orleans … though that’s a different story … or a different part of the same story, perhaps.

That spot is in the middle of the Louisiana Fairgrounds which, part of the year, is a horse-racing track, but for the last weekend in April and first in May, has for decades been the site of the famed New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. And this year, the event is marking the city’s tricentennial with a valiant attempt to showcase and celebrate all of the many cultures that made this city like nowhere else in North America, really nowhere else in the world. Technically, that’s always been part of the mission of what people refer to as JazzFest — its baker’s dozen of stages spread around the grounds hosting artists with connections to that heritage.

This year, that specific mission will be concentrated in a tent very near that mid-Fairgrounds spot. Most years, a Cultural Exchange Pavilion has hosted music, art, crafts, and workshops devoted to a particular country or culture with historic ties to New Orleans. Cuba was spotlighted last year, Belize in 2016, and Haiti, Mali, Brazil, and Native America among others featured in recent years. For the tricentennial, all of that is being squeezed into the pavilion, an ambitious, but fitting focus.

The late, great singer Ernie K-Doe was fond of saying that, while he wasn’t positive, he was pretty sure “all music came from New Orleans.” Hyperbole from a man who called himself the Emperor of the Universe? Well, a little, maybe. A more accurate statement might be that pretty much all music came to, and through, New Orleans. Heck, after hosting its first documented opera performance in 1796, the city was known as “the Opera Capital of North America” through the next century. And, if you roll your eyes when JazzFest announces its big name artist headliners — a crop this year including Aerosmith, Sting, Beck, Rod Stewart, Lionel Richie, and LL Cool J — well, how many of them would be making the music they make, if not for the powerful influences of music tied to the heritage of New Orleans and the surrounding region?

It was all pretty much in place, even before the city’s single centennial, as cultural historian Ned Sublette notes in the introduction to his definitive 2005 account of those first 100 years, The World That Made New Orleans.

“New Orleans was the product of complex struggles among competing international forces,” he wrote. “It’s easy to perceive New Orleans’ apartness from the rest of the United States, and much writing about the city understandably treats it as an eccentric, peculiar place. But I prefer to see it in its wider context. A writer in 1812 called it ‘the great mart of all wealth of the Western world.’ By that time, New Orleans was a hub of commerce and communication that connected the Mississippi watershed, the Gulf Rim, the Atlantic seaboard, the Caribbean Rim, Western Europe (especially France and Spain), and various areas of West and Central Africa.”

And with all of that came music, gene-splicing and mutating through the years, from the drumming, dancing, and singing of slaves, given Sundays off, gathering in what became known as Congo Square (in what is now Louis Armstrong Park, just across Rampart from the French Quarter) to the backstreets and brothels of the Storyville district down the street where Buddy Bolden and Armstrong played their horns and Jelly Roll Morton worked the sounds of Latin America — “the Spanish tinge” — into roiling piano adventures through the collision of rhythm & blues and country-blues in the years just after World War II that brought about the birthing of rock ’n’ roll in Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studios right on the other side of Rampart.

As Sublette put it: “The distance between rocking the city in 1819 and [Roy Brown’s] ‘Good Rocking Tonight’ in 1947 was about a block.”

At the same time, that distance is a trip around the world. This year, it’s all in one little tent.

A few highlights of note from the Cultural Exchange Pavilion lineup:

Sidi Touré — The guitarist, singer, and songwriter from Bamako, Mali, is one of the leading figures in modern Songhaï blues, roots of which became American blues and its variations via slaves brought across the Atlantic and, in turn, influenced by American blues and rock.

The Cajun/Acadienne Connection — A special collaboration between descendants of French settlers relocated to the Louisiana bayou prairies after being booted out of Eastern Canada by the conquering British in1755, and descendants of those who managed to stay in Canada. The former is represented by the Savoy Family Band, Marc and Ann Savoy standing among the leading forces in the revival of once-oppressed Cajun music and culture joined by sons Joel and Wilson, who have brought their own vitality to the form. The latter comes via Vishtèn, a young trio from the resilient Francophone community on Easter Canada’s Prince Edward Island which mixes French Acadian and Celtic influences with overt nods to their Louisiana “cousins.”

Cynthia Girtley’s Tribute to Mahalia Jackson — The formidable Girtley, who bills herself as “New Orleans Gospel Diva” offers her homage to New Orleans’ (and the world’s) Queen of Gospel and force in the Civil Rights Movement who, two years before her death, was a surprise performer at the very first JazzFest in 1970 in Congo Square, singing “Just a Closer Walk with Thee” with the Eureka Brass Band, followed by a formal concert the next night in the adjacent Municipal Auditorium, which now bears her name.

Tribute to Jelly Roll Morton with special guest Henry Butler — New Orleans-born Butler has long been one of the leading keepers of the flame of the city’s great piano traditions, an heir to such greats as Prof. Longhair and James Booker. Here, he is featured in a set honoring Morton who, if not the inventor of jazz (as he was wont to boast himself), was one of its key innovators and promoters in its formative years.

Jupiter & Okwess — Hailing from the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s capital Kinshasa, dynamic singer Jupiter Bokondji and his forceful band have become an international force in modern Congolese music, as it’s taken to the global road recently, gripping audiences at festivals and clubs alike in Europe and North America.

Kermit Ruffins’ Tribute to Louis Armstrong — Trumpeter and singer Ruffins became a star as a teen, helping lead a new generation of NOLA street musicians with the Rebirth Brass Band in the ‘90s, and has continued as a local favorite through his solo career (plus wider exposure via featured spots in HBO’s Treme, among other things). His love for and debt to the one-and-only Satchmo has always been a core presence in his playing and gravelly, good-natured vocal approach.

Leyla McCalla — The cellist, banjoist, and singer emerged in the second version of the Carolina Chocolate Drops alongside Rhiannon Giddens. Settling in New Orleans and starting a family, she’s dug deep into Haitian and Creole roots in her colorfully wide-ranging solo albums, showing herself a visionary, talented artist in her own right.

The East Pointers — Another young trio from Canada’s Prince Edward Island, this group draws more on the British-Celtic traditions, but with the distinct character of its home. Their latest album, What We Leave Behind, explores the sadness of young people leaving the island to seek work and wider horizons elsewhere.

Lakou Mizik — This Port-au-Prince group has been called the Buena Vista All Stars of Haiti, as it was formed after the devastating 2010 earthquake around a vibrant core of Haitian musical elders joining with rising youngsters. Their 2017 JazzFest performance was one of the year’s highlights.


Photo of Congo Square courtesy of New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival

Black History Is Roots Music History

To celebrate Black History Month, we’re taking a moment to revisit pieces that celebrated the creativity, music, and identities of artists of color over the past year.

Plenty of wisdom has been handed down in our Counsel of Elders features:

Jimmy Carter of the Blind Boys of Alabama spoke of faith and singing about reaching the end of the journey: “People ask me, ‘You’ve been doing this for almost seven decades, what keeps you going?’ I tell them, ‘When you love what you do — and we love what we’re doing — that keeps you motivated.’”

Soul singer Lee Fields had advice for staying positive without losing one’s realism: “I do believe that love is out there today, true genuine love, and I think a person should always keep that in mind. Stay positive.”

Then there’s 75 year-old singer and hit songwriter Don Bryant who has only just released his second album, so he knows a thing or two about perseverance and second chances.

Two of the past 12 months have been anchored by roots music legends:

Blues super-duo Keb’ Mo’ and Taj Mahal released TajMo, so we marked the occasion by designating Keb’ our Artist of the Month for May. The album just won a (well-deserved) Grammy.

Country hit-maker Charley Pride held down the Artist of the Month slot in September, when we pointed out that, even now, in his 80s, he is unafraid to shake things up.

Then, there are the cover stories:

With her record, The Order of Time, Valerie June defies labels, spanning blues, bluegrass, soul, folk, rock, and more, gathering pieces from each to build a kaleidoscope that showcases the long undercurrent of history running through each.

Trombone Shorty is intent on keeping the culture and music of New Orleans alive, but without redundancy: “When I grew up, I was listening to brass bands and I was listening to New Orleans hip-hop, so that is a part of my culture. I started, then, playing my horn to hip-hop beats and rock beats. It’s part of knowing where you come from, but trying to move the music forward.”

Black Joe Lewis doesn’t revive rock ‘n’ roll, he just shows the world it’s still alive — and, as a classic form of American music, it should have a seat at the Americana table, too.

For Chastity Brown, making music is like a therapy session: “The music reflected itself back to me and, in one part, let me know I was quite broken, and in another part of [Silhouette of Sirens], let me know I wasn’t that way anymore.”

The historical context of Black identities in roots music is best supplied by, well … Black identities in roots music.

New York-based Black string band the Ebony Hillbillies expertly laid out the diverse history of bluegrass and old-time music in a Shout & Shine interview.

Scholars Doug Seroff and Lynn Abbott have worked together for nearly 40 years researching the history of African-American music in jubilee, quartet, vaudeville, ragtime, and early blues music.

We dove into the history of the Georgia Sea Island Singers, who have featured a rotating cast over the years and continue to share their rich history of West African descent, with performances at presidential inaugurations and other public ceremonies.

By working through a deep-rooted musical heritage, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou uses the language of the past to inform the present, serving up a direct response to the current political climate.

In her album, Freedom Highway, Rhiannon Giddens examined the cyclical struggles of the victims of injustice that suffer throughout history … slaves, children, Black men, and more. We spoke to her about it.

Lesbian, Americana artist Crys Matthews is a native of the South and the daughter of a preacher. She understands and appreciates the myriad ways her background informs her ability to help others empathize with those with whom they might assume they have nothing in common.

Let’s not forget about all of the incredible music:

Birds of Chicago sang one of our favorite songs for a Sitch Session.

Ben Hunter & Joe Seamons released A Black & Tan Ball with Phil Wiggins and built the album on friendship, their commitment to celebrating the wide range of American styles available to any songster, and the joy of sharing those musical styles across generations.

Benjamin Booker’s “Truth Is Heavy” was featured as a Song of the Week this past June.

And Rhiannon Giddens had a Song of the Week, too.

One of our new favorites, Sunny War, sings to her younger self — and all young children today — about the challenges of life.

Guitarist Hubby Jenkins can do more with just his voice and guitar than some folks do with an entire band.

We hosted a number of wonderful artists on Hangin’ & Sangin‘, as well:

Johnnyswim had us laughing for the whole half-hour … and invited us over for dinner, to boot!

The aforementioned Keb’ Mo’ turned on the charm in a big, big way.

Acoustic soul singer Jonny P touched on the importance of positive representation.

Hopping over from the UK, Yola Carter blew our minds with her incredible voice and spirit.

During AmericanaFest, Leyla McCalla talked us through the history of Haitian-Americans.

And last but not least, there have been several stellar Mixtapes, too:

Singer Bette Smith remembers her big brother and his love of soul music with this playlist.

Contemporary blues guitarist Ruthie Foster gave us an introduction to the blues with a dozen foundational tracks upon which a blues novice might begin to build their love of the form.

Our friends at the Music Maker Relief Foundation are working hard to preserve traditional, vernacular American music, especially traditional blues.

Living Your Passion: A Conversation with Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams

Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams have been married for nearly 30 years, but they only turned their private song-making into a public affair with the release of their 2015 self-titled debut. (Though, before that, they played for seven years in Levon Helm’s band.)

Last year, they returned with their sophomore effort, Contraband Love, a darker affair that takes a hard look at love’s pocks in order to reveal its pearls. Original folk-driven songs like “Save Me from Myself” explore a strong relationship’s balm, while the title track promises to keep fighting past the hard-bitten instinct to keep love at bay. Williams’ voice leads the charge on the verses, while Campbell joins her on the harmonies, their voices showcasing their lengthy partnership together. The admiration and respect the couple exhibit for one another — and for the opportunities they’ve been given to live their passion in tandem — only adds to their music-making journey. As they’ve learned, not everything happens quickly. But some things are worth the wait.

You’ve been described as being a riskier slice of Americana. How do you see yourselves pushing against its status quo?

Teresa Williams: Are we pushing against the status quo of Americana? [Laughs] I guess we’re just not thinking about it and letting the chips falls where they fall.

Larry Campbell: That’s pretty much it.

TW: I don’t think that’s a good plan, if you have a trajectory. You just have to take the music as it comes.

LC: Yeah, the stuff we write and perform, ideally, it comes from an organic place where what we’re creating is a mixture of all our influences and, because of the genre that Teresa and I have both been attracted to most of our lives, what comes out fits in the Americana theme. But the goal has never been to make music that can be called Americana music.

TW: They called us Americana! We never did.

Right, I can see how the narrative springs up after the fact.

LC: Levon [Helm] affectionately called Americana “the trash bin of rock.”

TW: It’s a nice haven for all the outcasts, I think. I’ve heard Mary Gauthier say, “This is my tribe. I love my tribe.”

That’s perfect.

LC: Then, by that definition, it pushes against any kind of status quo. The beauty of it is, there really is no status quo for Americana. It’s a big tent. I would hope the underlying requirement to be placed in that category is complete artistic expression and, if you’ve got that, then you’re welcome in.

As opposed to a more commercial approach?

LC: Right.

TW: Or maybe if you’re trying to achieve what you think will go over. Like, “Oops, probably not smart.”

“Save Me from Myself” is such an interesting take on the love song. Can you tell me a bit about where that came from?

LC: It is a love song. We’ve all known people, or been people at times in our lives, who find it very difficult to face our own shortcomings. To me, it’s the idea of unconditional love, where you’re allowed to go through your own personal misery and someone will stand next to you and try to help you through it, but if nothing else, just be there for you. That’s a fascinating facet of love. I’m dabbling with that theme in that song and in the title song, “Contraband Love.” I’ve had issues in my life where I didn’t necessarily like the person I was. The idea that someone would still be there for you, while you’re trying to get all this stuff sorted out and get your stuff together, that’s just fascinating.

You also covered Carl Perkins’ “Turn Around,” which feels like an interesting companion piece to “Save Me.” One is pleading for help from a lover, and the other is offering that very thing. How has time been reshaping your own understanding of love?

LC: Wow.

Big questions today!

LC: Well, Teresa and I have been married for almost 30 years now.

That’s amazing.

TW: Especially in this business.

In the business, but also in this day and age. People don’t put in that kind of time anymore.

TW: It was a little later … I had just turned 32 when we got married.

LC: And I was 33. We’d been through a lot of the experiences that people have that they eventually regret and which causes the relationship to fall apart. We had exhausted most of those experiences. When we got married, it was a really good time in both of our lives where we both understood who were individually, and we both understood the other.

TW: We’ve been through enough to recognize … people use the word soulmate, throw that word around pretty loosely, but it truly felt like, from the first day I met Larry, that was it. What drove us musically was very similar, and that was a huge part of the attraction.

LC: What Teresa and I have between us, we’ve experienced so many facets and aspects of what love is — that it does change and it does morph. But there’s sort of a rock underneath it all. The longer you go, when you’re in a healthy relationship, the firmer that rock gets. I think both of us in this 30-year journey have really done the best we could to treat this relationship with the respect that it warrants.

TW: The irony is that neither of us was looking for marriage at the time.

Isn’t that always how it happens, though?

Both: Yeah!

TW: The day I met Larry, I was putting myself out on a limb, musically. When people talk about meeting the right person, I always say, “Do what you love and keep putting yourself out there with what you love to do.” I think that’s really part of it.

Larry, you’ve mentioned in another interview that songwriting isn’t an easy form of self-expression for you and, after your self-titled debut, you had to get comfortable with what you and Teresa were as a duo. How did you set about doing that?

LC: From my perspective, Teresa has always been a front person, in one respect or another; she was comfortable in that role. For me, I was always a back-up musician, and I was always comfortable as a studio musician or producer. From the first day we met, we would sing together for the love and the fun of doing it.

TW: Especially down in West Tennessee with my family and the local people there.

LC: It took me a long time to develop an appreciation for the notion of being out front and being a singer with original material. I would’ve never been able to develop this, unless I’d done it with Teresa. Fortunately, we had an incubator, which was with the Levon Helm band. He wanted everybody to step up front and do something. That gave me the opportunity to try that stuff with Teresa in public. There are people that are born to get out there and sing and throw themselves in front of the crowd, and it’s taken me an evolution to make that happen, for me to be comfortable. I get such fulfillment out of doing this thing with Teresa that that’s the point, rather than the point being wanting to be up there in front of someone.

It sounds like quite a gift. Talent can, in its own way, take people away from each other, and when you were playing with [Bob] Dylan that did happen.

TW: Yeah, it took its toll. But, at the same time, when I would be out there [visiting Larry on the road], we’d sit in the back of the bus after shows and play music, and Dylan’s manager said, “You guys oughta be making pay off what you have.” I’m not sure it really occurred to us before this. I kinda felt icky about a husband-and-wife team, for some reason. I grew up in the cotton patch — literally, working in the cotton patch. And it felt like [a creative life] was some other cast of people that did that thing out in the world.

Right, it’s such a big thing to think, let alone achieve.

TW: Yeah, like you can’t get too big for your britches. I hate to admit that, as I feel like a strong female.

What’s so interesting about both of your stories is, you didn’t set out looking for this, but you found it together. I love that circularity, that life could bring you what you needed.

LC: When Teresa and I made our first record, and it was starting to kick in that we were going to do this project — this Larry & Teresa thing — I had this feeling that just doing it makes it a success. We’re not going to be JAY-Z and Beyoncé. That’s okay.

TW: [Laughs]

“My Sweetie Went Away” and “Slidin’ Delta” are such fun songs because they stretch the bounds of what you do in more regional ways. I know, Teresa, you grew up in Western Tennessee, and you’ve both been in upstate New York. Is there a region that you feel most drawn to, musically?

TW: I realized, on stage some nights, that almost all the songs we’re singing — except the ones Larry wrote — are the ones from Tennessee. Larry was in New York, going to hear all these world famous artists, these rock ‘n’ roll artists and bluegrass artists passing through New York City. He had a friend who was getting him into the Fillmore East when he was 12. I’m so jealous! I’ll joke; I’ll say, “We weren’t getting that. They weren’t coming through the cotton patch.” But we were getting the music from the dirt, I like to think.

The people that Larry was hearing in New York, they were recirculating our music back to us. We’re technically in the Delta, where I’m from. We’re on the edge of it, so it’s kind of inevitable that Larry and I … I felt like the dirt met the city. His sensibility is from down there, too, obviously. He spent a couple of years down in Jackson, Mississippi, which is the only reason I thought it was okay to marry him. If he hadn’t spent that time, the cultural divide would’ve been too big.

It all feeds into the title: Contraband Love.

LC: Yeah. And what Teresa’s saying about the groups I was seeing in New York — Jefferson Airplane and Grateful Dead and Cream and Jimi Hendrix — all these bands, they had mixed with the cutting edge of rock ‘n’ roll in those days. But beneath that, rock ‘n’ roll did grow out of the South. It came out of all those influences: the country music, the gospel music, the bluegrass music, the old-time music, and the blues of the South. And I was always attracted to the distillation of rock ‘n’ roll. When I was growing up and I would hear someone like Doc Watson and Bill Monroe or Robert Johnson or Muddy Waters, that stuff would ring a bell in me even more than the rock ‘n’ roll I was seeing constantly.

TW: It was like the roots. And the bluegrass, too. Where I was located, we had the blues. We were getting the music coming up from Muscle Shoals. I’m right in the middle of all of that. We’d come in from the fields on Saturday, and we’d listen to Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs — they had their Saturday evening show. And then daddy was playing this stuff in the living room after supper, and that’s how I learned. I wouldn’t even have to go to school: I’m doing what I learned at my parents’ feet.


Photo credit: Gregg Roth

Counsel of Elders: Robert Finley on Never Saying Never

Robert Finley is helping pack up his friend’s Batmobile when I reach him in his native north Louisiana. “We got a chance to surprise the kids at the church,” he explains. The occasion felt particularly special for Finley, as it marked his anniversary with his church. “Most of the kids, I knew their parents when they were kids,” he says. “I’ve been here 32 years, and I’m three generations in.” For a blues singer who recently dropped his sophomore album, Goin’ Platinum!, with none other than the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, Finley hasn’t let that game changer shift his values. He still plays guitar and sings in church, he still finds ways to brighten people’s day, he still packs up Batmobiles.

Finley may have been born in Louisiana, but he wasn’t discovered there … at first. He joined the Army during the Vietnam War and was later discovered by a bandleader who heard him playing guitar in a German rec hall. From there, he was recruited to help entertain the troops. If it seemed like music was opening itself up as a career path, things quieted when he returned home. Finley found other ways to make a living, but all that time, he kept playing — just not in the way he once dreamed. Last year, he released his debut album, Age Don’t Mean a Thing, through Music Maker Relief Foundation, but it’s his latest release that’s been the real surprise. He thought he knew the end of his tale, but it turns out there were still a few more chapters left to write.

A friend of Auerbach’s sent him a video of Finley busking in Louisiana, and the bluesman’s growling vocals caught his ear. He eventually signed Finley to his label, Easy Eye Records, and worked with him on Goin’ Platinum! Auerbach wrote the songs, which reflect Finley’s story — about holding on to dreams, about gettin’ while the gettin’s good — while touching on those subjects that have always shone under the blues’ spotlight: love run amok, women with that voodoo touch. Auerbach’s steady blues guitar lets Finley’s raspy vocals run the show. Influenced by singers like Tyrone Davis and Joe Simms, his voice oscillates between the former’s big, howling pleas and the latter’s restrained, thoughtful quality. Goin’ Platinum! is an outcome that took nearly 50 years to arrive, but Finley knows some stories don’t happen overnight. No matter what, he’s been singing and he’ll keep singing. If more people happen to be listening now, ain’t that something.

We tend to view success as something that only happens in youth, but you are proof that there are other stories to tell. What most excites you about this new chapter?

It’s really almost too good to be true. I’m still trying to get it in my head that this is actually happening. Twenty-five, 30 years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to handle it because I wouldn’t have been mentally prepared. I think everything happens within its time so I had to go through these … you know how they say, “You don’t know what it feels like to be well until you get sick”? You remember how you felt when you were well.

So what did age, specifically, help you recognize about this special moment?

I’m more or less concerned with a future for the children and grandchildren, and helping other people fulfill their dreams. I’m really what you call a sharecropper. We farmed for a living and, most of the time, you didn’t get your share; you worked the fields, you picked the cotton, but the check don’t go to you. That’s the hardest part. I’ve understood that everything I went through was for a reason, so now I’m at the age where I understand that there’s a higher power that speaks and you know you have to wait on your turn. Everybody can’t be the king at the same time.

But to hold on to that dream even when you’re being exploited by a system like that …

I had my ways of making an honest living. I performed on local TV shows in Monroe. CBS would show me on the morning show, but everything that come out don’t always work. It has nothing to do with what we were doing, but the people that invest — you know, paying for the TV time — they make the decisions, and it was a business. That’s kind of where I got my first start: I was on The Earnie Miles Show.

Oh, wow, in Bernice or in Monroe?

The show was in Monroe. He used to come by and pick me up, and I’d ride with him. I think he had more confidence in me than I had in myself, and he kept telling me like, “Boy, you need to be doing this and doing that.”

It’s hard when others see it in you, but you can’t hold onto it yet because you haven’t reached that mentality.

Yeah, it’s good when other people see some positive in you, but you can’t see it because … like me, I’ve been hearing my voice all my life. I’ve been singing all my life, but now everybody’s excited about it. But to me, it’s what I’ve been doing all the time. I thank God that I happened to be in the right place at the right time, and then knowing somebody that knows somebody, and then knowing the one that knows everybody, and put a little God in the mix.

 

Right, and wait for the rest of the world to catch up. You never gave up on music, but did you ever feel as though music had given up on you?

I knew one thing: Winners might quit, but quitters never win. I knew, if I wanted to make my dream come true, I had to make everybody out a liar that said I wasn’t gonna be nobody. Once, my dad said to me, “Boy, you ain’t gonna never amount to crap.” I told my friends, “Man, I can be anybody I wanna be, but I don’t wanna make my daddy out to be a liar.” I sat there thinking, “I don’t think that’s what he meant.” I feel like he’s smiling down from heaven now.

And what if you had held yourself back just for that reason? What a story.

Well, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. [Laughs] I tell people, the story never changed in me. I added more to it, but it never changed. When you tell the truth, you don’t have to lie. When you get young people’s attention and elderly, too — in the same room — and they’re dancing and you’re spreading joy, that’s the energy that I strive for. You can get addicted to doing it, because all you’re doing is spreading love. When you do it from your heart and you do it because that’s what the world needs, the good Lord always opens the door and gives you a chance. You just gotta keep doing what you’re doing, and he’ll make everything that happens, but first you’re going to go through some hard times. People know about the last two years.

Yeah, but they don’t know what came before.

There was 50 years of struggling before the last two years was acknowledged. People want it to happen instantly, but the struggle was there.

Nowadays, everyone loves things that come fast and easy, but it doesn’t work that way.

Yeah, there’s no push button success. It’s hard. In order to make a dream come true, you have to stay focused. Right now, everybody’s patting me on the back and, if I let that go to my head, I’ll lose my train of thought. This success, it don’t change me. I still hang out with the same people, and I didn’t move to the big city. I just moved to the other side of town.

You released your debut album last year through Music Maker Relief Foundation, so when you set out to make Goin’ Platinum! with Dan Auerbach, what did you hope the end result would look like?

I think this thing was created by a higher power. When I first went into the studio, I didn’t know what they expected from me, but the greatest part about it is, [Auerbach] told me, “Look man, this is the story, and you tell it your way.” I was like, “What do you mean?” He said, “I just want you to be yourself.” You know how some people try and take you and make you into this? He just wanted me to be myself, and he was open minded to all my suggestions.

You’ve mentioned in other interviews how performing this music felt similar to performing a character. Who is this character and how does he differ from Robert Finley?

It brought out characters in me that I didn’t know, that I hadn’t had an opportunity to do. I was doing music videos and flying out to Hollywood. This was the greatest thing that could’ve happened to me in my life, so I gave it my best shot. I’m a pretty good actor because I always was a clown in school anyway. I give the people what they want. They love for me to dance, and I love to dance because I was in an automobile accident and I broke a lot of bones, and they told me I’d never walk again. And I’m legally blind, that’s another problem. So any chance I get, I just dance. When the crowd roaring and they screaming, I’m enjoying the moment, and all it does it make me want to dance some more. The hardest thing about entertainment is when the stage manager tells me my time is up. I say, “Dang, I wasn’t through!” The joy keeps coming, and the happier I make the audience, the happier I get. I’m living my childhood dream. I feel so blessed.


Photo Credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Squared Roots: Fink on the Life-Changing Legacy of John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker, by any other name, will still be the King of the Boogie. And he certainly went by a lot of names — a necessary ploy to make money whenever and wherever he could. The blues legend came from Mississippi and made his way to Michigan, by way of Memphis. In Detroit, he was a janitor by day and a blues man by night, slowly building a sound, a following, and a reputation. A local record store owner took notice and introduced him to a producer, and Hooker took it from there. His career spanned more than 50 years, and he was still at it when he passed away in 2000.

Fink, the stage name of Fin Greenall, is the British phenom who has worked as a DJ, a producer, a guitarist, a singer, and a songwriter over the course of his career. But the thing he always wanted to do was to make a blues record. With Sunday Night Blues Club, Vol. 1, that dream has been realized. 

Let’s talk about John Lee Hooker, who I had the pleasure of meeting once in the early ’90s.

Oh, wow. I did some press in Paris, recently, for this blues record. A lot of journalists met him in the late ’90s and they’re all very, very happy that they did, at that point in his life. Just to meet such a legend.

Yeah. For me, it was 1992 or ’93, when I was working at Virgin Records and we were putting out one of his albums. He came through and met everybody. Nothing like shaking the hand of a legend.

Oh, I can’t imagine! I mean, I can imagine, really, especially the hand of someone who’s just been in the business for forever and hasn’t changed his business model one tiny bit in all that time … as a performer, a little bit, but … wow. What did he sound like, when he spoke?

You know what? He didn’t really talk much. He just kind of smiled and said “hi.” It was so striking to me because, at the time, I was working in the legal department and we had filing cabinets full of all the old contracts from Point Blank Records and stuff like that. All the old blues cats had literally signed their contracts with an “X” because they couldn’t read or write. I would read through those things and … they were paid, quite literally, pennies for their work. 

Yeah. That’s the thing … I mean, when you try and put together like a retrospective, you’re just diving through filing cabinets of deals whether there are just rights floating all over the place and signed away. Oh my goodness, it just sounds so incredibly complicated. Especially John Lee Hooker, the way that he would also, in the early ’60s, just make up names and sign deals and record albums under other names in different states. I guess just thinking no one’s ever going to know. [Laughs] Which is probably true for most players, but not if you’re John Lee Hooker. It’s almost pre-dating sampling law, in a way. Someone else owns the copyright, but you’re just going to steal it, do it for another label, put it out. No one’s going to know. He just needed $500 or $100 or whatever it was, at the time. I can’t imagine untangling that stuff.

No kidding. So, considering how many different variations there are in blues, what is it about John Lee Hooker’s style and playing that captures you?

Well first off, I can’t believe no one’s picked John Lee Hooker before for your column, so I’m pretty lucky about that. Maybe if I tell you the story of how I got turned on and hooked on John Lee Hooker, it might explain what it is about his stuff that I find so magnetic and resonate so completely with what I think about music. Just to put a background on it, I was a trendy DJ into skateboarding and punk and metal and dance music and electronica, and I was in that period in my life when I asked my parents to buy me a John Lee Hooker record. Actually, I didn’t even say John Lee Hooker to my dad, who is a bit of a music dude. I was getting into blues. I think I’d listened to a bit of Stevie Ray Vaughn, a bit of Jeff Healey, and a few bits and pieces that had been floating past through dad’s mates. I said, “Buy me a blues album because I think I really like the blues.” He bought me a French reissue of That’s My Story by John Lee Hooker which is his second album for Riverside, I believe. And I think it’s from 1959 or 1960 or 1961.

But, if you read the sleeve notes on the back, it was recorded in one day. It’s basically John Lee Hooker with a pick-up band. John Lee Hooker famously never really bothered with counting to 12 or 16 or eight. [Laughs] He counted to whatever he wanted to count to, and when he’s going to go to the next section, he’s just going to go. And if he doesn’t want to go to the next section, he’s not going to go. Underneath this record, you can hear this pick-up band going where you should go and John Lee Hooker maybe not joining them or maybe John Lee Hooker goes early or late, and them having to pick up the pieces track by track by track by track.

The first thing that really resonated with me, like it resonated with everybody who’s a fan of John Lee Hooker, is just the voice. It’s just so rich. At the time, with the technology and the speakers and the format and mono … that voice will cut through anything. It’s so dark and deep and full that, in the mix, as the producer, there’s not much space for anything else. When he did his Canned Heat records — the Hooker ‘n Heat stuff with the band going on — I can hear the producer struggling with how to EQ everybody else because John Lee Hooker’s voice is 75 percent of the mix. It’s a miracle of a voice.

So, first of all, that gets you. Second of all, the fact that he’s not attempting to, on the album That’s My Story, he’s not really adhering to any songwriting structures. He’s not rhyming. He’s not verse-chorus-verse-chorus-ing. He’s not referencing anything that I’ve heard from before him. He’s not copying Robert Johnson. He’s not showcasing a band. It’s a very intimate experience between you and him.

It’s the fact that he’s got almost no skill as a guitarist and that really, really, really doesn’t get in the way of his journey. It’s kind of like the opposite of Jimi Hendrix who’s got no skill as a vocalist, but it doesn’t get in the way of what makes his music so fucking awesome. So, with John Lee Hooker, it’s like passion over skill to the maximum extent. So the voice was what it was all about and the guitar playing is just a vehicle it’s traveling in. That record changed my world.

Do you think one of the reasons contemporary blues is what it is is because the oral tradition of the blues played such a big part and maybe that skipped a generation or two generations and it just got lost?

That’s a very intelligent way of posing the question, for sure. I mean, that’s almost like saying well maybe possibly what happened was the Rolling Stones and everybody got a bit sidetracked, possibly. And I love the Stones. In fact, “Little Red Rooster” was probably the track which got me into the blues before I even knew what it was, by the Stones. As sacrilegious as it is, I actually prefer the Stones version to Howlin’ Wolf’s version. Sorry! [Laughs]

[Laughs] I won’t tell!

Oops! There’s my blues Grammy out the window.

Okay, the honest answer from me is “cowardice.” That’s the answer. The emotion has been filtered through lots of different genres since then. Disenchantment, you know the isolation of disenfranchisement, and city life isn’t always hard and is not all it’s cracked up to be so you reminisce about the old days, even though they were terrible, there were some nice things about it. You hear the same sentiments in punk and the Laurel Canyon when they were getting a bit folky and a bit bluesy. It’s been expressed in lots of different ways, but I think maybe the desperation is different. Maybe there’s less tragedy and death is further away from us than it was in the early ’50s, or even in the ’30s. 

But the simple answer, to me, is just cowardice. Modern artists in these genres are a bit lazy and spoiled and flabby. They’ll take a bit of blues and sing any old bollocks over the top of it and get a tight band together and got to L.A. and spend $20,000 on a record and wear a hat. That’s not the blues. It just isn’t. [Laughs] I’m definitely fucking my blues Grammy shit up now, but it’s true. It’s so true.


Fink photo by Tommy Lance. John Lee Hooker photo courtesy of the artist.

Rev. Sekou on the Past, the Present, and the Protest

As a pastor, theologian, author, filmmaker, and community organizer, Rev. Osagyefo Uhuru Sekou has dedicated his life’s work to social justice. He’s given lectures and speeches around the world and trained thousands of people in the tactics of nonviolent protest. Now, he’s lending his passion for activism to a popular form of protest: music. His forthcoming record, In Times Like These, is out May 5 on Thirty Tigers, and features brothers Luther and Cody Dickinson of the North Mississippi Allstars. The fact that the Dickinson brothers’ moniker is a nod to the music of their home state makes their pairing with Sekou all the more fitting. Sekou was born in St. Louis but raised in Arkansas, where he was immersed in the South’s deep blues and gospel tradition. In Times Like These pays as much homage to place as it does to time.

“I recorded the album, in part, to keep track of the best of the blues tradition,” Sekou says. “It’s what I was raised on. It is the nature of the musical tradition that produced me, and so I’m just trying to honor the ways in which that music comes to speak to the best of ourselves.”

By working through a deep-rooted musical heritage, Sekou uses the language of the past to inform the present, serving up a direct response to the current political climate. “We recorded this album a few weeks after the election and so, given the spirit of the moment, the sense of depression, almost desperation that many people were feeling, I wanted to keep track of that music and that musical tradition that has preserved the people,” Sekou explains.

The album is a life raft of sorts, keeping everyone afloat who is all too familiar with that sinking feeling. “[The album seeks] to acknowledge the blues but not let the blues have the last word,” he says.

Sekou has been communicating with the blues his whole life.

“My biological grandfather played with B.B. King, Albert King, and Louis Jordan,” he recalls. “In the South, they would sweep the yard and put a piano on the porch and [my grandfather] would play and they’d sing and dance and drink all night.” Sekou never met his grandfather, who died in 1955, long before he was born, but he remembers hearing the blues in the gambling house where he worked for his uncle, counting money. While recording In Times Like These, Sekou took a break from the Dickinsons’ Zebra Ranch Studio in Coldwater, Mississippi, and made a trek home to Zent, Arkansas.

“I got a chance to go home and stand at my grandmother’s grave, the place that made me, and talk to my 93-year-old aunt and see my cousins and to be in the space and with the people who built out the capacity of who I am by tearing off the best pieces of themselves and sewing it into a quilt that still covers and warms me to this day,” he says.

Sekou channeled that energy back at the studio on the song “Old Time Religion.” “It was midnight, and we had been going for about 16 hours, and I had been to my grandmother’s grave and my grandfather’s grave and, in our tradition, we have this thing called devotional service, which is distinct from praise and worship,” he explains. “It’s what old country folks would do. And so I just did old-time religion music, which is essentially what I heard growing up in terms of a devotional service on Sunday morning.”

In order to achieve this sound, Sekou was working with a slew of musicians who had their own strong musical ties. Luther and Cody Dickinson’s father, the late Jim Dickinson, recorded with the Rolling Stones, Aretha Franklin, and Bob Dylan. For the sessions, they recruited pedal and slide steel guitarist AJ Ghent, Rev. Charles Hodges on the Hammond B3, who is most recognized for his collaborations with Al Green, and others.

“In addition to trying to respond to the contemporary political moment, there’s something else at stake: Everybody was at least one or two generations — if not three generations — deep in the music so there are literally four generations of musicians on this album,” Sekou explains. “And so it was amazing, you know, in that they have the music in their bones, which I think comes through on the record.”

The album’s first single, “Resist,” is a tribute to Standing Rock and revolves around a mantra: “We want freedom and we want it now.” Elsewhere on the record, a cover of Bob Marley’s “Burnin’ and Lootin’” stems from Sekou’s time in Ferguson, Missouri, protesting the shooting of Michael Brown.

“I’ve helped train about 5,000 people around the country in civil disobedience, non-violence, and we trained well over a thousand in Ferguson. And we kept telling them to trust the process, trust the system, it’s gonna work out,” he recalls. “There were military forces occupying Ferguson and they were tear gassing us night after night and it was essentially a war zone. And on the night of the non-indictment, as soon as they said they weren’t going to indict the officer, all hell broke loose, and I was trying to get to a studio that had been set up and I had my staff with me and they wouldn’t let my staff in. And, at this point, there’s gun shots, buildings are burning, there’s tear gas everywhere, and they were saying, ‘We’ll let you in, but we can’t let your staff in for security reasons.’ And so I refused to do the interview and I was just in the middle of the riots. I refused to go into the compound. And so it’s me kind of capturing what I’m seeing with the tear gas and the buildings on fire and feeling as though I have failed and I had lied to the young folks by telling them that the system would work on their behalf.”

In the wake of these experiences, Sekou, who went to college on a vocal performance scholarship, looked toward the music for release. “At the existential level, I am my freest,” Sekou says. “And so, hopefully, that freedom I feel is communicated through the music.”

MIXTAPE: Ruthie Foster’s Intro to the Blues

Just like the Mississippi River itself, the blues run wide and deep, informing so much of contemporary roots music. That’s why knowing where to start and who to study might well be a daunting deliberation. Never fear: Ruthie Foster is here. The contemporary blues guitarist has culled a dozen foundational tracks upon which the blues novice might begin to build their love of the form.

Robert Johnson — “Last Fair Deal Gone Down”

Mississippi-born, Mr. Robert was and still remains a major influence in the blues.This song holds true to mixing the elements of blues progressions for me with how his voice rises and falls throughout the tune. It’s clear that he mixed elements of gospel in his style which stills hold true to the powerful sound of Mississippi-style blues today. 

Memphis Minnie — “Selling My Pork Chops”

Born Lizzie Douglas, Ms. Memphis Minnie didn’t shy away from covering taboo subjects in her music — starting her early career playing on Beale Street and supplementing her income by way of prostitution sometimes. So you get to hear a little bit of her life story in her music, if you’re paying attention. 

Koko Taylor — “Wang Dang Doodle”

Koko Taylor is known primarily as the Queen of the Blues and was one of the few women who succeeded in the blues world. With multiple Grammy nominations, along with over 25 Blues Music Awards (later renamed the Koko Taylor Traditional Blues award), she reigns as one of the most powerful voices in the blues.

Bobby “Blue” Bland — “Farther Up the Road”

Most would reference his version of T-Bone Walker’s “Call It Stormy Monday” as his signature song, but my song choice is a favorite from his early recordings I heard while learning about how to sing blues. In my opinion, Bobby Bland was always more of a big band, R&B singer than anything else. His melodic phrasing is what moved me to perform his material. 

T-Bone Walker — “Call It Stormy Monday”

As mentioned in reference to Bobby Bland, Mr. Aaron Thibeaux Walker was the writer of “Stormy Monday” blues. His guitar style is what set him apart from other guitar players. He fronted a big band, usually on a hollow body guitar. Being born in East Texas — and being a multi-instrumentalist — is what I believe distinguished his style and phrasing.

Son House — “Death Letter Blues”

I actually recorded and perform my own version of his “Grinnin’ in Your Face,” but I wouldn’t have found that without hearing his “Death Letter Blues” first. He had such a powerhouse voice and delivery, and it’s not difficult to acknowledge the preaching side of anything he sings. His slide guitar playing stands out just as solid and testifies to his song.

Mississippi John Hurt — “Coffee Blues” 

“Ain’t Maxwell House alright?” as quoted by John Hurt in this song, is a nod to the double entendre lyric that was commonly used in blues music. Hurt’s style of picking influenced my own playing and was very different from any other player of Piedmont blues, as well, which makes him stand out as a country-blues guitar player.

Jessie Mae Hemphill — “She-Wolf

Jessie Mae is one of my favorite women in blues because she was about groove, sweetness, and spunk both in her topics and performances. She came from a long line of performers of the fife and drum blues tradition noted in the northern Mississippi area by players such Othar Turner and Sis Hemphill, Jessie Mae’s father.

Alberta Hunter — “My Handy Man”

Known prominently as a jazz singer touring internationally in her earlier years, she wrote the Bessie Smith hit “Downhearted Blues,” then took a 20-year break before coming back to perform as a main attraction at clubs and stages all over the world. Known for her spicy stage personality and vocal styling similar to Jimmy Durante, she was a joy to watch and listen to.

Victoria Spivey — “Black Snack Blues”

I discovered Texas-born Spivey through researching blues singers who played piano and sang their own songs. Her name was mentioned a lot while when I started touring in certain regions of Texas. She was one of the few women who traveled with a mostly male troupe that toured in Europe’s American Folk Blues Festival circuit. 

Precious Bryant — “Fool Me Good”

A sensational Georgia-born Piedmont guitar player and singer, Ms. Bryant was very entertaining onstage. Her acoustic rendition of “Fever” caught my first attention and, afterward, I found everything I could in her style, and I’m still learning it!

Z.Z. Hill — “Downhome Blues”

This song always got a party started anywhere in East Texas where I grew up! His music was a staple in vinyl and still is in the blues world. The song says it all from start to finish and sets a groove and a mood to hear old-school blues. Though the song has been covered repeatedly, it’s Z. Z. Hill’s original version that sets the standard for the blues and R&B with more instrumentation such as horns, background vocals, and attitude.


Photo credit: kingrahsu via Foter.com / CC BY

WATCH: Reed Turchi, ‘Skinny Woman’

Artist: Reed Turchi
Hometown: Memphis, TN
Song: “Skinny Woman”
Album: Tallahatchie
Release Date: May 19, 2017
Label: Devil Down Record

In Their Words: “I named my first band after this song and, boy, it turns out just about every woman out there took offense. This was while I was in college, and I distinctly remember loading in to play at a sorority function of some sort and a well-heeled Activities Director being particularly aghast. Ah well, I guess there are some things I’ve had to learn for myself over the years.

‘Skinny Woman’ is from the hit book (as it is) of hill country blues songs and, as far as I know, is an R.L. Burnside original, though my version comes from Kenny Brown (R.L.’s longtime guitarist and artist of his own). Like many songs of that genre, the riff is second only to the polyrhythm created through the combination of melody, foot-tap, palm-mute, and guitar body-hit, and (assuming no one throws anything at me for the lyrics), it’s a real pleasure to play.” — Reed Turchi


Photo credit: Alyssa Gafkjen. Video credit: Madden Meiners and Mariah Czap.