Tag: blues

Counsel of Elders: Robert Finley on Never Saying Never

Posted on by Editor

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

Posted on by Editor

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

Posted on by Editor

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

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

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’

Posted on by Editor

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.

Music Maker Relief Foundation: Keeping the Blues Alive

Posted on by Editor

It’s no secret that the South is home to some of the greatest musicians around, past and present. From early bluesmen like Robert Johnson to country legends like Hank Williams, the South has produced some of the foremost forebears to our current musical culture. And while the South has big names a-plenty, it’s also rich with local musicians hoping to keep the region’s musical history alive, often, unfortunately, doing so with little to no recognition.

The Music Maker Relief Foundation was established for that very reason: to, in its own words, “preserve the musical traditions of the South by directly supporting the musicians who make it, ensuring their voices will not be silenced by poverty and time.” Founded in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1994, the 501(c)3 non-profit has grown from a handful of passionate music lovers helping a small coalition of local musicians with simple necessities like securing food and paying bills to a globally recognized entity responsible for working with over 300 artists, releasing more than 150 albums, and spreading Southern music to all corners of the world.

Timothy Duffy co-founded Music Maker with his wife Denise after enrolling in the folklore program at UNC, Chapel Hill. His time working in UNC’s archives led to a chance meeting that planted the seeds for what would become Music Maker. “There aren’t many jobs in folklore,” Duffy laughs. “I was working for the archive and met an old bluesman named James ‘Guitar Slim’ Stephens in Greensboro. Before he passed, he introduced me to a guy named Guitar Gabriel in the early ‘90s. Gabe and I became partners and we put out a cassette. He was a great blues artist. He was very famous in a circuit that was never documented by white folks. It was called the Black Carnival Circuit. So he knew everybody. He knew all the musicians because he’d played in their towns for 40 years.”

Through his time with Guitar Gabriel, Duffy realized there was a vast community of phenomenally talented blues musicians that was virtually unknown to the rest of the world. Even more troubling to Duffy was how many of these musicians were living in poverty. “I soon realized that there was no place for these guys in the music business,” he says. “The blues guys never sold many records. They could barely scratch by a living. You’ve got B.B. King and that’s it. If anyone knows a blues artist after B.B., that’s amazing.”

The contrast Duffy’s own experience encountering countless talented players with the widely held notion that the blues was a dying art appealed to his presevationist roots. “There was this really weird view that the blues was dead,” he explains. “That was clear to me after meeting people like Alan Lomax, Archie Green, and some of the greatest folklorists of our time. It was just another case of politics of culture, of people appropriating what they wanted and keeping it for themselves and putting the culture down.”

Duffy saw the work of these little-known musicians as essential to preserving the musical legacy of the South and worked with Guitar Gabriel, Willa Mae Buckner, Preston Fulp, Mr. Q, Macavine Hayes, and a number of other North Carolina blues players to start Music Maker. A large focus of the organization’s initial efforts was simply providing these musicians with the financial assistance they needed to keep playing. “They were very disenfranchised economically. They were living on $3,000 or $4,000 a year,” he says. “We bought cases and cases of Ensure, because a lot of these guys had strictures in their throats, had nutrition problems. We bought clothes, shoes. We paid electric bills. That’s what it was founded as, at first.”

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Thanks to the group’s passion, it didn’t take too long for Music Maker to begin growing into the internationally respected organization it is today. Word spread throughout the blues community that Duffy and his team were doing good work, and the community rallied around them. “Taj Mahal heard about me in 1995,” Duffy says. “I flew out to L.A. and hung out with him, and he introduced me to B.B. King. B.B. fell in love with the project and took me around London, New York, L.A., and introduced me to all of these influential people like the Rolling Stones, Dan Aykroyd — wonderful people that supported the organization. That was our start. Now we’re here, 22 years later, and we’ve issued over 300 records.”

That increased notoriety for Music Maker has, as Duffy and his team hoped, also brought newfound fame and success for the artists involved. “A lot of times, in these small communities, that elevates them greatly,” Duffy says of Music Maker’s artists. “They go from this obscure guy that lives in an old trailer, now, to an international figure in their community that has played Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, traveled all to Australia, France, Argentina. That elevates interest of the music and it helps them in their mission to keep this music alive and vibrant in their communities.”

While Music Maker has been an invaluable resource for older blues musicians like Ironing Board Sam and Pat Wilder, it’s also played an integral role in developing the careers of a number of emerging and newly established roots artists. Newer artists Music Maker has worked with include Dom Flemons, Spencer Branch, Cary Morin, and, perhaps most famously, the Carolina Chocolate Drops. “When I learned that the Carolina Chocolate Drops were learning from Joe Thompson, an old banjo player from right down the road, I went and saw the performance,” Duffy says. “We took this small, fledgling group that barely knew how to play instruments to a Grammy-winning phenomenon, that really did quite well.”

In addition to artist advocacy, Music Maker has kept busy over the years with all kinds of projects, including a photgraphy exhibit (“Our Living Past”), a book and CD (We Are the Music Makers), and the Music Maker Blues Revue, a touring group that has recently played as part of Globalfest at New York’s Webster Hall. “Gabe and I started [the revue] back in the early ‘90s,” Duffy says. “When we go play Lincoln Center or jazz festivals, we bring all these guys on stage and do a revue show. That cast is ever-changing as people pass away.”

Upcoming projects include a fundraiser to purchase instruments for the town’s prison bluegrass band and a new blues club set to open at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park, the latter of which has support from Durham Bulls owner Michael Goodman and his family. “They started a new brewery called Bull Durham Beer,” Duffy explains. “Right by the box office, they’re opening a blues club. For every beer that you buy there at the taproom, they’re giving Music Maker a dollar and also providing a budget for us to hire Music Maker acts. I think it’s going to be the nation’s greatest blues club because it’s one of the only places you’ll see these kind of guys playing. “

It sounds like a lot, but the folks at Music Maker see their work as a labor of love — one inspired by their deep admiration for Southern music history and the musicians sacrificing it all to keep that history alive.

“All music is from the South,” Duffy says. “All modern music. There’s not one popular form of music that doesn’t trace its roots back squarely to the South. The blues, bluegrass, pop music … it’s America’s greatest legacy to the world. It’s better than the Colt .45 or whatever guns we invented. The music is the greatest thing we’ve done.”

Lede photo of Eddie Tigner by Tim Duffy

Playing to Her Own Beat: A Conversation with Valerie June

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It’s impossible to unhear the sound that issues forth once Valerie June opens her mouth to sing. It’s a voice at once ancient — arisen from some sepia-toned past — and startling modern. From its color to its timbre to its texture, there exists something powerfully original about her primary instrument. But if June were just another singer with a distinct set of pipes, this wouldn’t be an article worth reading, and she wouldn’t be an artist worth covering. It’s how she employs her voice, and the fun she has blending and blurring genres that showcases her pioneering talent.

The multi-instrumentalist and Tennessee native returns this month with her sophomore major label release, The Order of Time. Arriving four years after her debut, Pushin’ Against a Stone, saw her perform at the White House, make countless television appearances, and become a festival staple, the album indeed took some time. June didn’t let her success dictate her writing schedule and rush her back into the studio. Instead, she read poetry, danced, cooked, and languished, allowing the music to unfold on its own schedule rather than hemming and hawing about hers. Thanks to that patience, she’s pushed her own boundaries even further.

The Order of Time spans blues, bluegrass, soul, folk, rock, and more, gathering pieces from each to build a kaleidoscope, of sorts, that showcases the long undercurrent of history running through each. Banjo appears in greater measure throughout the album, calling to its African heritage on “Man Done Wrong” and showing off its rhythmic pacing on “Got Soul,” while “Shake Down” borrows a few branches from June’s family tree. She gathered her brothers and father — who passed away in November — in Tennessee to record the raucous and gritty jam. And then there’s the viscerally thrilling “If And,” which layers an array of heavy tones, including bass saxophone, bass clarinet, and harmonium, to create an almost unholy riff. Have fun not getting chills.

So much of this album deals with time and abiding by its rhythms. How do you cultivate patience?

I don’t have any at all.

That’s fair.

It’s pure torture, honestly. I just want it to happen. It’s like getting a new plant: You’ve been to the nursery, you bought this gardenia, but it’s not flowering yet. You put it in the perfect sun and give it the perfect water and all of that, but it’s still not flowering weeks later, and you’re just like, “Oh my God, I really want the gardenia to flower, because it’s the best smell in the world and I love it. That’s why I bought it — for the flower — not for this green plant.” A lot of patience has to happen, but you don’t have it. You’re forced into it. And then, one day, it does flower and you’re really excited about it. That’s what it’s like.

I love that analogy. Building off it, how much of patience is, perhaps, about distraction?

It has to happen that way.

So what do you distract yourself with?

So many things. Life happens, people call and want me to do something, or it’ll be time to eat. [Laughs] I dance a lot. I have routines for distracting myself, and dancing is a big part of it. You have to have systems set up, you know, to keep you from dwelling in frustration. So whatever your things are that you love to do, you have to do those things. It’s almost like you have to be like, “I’m frustrated! Stop everything. Okay, now it’s time to dance. Nothing matters but dancing right now.”

It’s the physicality of it. It seems that when creatives get too caught up in their mental state, it helps to do something physical to calm that animal side of their brain down.

So true and, once every part of the body is moving, your mind is the last thing. You don’t even think about that part. It does take a minute, though, once the dancing starts. First, you’re still thinking, so your body — you’re moving it — you’re thinking, you’re thinking, and then, by the time you work the neck and the legs and the head and get the whole body going, you’re like, “Whoa!’ You’re gone man!” And it just takes one little moment of being gone to shift some ol’ thing.

So are we ever going to get a Valerie June workout video?

I don’t know. That would be really ’80s and fun. I’d have to get some leg warmers, for sure.

And neon.

I love legwarmers. That seems like a good excuse.

What do you dance to?

So many things. I like dancing to Davie Bowie, and Spoon is a really fun band to dance to — it’s so upbeat and insane. And Fever Ray and Fela Kuti, Cass McCombs … so many things. Sometimes I dance to blues music. It just depends on what I need to shake out.

I can see how these all dancing moments influence your music.

It’s all there.

Turning to the album, “Man Done Wrong” brought to mind the personal lamentations you’d hear in Ma Rainey’s and Bessie Smith’s blues. Can you take me through writing that particular song?

It started on the banjo. I was just playing that riff, again and again, for a few days, and then I heard the chanting, and when I first started to hear the chanting, I thought, “Well, this is very tribal to me.” It’s a different way for the banjo to be, for me. In my own mind, I had certain parameters that the banjo was allowed to go — for it to lean toward old time or bluegrass — and the fact that it was getting outside of its lane and it was doing something that seemed African or tribal to me was like, “What the fuck is this?” [Laughs] When I started to receive that, I was like, “Wow, I can’t fight that.” I can’t fight what comes to me in a song; I have to accept it all because, once I start to fight it, I close the door and I shut off these voices. I have to make them all feel welcome in order to receive the entire song, so I just went with it and got into it, and started to hear the actual singing, and I was like, “Well, okay.”

All these ideas I had about the banjo and the way it was supposed to be played and the way it was supposed to be fit into this box, they had to go out the window. It was like, “I guess it is an African instrument.” I learned a lot trying to play that song, about the banjo being as innocent an instrument as any other instrument and it having a voice that can fit with any style of music. It wants to be free; it doesn’t want to fit within any parameter. It just wants to be an instrument and play around in the playground of music and sound. It opened my mind and it opened my thoughts about what it should do in the world, and how I should feel about it when I see somebody get up in front of me with one. Just because you see a trumpet, do you think, “They’re going to play jazz. They’re going to be Miles Davis”? No. When you see a trumpet, it could be marching band, it could be jazz, it could be anything. A banjo is the same.

It has this strong association with bluegrass, but there is that tradition of Black banjo players who were never recorded and so, in many ways, that history has been erased.

It’s true. It’s such a historical instrument. It keeps getting deeper and deeper, as much as you try to see where it’s going. It’s been a vibrant instrument in the past and going into the future.

Do you think these voices in any way are trying to communicate that lost history with you?

They are communicating so many things. I can’t even get my head wrapped around it because, as soon as I get one thing that they were saying, then it starts to change, like a good poem. You read this poem and when you’re younger — and I read Robert Frost’s “Two Roads” when I was younger — it meant one thing, but as I get older, it means something different. The songs are like that. They change like they are living; they live with you and they change the meaning.

What other poets are you currently quite taken with?

I like Wendell Berry a lot. I could read that all day long, and T.S. Eliot and e.e. cummings, but Wendell Berry is really huge. I don’t even know how to describe what he does to me, but by the time I get to the end of one of his poems, I can be in complete tears and gratitude for all of life, for the earth, for everything. And the short stories are the same way.

He’s one of my favorites, too. I’m always so grateful for Wendell or, really, any poet who articulates the experience of living, especially when you haven’t found the words yourself yet.

That’s the shocking part. The ability to articulate it is like, “Wow!” I felt it, but I just couldn’t put it into words. You did it! You did it! [Laughs]

But you’re tasked with that same hurdle as a songwriter.

I don’t really feel like I have any kind of control over these things. I mean, I wish I could. I wish I wrote that way, where I could have a theme in my head and write something that fits the purpose, but the times I try, it doesn’t hit me as much as when I hear the voice and I just follow it. But I do try sometimes. I’d like to learn to write that way. I feel somebody like Toni Morrison or Zora Neale Hurston, they would have these thoughts going on in their minds about the world, about being a Black woman growing up, or things like that that they wanted to put into their writing, and they were able to articulate them through their craft. But, for me, I can’t do that. I don’t write that way.

There are so many different ways to approach it. Every writer has a different way.

I love writing with other writers because, when I do that, then I steal some of their style. I’m like, “Oh, that’s how you tapped into that.” They’re my teachers.

What a great way to learn. Well, lastly, I was curious about the song “Shake Down” and recording it with your family.

My brothers’ and my dad’s vocals were tracked in Tennessee. It was great because my dad’s not really a singer, but he was in the room and I was like, “You gotta sing.” And now he’s gone and so all I have is him singing that part. I have pictures, but I don’t have his voice anymore and I never will again. That really matters to have somebody’s voice after they’re gone. That really is something, so I really feel fortunate for that song.

Photo credit: Danny Clinch

MIXTAPE: Music Maker’s Deep Blues

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The blues, man. The blues. Perhaps more than most genres, the blues harbors far too many hidden heroes. That’s why the work our friends at the Music Maker Relief Foundation do is so very important. We’ve profiled that work before, so we thought it was the music’s turn for a moment in the spotlight and Music Maker’s founder, Tim Duffy, to cull a batch of blues tunes that everyone should hear.

Guitar Gabriel — “I Came So Far”

Gabriel composed “I Came So Far” during a recording session we did soon after returning from our first trip to Holland. Like so many of his performances, they are sung for the moment, and are rarely repeated.

Preston Fulp — “Careless Love” & “Farther Along”


Preston was a rural-based musician influenced by both Black and white traditions of the early 1900s. He died in December of 1993. He was the last of the generation that played in and around Winston-Salem’s tobacco warehouses.

Captain Luke — “Old Black Buck”

Captain Luke (Luther Mayer) — a wonderful bass singer, comedian, jaw harp player, and folk artist — moved to Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1940. It was Luther who taught me how to act and work within the stormy and sometimes violent world of East Winston-Salem. When the Captain passed away in late 2015, the Music Maker family was devastated. He was a dear friend.

Big Boy Henry — “Big Bill”

Big Boy Henry is the Carolinas’ premier blues shouter. He was born in 1921 in Beaufort, a small fishing village on the North Carolina coast. He has worked as a fisherman, preacher, and blues singer since the early 1940s. He specializes in the type of blues that was created by Blind Boy Fuller and the musicians surrounding him in Durham, North Carolina.

Willa Mae Buckner — “Peter Rumpkin”

Willa Mae Buckner has been known professionally since the 1930s as “The World’s Only Black Gypsy,” “The Princess of Ejo,” “The Wild Enchantress,” “Snake Lady,” and “Billie Raye Buckner.” She has worked as a chorus girl, blues singer, exotic dancer, contortionist, guitarist, and bassist, and she has operated a traveling snake show. In 1973, she moved to Winston-Salem and was a public transit bus driver for 10 years. At 71, Buckner lives in her own home with a 17-foot python named Big Jim.

Macavine Hayes — “Snatch That Thang”

Macavine Hayes is a younger musician, at 52. Influenced as a child by Guitar Gabriel, Hayes migrated from Florida to North Carolina, where he and Gabriel ran a drink house together in the early ’60s, selling drinks, running craps games, and playing the blues.

Samuel Turner Stevens — “Railroadin’ and Gamblin'”

I met Sam Stevens in 1982 in Asheville, North Carolina, where I was attending college. He is a mountain man who makes banjos, fiddles, dulcimers, mandolins, and guitars. The fretless banjo was introduced to whites by Blacks, but no Black fretless banjo players are known of today.

Lee Gates — “Cool’s Groove”

There is not one guitarist that rips like Lee Gates. Lee’s roots run deep into the electric blues tradition — his cousin was legend Albert Collins. This tune was inspired by another guitar legend that is part of the Music Maker fold, Cool John Ferguson.

Guitar Gabriel and Lucille Lindsey — “Do You Know What It Means to Have a Friend?”

I asked Gabriel one day if he had any brothers or sisters. He mentioned that he had a sister, but he had not seen her in eight years. He gave me her married name, and I found her, blind from diabetes, in an awful nursing home. When I reunited this pair the next day, they immediately broke into song. I scrambled to put up my recording equipment as they sang. Gabriel had written this spiritual the day their mother passed away. Their emotions were so intense, they both began crying and their tears soaked the front of their shirts.

Robert Finley — “Age Don’t Mean a Thing”

Robert is a recent partner artist with Music Maker. I met Robert just under two years ago on the streets of Helena, Arkansas. He was busking at the King Biscuit Blues Festival. When I heard his voice, I knew that he was special. This track is from his debut album … just the tip of the iceberg in terms of what Robert is doing with his career!

Sam Frazier, Jr. — “Cabbage Man”

Sam Frazier is another new addition to the Music Maker family. For years, he performed in Vegas as a Charley Pride impersonator. “Cabbage Man” is written by Frazier and tells the story of his love for cabbage sandwiches. While the song is cheery, it reflects the deep poverty that Sam grew up in outside of Birmingham, Alabama.

Adolphus Bell — “The One Man Band”

When I first met Adolphus, he was homeless, living out of his van, doing everything he could just to scrape up gigs to eat. When I saw him perform, he blew me away with his stage presence. Adolphus and I ended up touring the world together. He was always so grateful that the gigs he got from Music Maker allowed him to get a home.  

Photos courtesy of the Music Maker Relief Foundation

LISTEN: Shinyribs, ‘Don’t Leave It a Lie’

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Artist: Shinyribs
Hometown: Austin, TX
Song: “Don’t Leave It a Lie”
Album: I Got Your Medicine
Release Date: February 24, 2017

In Their Words: “The only rule one ever really needs is the Golden Rule. We all lie to ourselves and each other. That’s alright, as long as you don’t leave it that way. Be you, but be true. Always come back to love and honesty.” — Kevin Russell

Photo credit: Wyatt McSpadden

Counsel of Elders: The Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Kim Wilson on Keeping it Fresh

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If the idea of success in music revolves around “a certain way of doing things,” count on the Fabulous Thunderbirds’ Kim Wilson to chuck that concept and strike out on his own path. It’s not that he’s always had that kind of freedom, but after a certain amount of time building his legacy in the music industry, he’s earned himself enough flexibility to go about things differently. For starters, Wilson keeps the Fabulous Thunderbirds on their toes by avoiding set lists and going by the feel of the evening. Then there’s the way the band tours nowadays: Rather than launch lengthy stretches that involve mostly clubs, Wilson prefers festivals and casinos where he and his boys can cut loose. It’s an approach that allows him to balance his personal life with the music he so loves to perform.

Wilson co-founded the Fabulous Thunderbirds in 1974 with Jimmie Vaughan and, in 1979, the band released its self-titled studio debut. He hasn’t slowed down since, even while the members have undergone significant changes. Wilson remains the only original, but alongside Johnny Moeller (guitar), Steve Gomes (bass), Kevin Anker (keys), and Wes Watkins and Rob Stupka (drums), he recorded and released a new album, Strong Like That, this year. Combining Wilson’s compositions with covers from an array of legends like Johnnie Taylor and Clarence Coulter, the album is packed with lively energy and a blues-influenced rock ‘n’ roll.

Strong Like That shows the harmonica player and vocalist still has a lot to say when it comes to both of his instruments, a point he continually reinforces off-stage when he’s communicating with fans via the band’s blog. “Being a musician is all about leaving a legacy. And that’s not about money. That’s about music,” Wilson wrote in October. “If you can’t leave a musical legacy, if you can’t be remembered for what you did, there’s no sense in doing it.” He’s proof positive for any musician at any stage that, even though there can be a standard path toward success, hiking off in your own direction is equally rewarding.

Besides guitar, harmonica has been credited with being the staple instrument for the blues, but really it’s the person behind the instrument that infuses it with a particular flavor. What does the harmonica allow you to say that another instrument wouldn’t?

A harmonica is very close to you. It’s inside you. That’s how close it is. You can do more things with a harmonica, expressively, than you can with just about any other instrument. There are so many different kinds of tonal things you can get and, of course, it’s all improvised. I consider myself a player. It’s not something where I’m doing a part to enhance a song; I’m actually improvising and just winging it. And that’s a big deal for me. That keeps things fresh for me. I improvise everything on the bandstand, even the set list. I don’t have a set list.

No kidding.

I can call off the next one while the one before it is going, and my boys know it. There are certain songs that you almost have to play; I mean some of the hits, obviously, and some of the new ones, too. Other than that, it’s kind of a free for all. I think the guys appreciate that. It keeps everything fresh for them, too. Even the hit songs have a lot of improvisation for them. You know it’s the song, but I don’t sing ‘em exactly the same, and they don’t play ‘em exactly the same.

I love the music more than I’ve ever loved it. You’re not supposed to get worse. You’re supposed to get better at what you do, and I really haven’t gotten, in my mind, to where I want to be until just recently. And I’m still not where I want to be. Of course, you’re always learning, and you want to be able to hear yourself back on a recording and not wince. Very very important. Very important.

That’s probably the key test. It seems like it takes a certain kind of age and maturity and perspective to hit a stride.

Well, to play the kind of music we play, it does. It can’t be contrived; it can’t be just run of the mill. You’ve gotta be at the top of the food chain to be in the business as long as we’ve been in it: 45-46 years now. Obviously, there are arrangements and stuff like that, sure. I think, if it’s not interesting for you, it’s certainly not going to be interesting for the audience.

Do you feel as though playing the harmonica is a different personality than your singing?

Well, how I perform, it’s kinda violent. There can be some pretty moments, but really it’s more kind of …

Primal?

It’s very primal. That’s exactly right. And I think that it used to be that I’d have to really hit the audience to get their attention, and it’s still kind of that way. People, when you give them something else, they don’t want that. They want something that’s going to smack ‘em a little bit. I was always an athlete — I was a football player when I was a kid — and, luckily, I’ve chosen an instrument that’s allowed me to affect people without breaking bones.

Well, there are always eardrums …

Maybe. Oh, I know all about the eardrum thing.

Me, too. With Strong Like That, how did you decide which songs to include? Leslie West and Johnnie Taylor, among the others you cover, are such interesting choices.

It’s not all blues, obviously. That’s the way we’ve always been.

Right, you’ve always straddled different genres.

We just played a bunch of songs and picked the best performances, the ones we thought worked the best.

I love your rendition of West’s “Don’t Burn Me.”

That’s a great track.

There’s a real heat that comes off it. I know you spent a good deal of time in Texas. Do you equate the feeling you were able to create with that particular region?

The Texas sound … I can’t say we ever had a Texas sound. We lived in Texas. In the beginning, we were more Louisiana and now it’s more, maybe, Memphis. I don’t know what’d you call it. It’s a lot of different areas that we come from. I’m a blues singer, so however I sing it, it’s going to come out like that. Now, we’re playing soul beats and soul songs, but how they come out is more of a blues band playing soul and rock ‘n’ roll and blues. It all starts with the blues for us. When they’re playing this stuff on the radio, it always has upset me when they automatically take it to the blues stations. And some of it you could, but a lot of it you could take it to a lot of different stations. I think right now we’re doing well at Triple-A [Adult Album Alternative], I believe. The Triple-A thing, that’s a relatively new thing out there. You used to have AOR [Album-Oriented Rock] Radio, which we would climb to the top of that and then we would get into the CHR [Contemporary Hits Radio], when there were actually 40 or 60 songs they were playing.

Now it’s more like 15.

Yeah, it’s kinda crazy. Triple-A is fine. Whatever gives us more success, we’ll take it. It’s one of those things that’s really out of your control. We did sign this deal with Sony now, which has really helped. It’s been great to be back with them because they’re so well-staffed and they’ve been on the case, they’ve been really working it. I’m really appreciative of that. We feel like every project we do is very special and for it to just fizzle immediately because people aren’t aware of it, so we’re very happy with the Sony deal.

They have the manpower to get the word out because there’s so much taking place these days, in terms of new releases and surprise drops and what have you.

Right.

I read you play 300 shows a year between the Fabulous Thunderbirds and your own solo projects.

I don’t do that many anymore.

Okay, because I was going to ask where you find the energy for that momentum.

I do quite a few shows and I do have the All-Stars, I guess is what you call it, but that’s a lot of going back into the clubs and it can be a real hassle. Even though I love that music and I love playing it, going back into the clubs is just … Boy, you really start, once again, seeing the bottom of the food chain. It’s very difficult. I do it mostly out [in California] now. I do a Christmastime thing. That’s really all I can do. I don’t want to go out there and kill myself, because it’s not worth it — being burned by club owners and people not advertising shows. It’s kind of insane. It’s really taking a step back from what it was when I was a kid, which was a pretty fun way to make a living.

Playing clubs, you have to work literally 300 days a year just to do anything financially, and that’s just not where it’s at with me anymore. I want to enjoy my life; I just got married, after all this time. I want to see more of my wife, and I want to play more shows that are going to get to a lot of people, like festivals. Not necessarily blues festivals. I mean, festivals, casinos are a nice … Casinos are kind of what the clubs used to be, but a little better than what the clubs used to be, as far as the facilities go.

In terms of treating artists with respect or drawing a crowd?

The facilities are beautiful; you have real dressing rooms. It’s a nice way to go. It’s gotten to where there’s a lot of competition in the casinos, a lot of people who had hit records in the past are gravitating to that. You don’t play as many of them. You play more festivals, but it’s always nice to play a casino because the room’s right there. You just come right down and get on stage. I mean, it’s very nice.

I can see why the Las Vegas residencies are so popular. They live upstairs and just go downstairs for work.

I wouldn’t mind having a residency, actually. I go back and forth on that. I don’t know if I’d want to be in a house band or have to play every night. I wouldn’t be playing the same thing every night anyway, even in a residency. I would be doing how I do it now.

Let’s end on a millennial question: Do you think the blues can be applied to modern woes, things like FOMO [fear of missing out] or hook-up culture?

Of course. Well, I mean, guys like J.B. Lenoir were doing that 40, 50 years ago. There’s always different subject matter you can tap into. There are always different emotions you can tap into, as long as it’s not too corny. I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be corny because I just don’t like corny. Modern music is a very, very difficult challenge because all the lyrics have been used. Now, I love putting a different twist on a cliché. That’s the challenge. Putting a new twist on something people have heard a lot — and a clever twist, not a corny twist.

Myself, I like sticking to … well, blues and soul, it’s really all about man, woman, and money. Now, it can be a really uplifting song like, “I love her, she’s the greatest thing that ever happened, she’s so fine, she’s so smart,” you know? Or it can be, “I hate her, she ruined my life.” And people have success with all that stuff: “I’m broke” or “I’m rich.” There are lots of different ways to approach it. I still like the man/woman interaction, and that’s just the way I’ve always been. I listen to some of these old songs; I don’t listen to too much modern music. To me, there’s something missing there. I like to listen to stuff that I’ve been listening to all my life.