Tag: john lee hooker

MIXTAPE: Jeremie Albino’s Songs That Take Him Back

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

The other day I was going through my closet doing some spring cleaning, when I found a box with a bunch of old things that just took me back. One thing in particular was my old CD binder that I used to keep in the first car I ever owned, my parents old Ford Windstar. When I started looking through the binder, it brought me right back to the first time I moved away from home. At 19, I decided to leave the city and start working on a vegetable farm as a labourer. I was really into gardening and growing food at the time. Being out there was a time of many firsts, first time moving from home, first love, first time out partying (I’d always been a homebody).

This find made me think of turning them into a digital playlist, “Songs That Take Me Back.” Something that I could take with me, wherever I may go. Here’s a playlist of songs that somehow take me back to a moment in my life, and I’d like to share them with you. – Jeremie Albino

“Trouble” – Ray LaMontagne

This was the first CD in that CD binder that really brought me back. I could just smell the lilacs in the spring time driving out in the country with my old Windstar with the windows down, blasting this record.

“Sylvie” – Harry Belafonte (At Carnegie Hall)

This song brings me right back to an early Sunday morning when I was a kid. I’d be sleeping in and my dad would throw this on his five disc CD player, blaring records while he’d clean the house. This is probably one of my all time favourite records.

“Dust My Blues” – Elmore James

When I hear this tune, it reminds me of the first open mic I ever participated in. I was probably 15 or 16, I had been so in love with this song and had to learn it. I didn’t do too bad, the audience seemed to enjoy a 15 year old trying to play the slide guitar.

“Only Son” – Shakey Graves

This song takes me back to the summer of 2015 — I was so in love with a fellow farmer who worked at a farm not too far from mine. She was so cool, she had the coolest taste in music. One of the first times I had found someone who liked so much of the same music as I did. The song specifically reminds me of that first date, where we had pizza on a dock and listened to Shakey Graves.

“Harriet” – Hey Rosetta

This song reminds me of the first tour I ever went on. I was in a folk trio with my best friends called En Riet. We went on an epic first tour, drove eastern Canada all the way to Newfoundland, one of the most beautiful places I’d ever seen. We would listen to Hey Rosetta driving through some of the most scenic drives I’d experienced in my life, the music felt so fitting and right.

“Hey Boogie” – John Lee Hooker

The first CD I ever purchased was a compilation record called Blues Legend. It was all John Lee Hooker. I got it from the Future Shop (fellow Canadians, do you remember this store? So good.) when I was 7 or 8. I have no idea why I bought it or why I was drawn to it, I think my parents probably told me I liked blues and brought me to the blues section. I ended up picking it cause I thought the cover looked cool! Turns out it was a good pick and listening to it now, it brings me back to being a kid.

“Shipwreck” – Jeremie Albino

This is the first song I ever wrote. I wrote this one 10 years ago; it’s always nice to look back to see how things started for me. At the time I was having such a hard time writing music, and on weekends I would meet up with some friends and have a kitchen jam session. We’d go in a circle, sharing songs. My friends would always share a new song they’d been working on, and I would just play covers, since I still hadn’t written a full song. After coming home from one of these sessions, I told myself, “That’s it! I’m writing a song.” So I thought about how much of a hard time I was having writing and the line “I’m a wreck” came to me cause that’s what I was feeling when I was writing. Eventually one thing led to another, and I started thinking about what other things are wrecks and long story short, “Shipwreck” was born.

“Stumblin’” – Jackson & the Janks

“Stumblin’” was a song that was a must-listen when I was on tour with Cat Clyde. I remember the Mashed Potato records compilations had just come out and I started listening to these songs non-stop. With “Stumblin’” in particular, I just couldn’t get over how good it was! I had sent over the album to Cat so she could listen to how good it was, too! So by the time we hit the road together, we probably listened to that song a million times combined, no word of a lie.

“Boxcar” – Shovels & Rope

I remember the first time I heard this song was one of the first times I went to a bar and partied with friends. A local band was covering the song. When I finally got my hands on the record I fell in love with their music, the songwriting and vocals. I had a huge crush on Cary Ann’s voice. After that Shovels & Rope turned out to be one of my favourite bands. Ten years later, we actually ended up hitting the road together for a tour and it was one of my “I made it” moments. I feel very blessed to call them my friends, it’s funny to see how things come full circle sometimes.

Photo Credit: Colin Medley

BGS 5+5: Laurel Premo

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Laurel Premo
Hometown: Traverse City, Michigan
Latest Album: Golden Loam

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc. — inform your music?

For me dance is such a huge influence. I’ve spent quite a few years as a dance musician for square dances, being a traditional fiddler. That role of being more the motor for the good time, as opposed to being the focal point, has always resonated deeply with me. But beyond that, I know that just my experience as a participant in social dance in both American old-time and Nordic traditions has given my body a vocabulary that comes out in my music. I’ve found a through line in my voice that, no matter the tempo of the music, I always am wanting to make these larger slower pulses, make longer groups of beats, tap my foot at a slower frequency. I’m certain that that longer embodiment of phrases, and the pull, and balance, from dance have played into my nature there.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

I have a really early memory, I’m not sure what age, but before I was big enough to hold any instruments. I was in my bedroom, standing next to the door, and I could hear my folks playing music on the other side of the wall in the living room, my mom really tearing it up on some fiddle tune. In that moment, alone, I remember that I started air-fiddling and kind of marching around or dancing in the little corner. I just wanted to be part of whatever was going on there.

What’s the toughest time you ever had writing a song?

I took a while composing this lap steel track, “Father Made of River Mud,” from the new record. For a bit, it was separate pieces, in different tunings, that I didn’t know if I’d be able to fold together as one. It’s a really beautiful moment for the maker of a piece, when some kind of grace math helps everything line up in your head, and then you get to hear the thing for the first time in its full form. That tune is like a circle, it doesn’t really have to end at any one point.

What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?

I try and spend some time ruminating with memory that reflects back at me the elements of my personal experience that I want to embed in the performance, to make more vibrant what I’m laying down there for listeners. It’s almost a way of remembering myself to myself, because there are a lot of possible distractions when you’re recording or performing. Every little step of the setup could be something that takes you away from your body and the meaning you’re trying to imbue in the work. So, I just real quickly try to go into the wilds to try and counteract all of the civilization that I’m traversing through.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

In the last two to three years, my wild haunts have been woods, dunes, and rivers. I grew up in the woods, so shadows and green, what reverb the places with a great amount of life growing have, and the scents of being real close to the ground — those are all deep in me, and as an adult I go back to similar places to find quiet, and to kind of listen beyond that quiet. Walking rivers for the past few years, learning fly fishing, has brought about a whole other set of turns, including just a beautiful sideways weight from the gravity of the river flowing against you. I definitely take gestural impulses from my time spent in the wild, and work to keep all my senses open to what rhythms lay in front of me.

Photo credit: Harpe Star

The Show on the Road – Parker Millsap

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week, we feature a conversation with one of the rising stars in our current roots music renaissance: Parker Millsap, a gifted Oklahoma-born singer-songwriter who grew up in a Pentecostal church and creates a fiery gospel backdrop for his tender then window-rattling rock ‘n’ roll voice.


LISTEN: APPLE PODCASTS • SPOTIFY • STITCHER
When you’ve been touring hundreds of days a year down southern backroads from Tulsa to Tallahassee since you were a teenager like Parker Millsap has, you know a thing or two about how to keep your head when things go off the rails. But it was the forced year-long break during the pandemic that really made him stop and accept how far he’s come from his intense, anxious, folky debut Palisade in 2012, which was released when he was 19. His soulful, self-assured new record Be Here Instead displays a relentlessly hard-working performer who no longer has to chase the next gig for gas money, or has to worry if the world will accept his work. Holed up outside of Nashville with his wife, Millsap let the songs do the talking.

His brawnier, self-titled record from 2014 showed his rebellious electric side coming to the fore, followed by his beloved, fire-and–brimstone bopping breakout The Very Last Day two years later, which confronted our country’s obsession with destruction. Then there was the toothier, glossier, pop-leaning Other Arrangements, which finally brings us to his soulful newest record, Be Here Now. It’s not hard to see that this young songwriter is coming into his prime years. With a new maturity and wisdom behind his writing, standout, incendiary songs like “Dammit” are allowed to unfold in a distortion-dipped, John Lee Hooker meets U2 slow-burn build; never resolving, never relenting while he confronts the tough truths and hypocrisies that are threaded into our modern lives. What is our purpose? What can we do about the violence and greed all around us? Without pushing or preaching, the song is trying to convince its listener to never give up in making our broken world a little better every day.

What always set Millsap’s songwriting apart, though, isn’t just his ability to get us fired up with stomping roots-n-roll hysterics (though he’s pretty great at that), it’s the tender left-turns he takes when he goes acoustic, bringing the volume down and the emotion up. Reminiscent of a southern Paul McCartney, his scratchy, soulful tenor shines most on his gorgeous ballads — think “Jealous Sun” (from The Very Last Day) as his own “Yesterday” or on the newest record, the psychedelic and heart-string pulling “Vulnerable,” which asks us all to try and see our own weaknesses and past wounds as potential strengths.

While it is bittersweet to not be able to kick off his new record release this April with a typical cross-country tour, on April 23 Parker will be playing Be Here Instead in its entirety with his longtime band live on Mandolin — which you can stream from anywhere.

Photo credit: Tim Duggan

BGS 5+5: Ryan Culwell

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Ryan Culwell
Hometown: grew up in Perryton, Texas; lives in Nashville now
Latest album: The Last American
Personal nicknames (or rejected band names): Earl the Squirrel and the Combat Brigade

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Several years ago I was on stage in a honky-tonk in Texas. I had my eyes closed and was playing a very long solo on guitar, when the crowd started roaring and cheering. I thought I had become a golden god, but when I opened my eyes, my friend Daniel Davis, the bass player, pointed out into the crowd where a fight had broken out.

What other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

I like words. Reading is important to my process. I read poetry, short stories, novels, etc. If I’m not reading then I run out of fuel pretty quickly. When I was a kid I would write poetry on the walls in black magic marker. I’m sure my parents were furious, but they never showed it; they just kept encouraging me to play with words.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

When I was 10, I wanted to be a painter, an author, a professional baseball player, and Bon Jovi. There was a pretty good chance that I would have played college sports at a high level, but I ripped my shoulder out of socket a few times and all my plans instantly changed. At the time I was devastated, but now I look back and think it might have been providential. I quickly turned all my attention towards words when sports fell away and that played a big part of how I wound up playing music. Also, I have Siri setup to call me Bon Jovi, just for kicks.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I’m always looking for water. Lately I’ve been fishing a lot with Megan McCormick who co-produced The Last American. Water has a certain draw and fishing is like performing magic. Another friend of mine, Adam Riser, is one of the top kayak fisherman in the nation and he always describes fishing as reaching into another mysterious dimension and pulling a creature through to the other side. I like that way of thinking about it.

How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?

I don’t really hide when I write. In fact, I do the opposite. I step into other people’s shoes and try to feel through them, so sometimes it’s actually “you” but I’m saying “I” so I can sympathize more. On my last two records, I think I’m about as honest and vulnerable about myself as I could possibly be without getting naked in front of a microphone. Actually, whose to say I didn’t record these songs naked? Maybe I did.

Photo credit: Neilson Hubbard

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.