Tag: robert finley

From “Alligator Bait” to “Gospel Blues,” Joy Is Central on Robert Finley’s ‘Black Bayou’

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Been around the world, seen some of everything, but what I like about it the most is the joy that I bring…

– Robert Finley, “Livin’ Out A Suitcase”

Whether it’s at home or abroad, Robert Finley’s youthful exuberance has a knack for not only lighting up rooms, but people’s faces as well. On his latest batch of songs, the former sharecropper and carpenter – who got his start in music during a stint in the Army – continues that trend with 11 stories pulled from his Louisiana upbringing that include everything from the poignant “No One Wants To Be Lonely” to the cheeky and overly embellished “Alligator Bait.”

Pulling from rock, soul, blues and a whole lot of gospel, Black Bayou is easily Finley’s most personal and sonically developed record to date. His third project with Dan Auerbach and Easy Eye Sound, the record is one that came about organically, feeding on the artist’s energetic live performances with lyrics and arrangements put together on the spot in the studio with no pre-fabricated blueprint.

“When we did this album there was no pencil or paper in the room,” Finley tells BGS of the process. “The band was free to jam what they felt and I had the freedom to say what I felt. Nothing was written beforehand, it all came to life in the moment.”

Born in Winnsboro and now based in Bernice, a North Louisiana hamlet only thirty miles from the Arkansas border, Finley has excelled at living in the moment despite the fast moving world around him. That essence is what accelerates his storytelling throughout Black Bayou, particularly on songs like the aforementioned “Livin’ Out A Suitcase” and “Nobody Wants To Be Lonely,” the latter of which has the artist crooning about the elderly sitting at nursing homes around the country with no family wanting or able to keep in touch or care for them. It’s a topic that Finley doesn’t just sing about from the studio, though. He visits nursing homes in his community on a regular basis to serenade its residents.

“So many people have been forgotten,” says Finley. “Their kids drop them off and go on with their lives. I go down occasionally and perform at the old folks home in Bernice. Just take my guitar and play for 30 minutes or so, try to get them to dance, try to bring some joy to them.”

Whether in those homes or the local clubs, Finley is determined to use his platform to give back to the community that made him. In addition to never turning down a conversation or photo op, he also aims to lift up the next generation of musicians, offering support and guidance to those cutting their teeth and in need of a role model as they pursue their own musical dreams.

“I always go back whenever I’m not on tour, simply because that’s where I got my start,” says Finley. “It also gives me a chance to encourage the young artists there to pursue their dreams, because I can share how I started busking over there on the corner eight years ago and now I’m touring the world. Had I not made that first step, then nobody would even know what I was capable of doing.”

As listeners have come to expect from Finley, Black Bayou is full of lust, love, spirituality, and humor as well. Tunes like “Sneakin’ Around,” “Miss Kitty,” and “Can’t Blame Me For Trying” showcase Finley’s flamboyant and flirtatious side, which goes hand in hand with his center-stage shimmying and shaking at live shows. On the flip side, cuts like the swampy album closer, “Alligator Bait,” unravels as a spoken word recollection of a formative day on the bayou with his grandfather with a gnarly and always evolving backbeat oozing with attitude.

Together these stories make a patchwork quilt of sounds, emotions, and stories that only Finley could piece together. Calling into his North Louisiana home, we spoke with Finley — our November Artist of the Month — in detail about Black Bayou, making music with his family, the similarities between performing and preaching, and more.

What has busking taught you about performing and holding an audience’s attention?

I’ve learned that you don’t need to put all of your eggs in one basket. I’m always trying to shake it up and introduce new things to the crowd at my shows, because no matter how good a movie is, if you watch it two or three times you’re going to know exactly what happens next. It doesn’t mean it’s not a great movie, it just means you’re not going to watch something that you already know the result of. I don’t want to rehearse and be programmed to do the same thing over and over, I need to have the freedom of the spirit of the moment.

Your daughter Christy Johnson and granddaughter LaQuindrelyn McMahon both joined you on this record. What’s it mean to you to share your love for music with them?

It’s great being able to have three generations of Finleys singing together. I’ve always admired Pop Staples and The Staple Singers for him and his daughters. I have two other daughters as well, but they both work in the medical field and can’t just uproot and follow me around the world. My oldest is a licensed beautician, but put it on hold to help me pursue my career due to my sight being bad. She saw that I was determined to do it either way, so she sacrificed hers to make sure I wasn’t alone. Because of that I want to share the spotlight with her every chance I get.

She first came on during the audition process for America’s Got Talent, which was her introduction to the world. The label loved her so much that they were willing to use her on the albums. Soon we needed a second background singer, so I let Dan [Auerbach] know about my granddaughter. He and the label were immediately supportive and have been willing to [incorporate] as much of my family as possible into my career. This is mostly just me trying to open a gateway for them, because they have the potential to be bigger and better successes than me. Or at least it won’t take them 69 years to get discovered.

You’re often referred to as a bluesman, but Black Bayou could also just as easily be described as a gospel album. What are your thoughts on the dynamic between the two genres and how you’re able to tie them together on the record?

The only difference between the gospel and the blues is really the choice of words you use. The same music that you hear in the club is being played in the church and the same music that we grew up on in the church is being played in the clubs. The only difference is that if you want blues you sing “oh baby” and if you want gospel you sing “oh lord.” Other than that, a lot of the rhythms and dances are the same.

What’re your thoughts on continuing to make this type of music in the modern age?

I don’t even look at it as gospel or blues anymore. I look at it as just saying the truth. Regardless of what you’re going through, there’s someone else who’s somewhere who’s been through the same thing. The fact that they made it through gives hope that you can do it, too.

As artists, we’re blessed with fans that will pay to come see you and even take your advice home with them. The same people who go to church will not remember a thing the preacher talked about, but if they like your song they’ll remember it word for word. If you’re really trying to reach people, you’ve got a better chance to reach a lot more folks by singing than you would preaching. Nobody wants to listen to an hour and a half or two hour sermon, but they will stay around a concert for an encore. That’s why it’s so important when you have the world’s attention to tell them something positive with it.

It almost sounds like you view yourself performing on stage like a minister preaching from the pulpit?

That’s it. I can get a bigger crowd than the average preacher even though church is always free, but even then people will flock to the clubs. I’ve also sang “Amazing Grace” in nightclubs and had people put down their glasses, sing-a-long, and go to church with me. You just don’t know what people will do. Everyone’s going through something. If you stop the church people from going to the club then the club will shut down, because most of the people frequenting there are church folks from the other side of town. The problem is that while there they’re not getting the truth. They’re getting the water, but not the wine.

There’s not a better song on the album that ties these influences together than the aptly named “Gospel Blues.” Are you hypothesizing what you’ll do in heaven on it?

I’m trying to tell people not to be so judgmental. That’s why I sing, “I do drink a little whiskey, and I’ll take a little shot of wine” – because it’s better to be real with people than to try and fool them. Whether I have some whiskey [or not] isn’t going to have anything to do with whether or not I go to heaven or hell.

Another song I’ve been captivated by is “Alligator Bait.” Is that a true story?

That song was actually designed more or less as a joke. I never met my grandfather on either side, but I did hear stories when I was sitting around with my dad and his brothers about things like that. It seemed like I had a cruel, cruel grandfather, but that wasn’t the message I was trying to convey. I was trying to prove that any song where you think you’re right needs to be like you just read a novel. It needs to tell a story. It’s more about being a convincing writer than deceiving.

On the cover of Black Bayou is the pond that I used to swim in and got baptized in. For a while it’s just been deserted, but we went back there, because it conjured up a lot of those childhood memories. Even just standing there taking photos my mind flashed back to the things we used to do there like swimming on one end and fishing on the other. Us jumping in the water would scare the fish over to the other side where they could get caught easier, which in many ways is similar to how the alligator is lured in the song.

What has music taught you about yourself?

It’s helped me to find and be myself. I used to try imitating everyone from James Brown to Ray Charles, but soon I realized that the only person I could be the best version of was myself. Nobody can beat you being you. If you just be yourself then you’re automatically different from everybody else anyway. Being real with myself and my music has opened so many doors for me, because of that.

Photo Credit: Jim Herrington

Artist of the Month: Robert Finley

Posted on by Justin Hiltner

Dan Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound has an impressive catalog and roster of albums and artists. While it’s easy to trace how each intersects or diverges from Auerbach’s own musical and artistic approaches, only a handful of artists who’ve had releases with the label truly supersede the star power of their Grammy Award-winning producer, co-writer, and collaborator. Yola utilized Auerbach and Easy Eye as her gravitational assist to slingshot herself up into roots music’s – and now, Hollywood’s – stratosphere; Nat Myers‘ brand of down-to-earth, hardscrabble blues feels equally right at home and as a superlative outlier among his labelmates; and, perhaps chief among the top of Easy Eye’s “class” of music-makers is another bluesman, Robert Finley. His brand new release, Black Bayou, is his third with the label – and it finds him continuing to stake out his musical territory, confident in the well-deserved notoriety he’s now gained at this late point in his career. (Finley, as of this writing, is 69 years young.)

Black Bayou is blues unencumbered by the perennial rhetoric and discourse that engulfs this genre and tradition. What role do the blues have to play in a post-modern society? Can acoustic, old-fashioned, and/or vernacular blues music be modern, forward-looking, and responsive? Is blues dying, or is our fear of its decline or demise yet another facet of this form? Can the blues be something more than “time capsule” music? Black Bayou, with Finley’s trademark joy and wizened smile, encourages its listeners to also laugh in the face of these often pseudo-academic, fedora-wearing musical intellectuals. This is music for the present; this is music that’s visceral, propulsive, and – well, fun.

You can tell that Finley and his cohort had fun making it, too. Auerbach appears on Black Bayou, as does drummer Patrick Carney, his partner from their preeminent rock duo, the Black Keys. Eric Deaton (bass), Kenny Brown (guitar), Jeffrey Clemens (also on drums), and vocalists Christy Johnson and LaQuindrelyn McMahon – Finley’s daughter and granddaughter, respectively – round out the project’s ensemble. It’s a cohesive group, serving Finley’s musical mission perfectly and, when appropriate, getting the hell out of his way. It’s part of why Finley does rise above the Easy Eye Sound prestige and pomp, cutting through crisply, with a direct and honest point of view.

This music isn’t just grounded in the present, it’s also rooted in Finley’s home turf of Northern Louisiana, perhaps explaining why he can both be totally unconcerned with “authenticity” while also being a fountain of raw, direct sincerity. Here is a musician and singer who makes music for all of the right reasons, continuing to do it because it’s what he does. His expertise is kind and open, inviting even the casual or uninitiated listeners to engage with his music on the same level as the bespectacled blues autodidact.

Roberty Finley and Black Bayou are disarming, prescient reminders that whatever forms roots and vernacular musics take, they will always have unmeasurable value when viewed as paragons of the present rather than relics of the past. We are all lucky to inhabit a present that includes Robert Finley.

Watch for an exclusive BGS Artist of the Month interview with Finley later in November and, for now, enjoy our Essential Robert Finley playlist below.

Photo Credit: Jim Herrington

From Ray Charles to Yola, These 12 Black Voices Command Our Attention

Posted on by Editor

In recognition of Black History Month, we have compiled these 12 features from the Bluegrass Situation archives to reexamine the breadth and sheer talent that Black artists are bringing to the roots music community. For additional stories, and to hear much, much more music, check out our Black Voices page on BGS.

 

Ray Charles

The musical and cultural impact of Ray Charles is extraordinary and spans the pantheon of American popular music. He was an outstanding multi-instrumentalist (though best known for piano and alto sax), vocalist, bandleader, songwriter and composer in the non-lyrical sense. His innovations include helping craft and popularize the secularization of gospel music, now otherwise known as soul, and bringing new attention and expanded audiences to country music, which was the earliest idiom he loved and played before blues, jazz, R&B, or soul.

Though his earliest material was heavily influenced by Charles Brown and Nat “King” Cole, Charles (full name Ray Charles Robinson) quickly developed a highly stylized, immediately recognizable singing and playing approach. He became an expressive, evocative vocalist, one of the finest interpretative singers of all time, and a skilled improviser as an instrumentalist, able to deliver intense and memorable melodic statements or energetic solos while heading either small combos or large bands. Read more.

Robert Finley

 

Depending on how much attention one pays to labels, singer-songwriter Robert Finley could accurately be called both a blues and soul vocalist, even though he’s also performed plenty of gospel, and has a passionate faith that is often reflected in comments about his unlikely emergence as a national figure in his 60s.

“You can’t call it anything except the hand of God a lot of what’s happened in my life,” Finley tells BGS. “For me to be recording and performing now, to have met and established a friendship with a young white guy like Dan (the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach), and to be in the studio now recording and singing these songs when that’s what I’ve always wanted to do all my life, well it’s just God’s hand in my life.” Read more.

Reggie Harris

The joy and hope evident in Reggie Harris’ 2021 release, On Solid Ground, stem from a rooted sense of perseverance and from his intentional decision to face each and every moment, in the moment, and to find hope within each. It’s why such heavy topics don’t feel gargantuan or burdensome as they make appearances and anchor songs on the album. Harris, watching the social, political, and racial reckonings that bubbled onto the sidewalks and streets of every city in America over the course of the last year, didn’t sit down or give up in the face of the unclimbable summit of translating that reckoning into song.

Instead, Harris draws upon the wisdom, insight, and hope given to him by his own elders and communities throughout On Solid Ground. In choosing to keep himself open in each moment, Harris found himself receiving inspiration, nuggets of ideas and stories, glimpses of songs and arrangements in so many of those moments, simply because he was there, with a still heart and still soul, to receive them. Read more.

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram

 

Christone “Kingfish” Ingram seemed to come out of nowhere with his 2019 Alligator Records debut, Kingfish. At 20 years old, the native of Clarksdale, Mississippi, emerged as a fully-formed guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter and was quickly hailed as a defining blues voice of his generation. Since then, he’s toured the nation, performed with acts ranging from alt-rockers Vampire Weekend to Americana star Jason Isbell to blues godfather Buddy Guy.

In the midst of all this success, just as his career was taking off amidst over a year of non-stop touring, he lost his mother, Princess Pride Ingram, a devastating blow that the young man had to overcome. All of this life experience is reflected on Ingram’s second album, 662, named after the area code for his North Mississippi home. Read more.

Amythyst Kiah

 

When Amythyst Kiah was a teenager in the suburbs of Chattanooga, Tennessee, she wanted to be “the guitar-playing version of Tori Amos.” Locked away in her room with her headphones pulled over her ears, pouring over liner notes and listening intently for every nuance in her favorite records, she found solace in the way Amos told her darkest secrets in her songs and how she turned that vulnerability into something like a superpower. It made her feel less alone, especially as a young, closeted Black girl in a largely white suburb. Tori Amos helped her survive adolescence.

Kiah didn’t grow up to become any version of her hero. Instead, she simply became herself. Her new solo album, Wary + Strange, ingeniously mixes blues and folk with alternative and indie rock, devising a vivid palette to soundtrack her own songs that tell dark secrets. It’s one of the most bracing albums of the year, grappling with matters both personal (her mother’s suicide) and public (the struggles of Black Americans). “Now, when I’m in my mid-thirties,” says Kiah, “it’s amazing to make a vulnerable record and then have people at my shows tell me that my music helped them heal, helped them get through some hard times. To have someone connect with my music is really powerful.” Read more.

Keb’ Mo’

Keb’ Mo’ enjoyed a career milestone as he received a Lifetime Achievement in Performance Award from the Americana Music Association in 2021. Presented at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, the award joins a list of distinctions that include five Grammys and 14 Blues Foundation Awards. But in typically understated fashion, Mo’ (a.k.a. Kevin Moore) downplayed the latest honor during his Artist of the Month interview with the Bluegrass Situation.

“Well, for me I guess it represents the fact I’m getting old,” he said with a laugh. “But sure, you are honored whenever you get that kind of recognition from your peers. But I’ve still got a lot that I want to do and I’m still looking ahead.” A huge indication of that is his outstanding new LP, Good to Be. It is both a tribute to his background growing up in Compton, California, and a celebration of some 11 years in his current hometown, Nashville. Read more.

Buffalo Nichols

 

As the first solo blues artist signed to Fat Possum Records in 20 years, Buffalo Nichols faces high expectations. But on his self-titled debut, the musician (whose given name is Carl Nichols) more than meets them, stitching Black history and musical traditions with current events and experiences to craft the sonic equivalent of a quilt. And the story it tells is an important one.

Nichols was born in Houston and raised in Milwaukee, but when he got the urge to roam and the money to do it, he took off, immersing himself in creative scenes across Europe and West Africa. Although he’s been based in Austin since the fall of 2020, Nichols channels the Delta, North Mississippi and Chicago through his nimble fingers or resonator slide while wrapping his warm voice around words that cut to the core of oppression, and the many forms of heartbreak it causes. Read more.

Chris Pierce

 

Chris Pierce has cultivated a significant following in the Los Angeles area and beyond, usually writing soulful and emotional songs that have populated fifteen years’ worth of albums and appeared in TV shows like This Is Us. But in 2020, accompanied by little more than his 1949 Gibson J-45 (“Blondie”) or his 1973 Martin D-18 (“Doriella”), the California native recorded the album American Silence with a mission of social activism against racial disparities.

Pierce gained a love of language from his mother, an English teacher who taught at-risk youth. She introduced him to the lyrical writings of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss, as well as essential writers like Langston Hughes and Walt Whitman. The economy of words in all of those authors is immediately evident in original compositions like “American Silence” and “It’s Been Burning for a While,” where Pierce gets his point across directly, and with power. His convictions are never more optimistically presented than in the album’s closing anthem, “Young, Black and Beautiful,” which details the experience of maturing from a cute little kid to a perceived threat. Read more.

 

Allison Russell

 

Within the songs of her new album Outside Child, Allison Russell delves deeply into the extreme trauma she experienced in her youth spent in Montreal both as a mechanism for personal relief, but also in the hopes that it might reach people with similar experiences.

“The writing process was having to delve deeply into the most painful parts of my past and childhood and history,” she says. “I experienced severe childhood abuse, sexual, physical, mental, and psychological. In many ways, I think the psychological is the toughest part to unpack and defang. I don’t know that I am ever going to be entirely free of that and the process of dealing with that. What was very beautiful about this to me is that I didn’t have to go on that fearsome journey alone. My partner J.T. [Nero] was with me every step of the way. He co-wrote many of the songs on this record with me. He scraped me up off the floor when I was in the depths of it.” Read more.

Tray Wellington

Banjo player Tray Wellington was everywhere to be found during the 2021 IBMA World of Bluegrass — performing, hosting the Momentum Awards luncheon, and playing a main stage set at the Red Hat Amphitheater. This is remarkable because if you had looked for Wellington at IBMA just a few short years ago, you might not have run into him except on the youth stage or in the halls, jamming.

Catapulted by his prior work with the talented young band Cane Mill Road, his studies at East Tennessee State University’s bluegrass program, and a stable of accomplished and connected mentors and peers, Wellington went from a newbie to a seasoned veteran faster than a global pandemic could subside — and during it. Efforts for better and more accurate representation in bluegrass have contributed to his momentum (no pun intended), but above all, his talent and his envelope-pushing approach to the five-string banjo are the root causes of his mounting and well-deserved notoriety. Read more.

Yasmin Williams

 

Guitarists spend lifetimes — often gleefully, sometimes manically, or at times frustratingly — finessing techniques, especially with their picking hand. Entire careers can be made or broken by the idiosyncrasies of one picker’s striking and sounding strings. Fingerstyle guitarist and composer Yasmin Williams has mastered myriad forms of right-hand styles, each complicated enough for multiple lifetimes’ worth of study. But she doesn’t merely alternate techniques between pieces; to a transcendentally perplexing degree she effortlessly alternates her entire picking hand approach mid-song.

On her 2021 release, Urban Driftwood, a collection of thoughtful, dynamic, and engaging instrumentals written for fingerstyle guitar and harp guitar, Williams makes many of these technique-swaps while the compositions charge forward, each one earning tailor-made right-hand approaches. As a result, the songs don’t feel encumbered when Williams, mid-melody, goes from right hand fingerstyle to bowing her strings with a cello bow, or plunking out notes on a kalimba taped to her guitar’s face, now positioned laying across her lap. She utilizes hand percussion and tap shoes to fill out arrangements, interposing Afro-descended instruments from around the world into her compositions, and she picks up, puts down, and readjusts her stable of musical tools in real time — as a foley sound effect artist, prop master, or choreographer might. Read more.

Yola

Speaking to Yola over Zoom is way more fun than a video call has any right to be. From the time she dials in from the UK, she’s ready to chat. Good thing, because there’s a lot to talk about. About a week earlier, she picked up two Grammy nominations in the American Roots Music category of Best American Roots Song (“Diamond Studded Shoes”) and Best Americana Album (Stand For Myself), and she’s clearly still exhilarated by it.

“It’s very hard for it to even land because it feels really super surreal,” she says. “I don’t know how else to describe it. I’m endlessly grateful to the work that everyone puts in to get me to this point, and honestly, the faith that people have to let me lead at all. I wasn’t always in positions like that, ones that would let me lead.”

She’s speaking of a different kind of leadership style than, say, former British Prime Minister Theresa May, whose sparkly footwear worn during a speech about childhood poverty led to the idea of writing “Diamond Studded Shoes.” Although it does have a feel-good groove, you can’t miss its message of inequality. “And that’s why we gots to fight,” she sings. Read more.

Photo Credit: Norman Seff (Ray Charles); Alysse Gafkjen (Robert Finley); Courtesy of Reggie Harris (Reggie Harris); Justin Hardiman (Christone “Kingfish” Ingram); Sandlin Gaither (Amythyst Kiah); Jeremy Cowart (Keb’ Mo’); Merrick Ales (Buffalo Nichols); Mathieu Bitton (Chris Pierce); Laura E. Partain (Allison Russell); Mountain Home Music Company (Tray Wellington); Kim Atkins Photography (Yasmin Williams); Joseph Ross Smith (Yola)

WATCH: Robert Finley, “I Can Feel Your Pain”

Posted on by Editor

Artist: Robert Finley
Hometown: Bernice, Louisiana
Song: “I Can Feel Your Pain”
Album: Sharecropper’s Son
Label: Easy Eye Sound

Editor’s Note: Read our BGS interview with Robert Finley.

In Their Words: “‘I Can Feel Your Pain’ relates really to what is going on today. From people losing loved ones to the pandemic, all the marches going on, people being slaughtered by the police. Even if you don’t really know about the situation from a personal perspective you feel sympathy for that person who had to go through those things and this song is for them.” — Robert Finley

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

The Show on the Road – Robert Finley

Posted on by Shelby Williamson

This week on The Show On The Road, we journey to northern Louisiana for a unique conversation with sprightly blues and southern rock singer Robert Finley, who began making music in his cotton-growing family in the 1960s, and has been rediscovered and empowered through his remarkable partnership with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys.

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Finley’s funky and cheeky comeback album, Goin’ Platinum (which sounds like a lost Motown gem), came in 2017. In May of 2021, he celebrated the release of the deeply personal follow-up, Sharecropper’s Son. As you can hear in the episode, even in his late sixties, Finley is a playful force to be reckoned with and isn’t shy about sharing how faith and music have gotten him through decades of tragedy and hardship. In 2019 he even reached the semi-finals of America’s Got Talent.

Growing up in a religious home where blues and soul music was rarely allowed to be heard, Finley worked as an army helicopter repairman and professional carpenter for many years, often keeping his keen musical ideas to himself. He may now be legally blind, but the always-sharp dressed Finley (he loves a snakeskin jacket) was spotted busking on the streets of Helena, Arkansas and the blues-obsessed Auerbach was smitten with Finley’s raw, swampy Jimi Hendrix meets James Brown tone.

Both of Finley’s critically-applauded releases subsequently came out on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound, which has become a home for previously unheralded Black artists like Yola, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and Leo Bud Welch.

(Editor’s note: Read BGS’ recent interview with Robert Finley here.)

 

The BGS Radio Hour – Episode 211

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Welcome to the BGS Radio Hour! Since 2017, this weekly radio show and podcast has been a recap of all the great music, new and old, featured on the digital pages of BGS. This week, we bring you new music from our June Artist of the Month, Chris Thile, as well as Robert Finley, Oliver Wood, and much more! Remember to check back every week for a new episode of the BGS Radio Hour.

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Robert Finley – “Sharecropper’s Son”

Singer-songwriter Robert Finley first picked up a guitar at age 11. He was raised in Jim Crow-era Louisiana amongst a family of sharecroppers and knew from a young age that his dream was to sing. Now, at sixty-seven-years-old, that dream is alive and well with his newly-released, third solo album, Sharecropper’s Son, made in collaboration with Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys. BGS recently caught up with Finley to talk about the new album, and how his upbringing and vast life experiences have shaped his music.


DoomFolk StarterKit – “Look at Miss Ohio”

For David Swick of DoomFolk StarterKit, recording any of Gillian Welch’s work is an honor. His cover of “Look at Miss Ohio” has a balance of lightness and melancholy in its’ arrangement, which Swick says represents the song’s theme of “making peace with uncertainty.”

Zach Person – “Wanna Fly”

Zach Person was inspired to write “Wanna Fly” after reflecting upon the social and political intensity of 2020. He cites “Dylan-esque” protest songs and the openness of the western plains as the two main influences of this powerful track.

Lula Wiles – “Call Me Up”

“Call Me Up,” from Lula Wiles’ new album, Shame and Sedition, is a lighter track amongst an album that aims to transform listeners and enact change. Between tender harmonies and mellow piano chords, the trio describes meeting with an old acquaintance, singing, “I know you’ve been taking it rough / You gotta just call me up.”

Oliver Wood – “Face of Reason”

BGS spoke with Oliver Wood of The Wood Brothers for a 5+5 in support of his new solo record, Always Smilin’. He told us about his biggest influences — from Ray Charles to Levon Helm — as well as how hard times can be processed through songwriting. When asked to write a mission statement for his career, he stated: “Just be completely yourself, because that’s all you have, and that’s enough.”

Dana Sipos – “Breathing Barrel”

Dana Sipos’ “Breathing Barrel” is a meditation of being at peace with the present moment. Written immediately upon returning home to the city from a music residency at the Banff Centre for the Arts, deep in the foothills of the Canadian Rockies, this song is an attempt to integrate a very powerful experience into the more mundane, everyday life.

Shannon McNally – “This Time”

Shannon McNally reimagines Waylon Jennings’ “This Time” by giving the lyrics a personal spin — singing not about a lover, but instead about her relationship with the music business as an artist and as a woman. For McNally, the song’s directness is a breath of fresh air, and it helped her get into the headspace that permitted her to sing the rest of the album.

Chris Thile – “Laysong”

The name Chris Thile is likely familiar to fans in any corner of roots music. Growing up in southern California, Thile rose to popularity with his childhood (and sometimes still adult) band Nickel Creek, and has since helped form the Punch Brothers, the Goat Rodeo Sessions, and other noteworthy collaborations. However, this summer Thile brings something special — a completely solo album entitled Laysongs. In celebration, he is our Artist of the Month, so be sure to stick around all month long for exclusive content from Chris Thile.

Mara Connor – “Old Man”

Mara Connor recorded “Old Man” at the same age Neil Young was when he wrote it about a caretaker who lived on his ranch. When she first heard the track, she was struck by the amount of empathy the songwriter exhibited at such a young age. Connor states that the song is an affirmation of how the world would be a better place if we took the time to see the humanity in each other’s eyes.

The Grascals – “Thankful”

2020 was a difficult year for us all, and it seems that we need uplifting music more now than ever before. “Thankful” is just that. The lyrics are a powerful reminder of the things we have to be grateful for and of the important things in life.

Rising Appalachia – “Catalyst”

Inspired by their recent release and the blooming of spring, Rising Appalachia’s Leah Song created a Mixtape for BGS, entitled Rising Appalachia’s Love Songs for Blooming Spring. The playlist features heartbreakers and heart-menders from John Prine to Hozier that are sure to make your heart bloom.

Eli Lev – “As It Is”

Eli Lev’s “As It Is” began to develop halfway through a 10-day meditation retreat he went on near the Florida coast at the beginning of the year. He states, “I experienced silent sunrises over the ocean and brilliant sunsets over the bay that brought on infinite color variations and led me to a unique insight that everything is changing while staying exactly ‘as it is’ in every moment.”

Kyle LaLone – “Learning How to Love”

Featuring the sweet sounds of classic country twang and harmonies by singer-songwriter Michaela Anne, Kyle Lalone’s “Learning How to Love” is a song that details the process of understanding how to be a good partner and showing up for someone in a relationship.

Photos: (L to R) Robert Finley by Alysse Gafjken; Shannon McNally by Alysse Gafjken; Chris Thile by Josh Goleman

Guided by the Hand of God, Robert Finley Attains His Lifelong Dream

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Depending on how much attention one pays to labels, singer-songwriter Robert Finley could accurately be called both a blues and soul vocalist, even though he’s also performed plenty of gospel, and has a passionate faith that is often reflected in comments about his unlikely emergence as a national figure in his 60s.

“You can’t call it anything except the hand of God a lot of what’s happened in my life,” Finley tells BGS. “For me to be recording and performing now, to have met and established a friendship with a young white guy like Dan (the Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach), and to be in the studio now recording and singing these songs when that’s what I’ve always wanted to do all my life, well it’s just God’s hand in my life.”

Robert Finley’s story is indeed a distinctive one. He was born in Winnsboro and raised in Bernice, Louisiana, and the lure of music was such he began playing the guitar at 11, purchasing one from a thrift store in town. “I remember hearing the gospel singers and people like James Brown,” he continues. “Singing is what I wanted to do from the time I was a kid, but as far as traveling and visiting places and doing some of what I’m doing now, no there’s no way I ever thought I’d be able to do that.”

One of eight children, Finley grew up in the Jim Crow South. His family were sharecroppers, and Finley was often working with his family in the fields picking cotton. When he got the chance, he attended a segregated school, but dropped out in the 10th grade to get a job. Now, at 67 years old, his voice has a power and authority that come from voicing experiences many only read about in history books.

The title of his third LP is definitive: Sharecropper’s Son, released in May on Easy Eye Sound. One of its singles, “Country Boy,” describes how Finley grew up. That’s working hard for little gain, carving out a life in less than desirable situations, yet never letting hardships or tough times overcome a burning desire to succeed. The video for the single was shot in the Louisiana fields where his family worked. The lyrics illuminate not only the backdrop of small town and rural segregation, but also highlight other places that have influenced and shaped his life.

Another important aspect of Finley’s life was his time in the service. His military tenure began in 1970, when he joined the Army to serve as a helicopter technician in Germany. But once more due to circumstances he again credits to divine intervention, the Army band needed a guitarist. He ended up accompanying the band throughout Europe until he was discharged, where he returned home to Louisiana. He initially split time between his other love, carpentry, and heading a spiritual group called Brother Finley and the Gospel Sisters. But then he was deemed legally blind and forced to retire as a carpenter.

“Once again, I have to give credit where it’s due to God, because who knew that anyone had ever heard of me or what I was doing in Louisiana,” Finley says, marveling at the fact that the Music Maker Relief Foundation discovered him before a 2015 date in Arkansas. They were thrilled by his sound and helped start a new phase of his career, with Finley appearing on tours with such blues vocalists as Alabama Slim and Robert Lee Coleman. Subsequently the title track of his debut album Age Don’t Mean a Thing celebrated what was essentially an artistic rebirth, and that 2016 LP attracted widespread critical attention.

A big part of that was due to Finley’s raw, fresh delivery, one clearly steeped in the blend of spiritual and secular elements that comprise classic soul, yet vibrant, dynamic and contemporary rather than a retro reflection mimicking past greats. Finley wrote most of the material and was backed by members of the Bo-Keys. Shortly after the LP, he met Auerbach, forging a musical and personal kinship that remains strong to this day.

“To think I would meet someone like Dan, a young guy with the soul and skill of the old-timers,” Finley continues. “Man, I couldn’t believe it when I first heard him play, and when we started talking about music, how quickly we connected and we still do.” Their first project was an original soundtrack for the Z2 Comics’ graphic novel Murder Ballads. Later came Finley’s second LP, Goin’ Platinum, produced by Auerbach. Finley would also appear on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound Revue tour, and later do his own series of shows on a world tour.

Then came something Finley describes as a “dream happening.” He was a 2019 contestant on America’s Got Talent, though he was eliminated in the semi-final round. But before that his tune “Get It While You Can” was released in a sneak peek that generated even more interest, to the point Sharecropper’s Son has been eagerly anticipated.

Its lead single “Souled Out on You” depicts the end of a relationship and describes in vivid fashion the ups and downs that eventually caused what was initially seen as a great thing to end. But its essence is Finley’s life story, something he says “I was really ready to tell. Dan and the people he had in the studio were perfect for what I wanted to say. It’s almost like they knew it like I did, and it was really something sitting in that studio and being surrounded by that talent.”

The session’s musical excellence would be expected from a band of this caliber, with guitar assistance coming from Auerbach, Mississippi blues ace Kenny Brown and fellow Louisiana native Billy Sanford, as well as pedal steel player Russ Pahl. With Bobby Wood on keyboards, bassists Nick Movshon, Eric Deaton, and Dave Roe, legendary drummer Gene Chrisman, percussionist Sam Bacco and a full horn section on board, the various songs’ backgrounds, arrangements and solos are outstanding. Auerbach, Finley, Wood, and Pat McLaughlin shared compositional duties.

Given Finley’s history, it wouldn’t be unfair to think at some point there might be either some regret or bitterness expressed regarding events or personalities in his past. But nothing could be further from the reality. Robert Finley is one of the most upbeat, optimistic people you could ever hope to meet, and that resilience and formidable spirit can be heard in his singing, and is reaffirmed in the final things he says to end our interview.

“Yes, I still live in Bernice,” he concludes. “Why would I go anywhere else? I know these people and know this area. Both the places where I was born and grew up in now have Robert Finley Days and they gave me keys to the town. You really can’t beat that. I’ve lived long enough to be able to do what I love and make a good living. That’s the best of the many blessings I’ve gotten from the good Lord, along with meeting Dan and being able to tell the world my story.”

Photo credit: Alysse Gafkjen

Counsel of Elders: Robert Finley on Never Saying Never

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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