Tag: rock ‘n’ roll

LISTEN: Jon Latham, ‘Yearbook Signatures’

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Artist: Jon Latham
Hometown: Nashville, TN
Song: “Yearkbook Signatures”
Album: Lifers
Release Date: September 1, 2017
Label: Café Rooster Records

In Their Words: “‘Yearbook Signatures’ fleshes out the mixed bag of emotions that the music of my childhood summons. Growing up in the generation of the Sony Discman, every memory has a much more specific soundtrack. It makes those connected moments all the more visceral. Be it the unrequited love of every crush I ever had or the isolation I sometimes felt, the songs bring me back to those places. The ability that music has to affect us all these years later is a double-edged sword, but I stand here as proof that facing the darker side of growing up is easier if we can relate it to something else. We are young for a time; the songs that shape us are timeless. Growing up is hard, but rock ‘n’ roll made it easier.” — Jon Latham

Photo credit: Stacie Huckeba

Canon Fodder: John Mellencamp, ‘The Lonesome Jubilee’

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The Lonesome Jubilee was released on August 24, 1987, just a few weeks after Def Leppard’s Hysteria and a few weeks before Belinda Carlisle’s Heaven on Earth. But unlike those two albums, it is not getting a new 30th-anniversary edition. No remastering, no bonus tracks, no unearthed live cuts or alternate takes, no new liner notes, no think-pieces or take-downs. But John Mellencamp’s ninth album certainly deserves the deluxe treatment — and not only because it’s a rousing collection of politically barbed folk-rock songs. The best reissues allow us to hear old music in new ways, providing a fresh context in which artists might speak to a different moment and to a different generation. The songs on Jubilee speak very loudly, and they have as much to say in 2017 as they did in 1987.

Mellencamp recorded the album in late 1986 and early 1987, taking his road-tested touring band into his Belmont Mall Studio outside of Bloomington, Indiana. As usual, he worked with his long-time producer Don Gehman, who had helmed his breakthroughs during the transition from Johnny Cougar to John Cougar Mellencamp. Two crucial things had changed in the singer/songwriter’s life, one professional and the other personal. First, his longtime label Riva Records had gone out of business, leaving him briefly homeless. He soon signed with Mercury, where he remained for the next decade. Second, his uncle, Joe Mellencamp, died from lung cancer, and his passing lends the record an intense mortal resignation. While many of these songs may sound like they’re about other people, in fact they are about John Mellencamp delving into his family’s personal demons. According to a 1987 New York Times feature, he wrote first single, “Paper in Fire,” about “my family’s ingrained anger.”

By all appearances, it didn’t look like he had very much to be angry about. Mellencamp was coming off an incredible run that had established him as one of the biggest stars of the decade, alongside such well-remembered celebrities as Madonna, Whitney Houston, and Michael Jackson. Starting with 1982’s American Fool, he had devised a form of heartland rock that was unpretentious yet inventive, universal enough to appeal to anyone who heard it, yet eccentric enough to show the man behind the music. He had an easy way of rolling social and political issues into his songs, avoiding the all-caps melodrama of Springsteen, as well as the studious obscurity of R.E.M.

Sound followed setting. Mellencamp hailed from Indiana, where small towns were suffering, farmers were hurting, and regular Americans were shouldering the burden of corporate greed with nothing to show for it. In 1986, together with Willie Nelson, he co-headlined the first Farm Aid concert and testified before Congress in support of Iowa Democrat Tom Harkin’s Family Farm bill. In that same New York Times article, he explained that the giant corporations are “willing to exploit John Doe and let America become a third-world country, economically, if it benefits them.”

Throughout the 1980s, his populist mission informed songs that were based in strictly rock and pop sounds, in particular electric guitars. His catalog is littered with sharp and evocative riffs: the ominous growl of “Scarecrow,” the scene-setting rhythm of “Jack & Diane,” the horizon-expanding fanfare of “Rumble Seat.” While present on The Lonesome Jubilee, the electric guitar is primarily an accent to an arsenal of folk instruments largely foreign to MTV and the Billboard pop charts: fiddle and hammer dulcimer, autoharp and mandolin, penny whistle and accordion, dobro and lap steel. It wasn’t country, but it wasn’t folk either. Mellencamp called it a form of “gypsy rock,” rooted in his Dutch and German ancestry.

That musical palette gives The Lonesome Jubilee a special place in Mellencamp’s catalog and perhaps an even more impressive spot in pop music, more generally. Thirty years later, it might be one of the best-selling roots rock albums of all time, a bigger risk than the O Brother Where Art Thou? soundtrack; there is something brazen about Mellencamp’s embrace of these sounds, something ornery in his insistence that these traditions had a place in mainstream pop music. And yet, it still sounds like nothing else. His band deploys these instruments in unexpected ways, giving what might otherwise be guitar riffs to John Cascella’s accordion or Mike Wanchic’s dulcimer or, most often, to Lisa Germano’s fiddle. In particular, the strident urgency of “Paper in Fire” is grounded in her sharp bowing, which is industrial in concept if not in sonics: like squealing brakes on a car, or grinding gears in a factory, or perhaps a quarry saw through a block of limestone.

Mellencamp’s gypsy rock does a lot to tease out the meaning in his lyrics, whether evoking a specific regional setting in which these stories play out or simply providing an optimistic counterpart to his sometimes pessimistic worldview. If Springsteen (to whom Mellencamp is too often and unjustly compared) wrote about dreamers either escaping or succumbing to the drag of life, Mellencamp is much less romantic about the ordinary Americans who populate his songs. Rarely do they even have dreams or vistas that extend beyond the city limits. As Robert Christgau wrote in his A- review, “His protagonists don’t expect all that much and get less, but they’re not beautiful losers — they’re too ordinary, too miserable.”

When his characters reflect on their lives, they do so with a generational nostalgia that often obscures the source of their despair. “Cherry Bomb” is a gentle song about looking back to a more promising time in life. “We were young and we were improvin’,” he sings, but the implication hangs heavy in the melody: Age has brought personal stagnation. They’re just getting by, focused more on the golden past than the uncertain future. It’s easy to mistake the song for exactly what it lambasts — a rosy view of the past as paradise, when America was “great” and life was full of possibility. It’s a deceptive illusion: “That’s all that we’ve learned about happiness,” he realizes. “That’s all that we’ve learned about living.”

A politically left-of-center missive from the heart of the Reagan era, The Lonesome Jubilee requires almost no adjustment for the late 2010s. Mellencamp begins every verse in “Down and Out in Paradise” with the same refrain — “Dear Mr. President …” — before relating some poor soul’s story. It’s a ploy that recalls Woody Guthrie without being precious about the reference or, worse, deferential. Mellencamp knew Reagan wasn’t listening, just as he knows that our current president doesn’t have the capability to empathize with or understand the hard lives of the everyday Americans who inexplicably voted for him. Meanwhile, those same small towns wither, those farmers have long ago sold their fields, and regular Americans shoulder an even greater burden with less to show for it.

Perhaps even more impressive than sneaking dulcimers and autoharps into the mainstream is smuggling this brand of American fatalism into arenas and concert halls around the world. The ordinary Americans suffer while the rich stuff their wallets. Maybe you could have once argued that some things never change, but the discrepancy between 1987 and 2017 suggests that some things actually get worse. “Generations come and go, but it makes no difference,” goes the Bible verse that Mellencamp quotes in the liner notes. “Everything is unutterably weary and tiresome. No matter how much we see, we are never satisfied … So I saw that there is nothing better for men than that they should be happy in their work, for that is what they are here for, and no one can bring them back to life to enjoy what will be in the future, so let them enjoy it now.”

Maybe it’s not the most generous vision of human existence, but it’s certainly one that motivates Mellencamp’s empathy. Life is short, and we should make it as enriching as possible for as many people as possible. We should live squarely in the moment because yesterday, today, and tomorrow will all play out more or less the same. It’s a potent brand of cynicism, yet beautiful and American, too.

STREAM: Pierce Edens, ‘Stripped Down, Gussied Up’

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Artist: Pierce Edens
Hometown: Asheville, NC
Album: Stripped Down, Gussied Up
Release Date: June 2, 2017

In Their Words: “It was late spring 2016. I was home in the Blue Ridge Mountains and digging into some of the sounds I had grown up with. I had recently pulled back from traveling around and playing with a full backing band (the Dirty Work). We had developed into a big raucous rock ‘n’ roll sound, and I found myself, instead, reveling in some of the quieter folksy ballads and acoustic tunes that surrounded my childhood. Kevin Reese (lead guitar in the Dirty Work) and I started playing with those more stripped-down arrangements, just me and him. From that, songs that fit the bill started to fall out of me.

We set up and started recording in my living room and just went at it with the notion to make a demo; call it stripped-down. As it progressed, though, a tension developed between the acoustic treatments and the heavier storytelling. Darker hollows opened up behind the guitars, and Kevin and I headed down them. We were picking out our way with one foot anchored in the old-time sound and the other foot on the gas. We started dressing it up, incorporating modern treatments, pushing the noise toward country, rock ‘n’ roll. Gussying it up. The song list grew. The sound developed. Suddenly, we didn’t have a demo any longer, we landed on an album in the crossroads: Stripped Down, Gussied Up.” — Pierce Edens

Joshua James, ‘Losin Mi Mente’

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What is the dividing line between art and madness, between madness and furious love? In the most passionate creations or passionate relationships, the distinction is often blurred — perhaps dangerously so. Genius is sometimes at the expense of sanity and, when it comes to romance, to same applies: Maybe we’re “crazy” about another, unable to sleep or think clearly as long as they populate our minds. Maybe we behave unpredictably, or uncharacteristically, ashamed at the near lunacy of our actions. Maybe we become someone other than ourselves. Whether in the splatters of Jackson Pollock or an embrace between two lovers, there’s an element of unease that remains. Beauty simply cannot linger in the status quo.

Joshua James, an ethereal folk singer out of Nebraska, meditates on all this on “Losin Mi Mente,” off My Spirit Sister. A creative being, a husband, and new parent, he is acutely aware of the near maddening highs and lows that come with all of those things, especially when we factor in absence to this equation — whether it’s a spiritual distance, time on the road, or, at its most extreme, death. “When the sun goes down, I try to keep my brain from thinking,” he sings with his warm rasp, evocative of Jonathan Wilson and Ryan Bingham. “And when death comes a-dancing, I’ll be happy to see your face.” James turns “Losin Mi Mente” into a sort of pastoral rock ‘n’ roll hymnal, never afraid to add spikes of spiraling guitar or locomotive percussion. He knows that the most dangerous madness can linger deep in our own solitude and, as risky as it is to become crazy for another, sometimes love is the only kind of shock treatment that truly works.    

Melissa Etheridge: The Rock ‘n’ Soul of Self-Respect

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Melissa Etheridge is closing in on three decades since her first full-length of original material was released and, over the years, she’s represented something distinct to many different kinds of fans. Most know her for her music, with well-loved hits like “I’m the Only One” and the Grammy Award-winning “Come to My Window.” To other fans, her public battle with breast cancer and resilient spirit are an inspiration through illness and hardship. Beyond that, Etheridge’s outspoken and unwavering dedication to human rights causes and the LGBTQ community has made her an icon and an articulate voice for the causes and issues that affect people every single day.

But before Etheridge was on the national stage, it wasn’t always about her own words, songs, lyrics, and melodies. “I’ve always played other people’s music,” says Etheridge with a laugh, recalling a string of cover bands and her earliest gigs. “I learned by playing other people’s music, from country to rock ‘n’ roll to R&B.”

That affinity for the classics has been made apparent plenty of times throughout her career — check her jaw-dropping rendition of Janis Joplin’s “Piece of My Heart” for evidence that Etheridge can slay a cover song — and when she was approached by Concord Records to take a crack at the Stax catalog on her latest studio release, Etheridge jumped at the opportunity. Her forthcoming full-length album, MEmphis Rock and Soul, is a 12-song compilation that covers Stax songs originally recorded by icons like Otis Redding, the Staple Singers, and Rufus Thomas, and it zeroes in on the music that inspired her own.

“Stax, as far as I am concerned, it’s the soul, it’s the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll,” she says. “I’ve seen film of Janis Joplin watching Otis Redding in concert, and then she moves and sings just like him at Woodstock. The artists that inspired me were inspired by Stax, so this is going back to my serious roots.”

Where does one even begin when the Stax catalog is your playground? Etheridge was left with 200 tracks to choose from after she’d gone through and selected her favorites. Slowly, she picked them apart and narrowed it down to 100, then 50 songs, and finally she got down to the 20 numbers that she brought into the studio. “The main criteria was how I felt inside when I listened,” she says.

“Some of them were inspiring. I mean, ‘Try a Little Tenderness’ is great, but it’s been done a million times, and I didn’t feel like I could give anything newer to it. I tried ‘Knock on Wood,’ and that one just didn’t read, didn’t flesh out. Then, there are even a couple that no one’s heard of that I found. I just loved the beat, loved the whole thing, and thought, ‘Okay, I’m just going to put my rock ‘n’ roll spin on it.’”

The Etheridge you hear on MEmphis Rock and Soul embodies the unrestrained passion that so many artists have found in these songs before her. Maybe it’s the ghosts of Royal Studios coming back for one more encore — after all, the Memphis spot where Etheridge recorded the album was hallowed ground for the likes of Al Green and Chuck Berry, and it was started by Willie Mitchell, whose son Boo Mitchell produced the record with Etheridge.

“Without Boo, this project would not have happened,” says Etheridge. “He was the first one there and the last one to leave every day, and the respect he has for the music, for his father, for his father’s legacy, for Vaughan and Lowe … It’s a real family down there.”

Much is added to MEmphis Rock and Soul beyond Etheridge’s recognizable vocals — astute listeners will catch the sounds of the Hodges Brothers and many other Memphis music legends in the background of the soulful tracks — but Etheridge found herself taking on greater roles than she’d bargained for, too. Take the enthusiastic “Hold On, I’m Coming” — the first single from the forthcoming album and one of her favorite numbers from the compilation. “For the longest time, I was looking for someone to sing it with me. I kept thinking, ‘It’s a duet. It’s a duet. I’m going to ask this person, that person,’” she says. Things didn’t pan out, but she brought the song into the studio on one of the final days of recording. “I thought, ‘Well, I’m just going to put the pedal to the metal and just hit this thing as hard as I can. Make it as rock.’”

Jumping into the recognizable number by herself, Etheridge railed through the song with all of the noisy edge she’d hoped for, zeroing in on her own unique take on the song while preserving the energy that made it a hit in the first place. The vocal that made the final mix was the live one they recorded right then in the studio, and you can hear Etheridge beam as she relives the recording process. “It was just such a great experience, with these musicians there. They’ve seen so much. They’ve played on so much,” she says. “They took me in. I have such great respect and love for all of them.”

Respect comes up a lot in conversation with Etheridge, but her rendition of the Staple Singers’ “Respect Yourself” might be the most soulful embodiment of the virtue.

“I decided to go into Respect Yourself and take the heart of the meaning, and the purpose behind the song,” she says, citing Black Lives Matter and the nationwide push for change and equality as catalysts for her lyrical direction. She called fellow songwriter Priscilla Renee with the intention of maintaining the sense of urgency and the call to action that inspired so many in the ‘70s, but modifying the original lyrics for today’s social and political climate. With the weight of her activism to guide her, Etheridge makes for a compelling voice behind so many numbers that served as a soundtrack for the nation’s civil rights movement.

“I’m 55 years old, and I’ve seen some things,” she says. “I do understand one thing, and that is that I can’t change the world, or I can’t ask the world to change, unless I come from a place inside myself. I can’t ask for respect from the world unless I respect myself. I can’t ask for the world to love unless I love myself. When I do — when I love myself, when I have a deep respect for myself as a human being and as a member of society, when I respect who I am truthfully — every inch of me — then I can truly look at my neighbor with respect, and they will see what respect is. They will see it in me.”

On MEmphis Rock and Soul, Etheridge owns this mantra with a reverence for the musicians who came before her that reveals itself in her respect for her own tastes, interpretations, and talents. It’s easy to belabor the places we’d like to see a bit more respect — on the Internet, in the schoolyard, on the political stage — but it’s got to start somewhere. Why not with a little rock ‘n’ soul?

 

Enjoy thoughtful female singer/songwriters? Read our Artist of the Month feature on Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Lede illustration by Cat Ferraz.

Rock ‘n’ Roll Isn’t Dead: A Conversation with Black Joe Lewis

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The acronym, as unsexy of a word it might be, has been the base of hundreds of great songs: Michael Jackson’s “P.Y.T,” Kanye West and Jay-Z’s “H.A.M,” Grand Funk Railroad’s “T.N.U.C.” Part of the mystique is often figuring out what the hell those letters actually stand for and why they’re even important to begin with. Or, sometimes, it’s because the result is simply N.S.F.W. (not safe for work). “PTP,” from Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears‘ new LP, Backlash, is a little bit of all of that. The track, deliciously raucous with unpredictable spirals of guitar and crunched aggression, stands for “Power to the Pussy,” a bit of a calling card he picked up from his cousin Tiffany. It’s a chant about female sexual freedom that seems even more topical in the Trump era, with pink pussy hats marching everywhere from Main Street America to Washington, D.C. There’s a lot of forecasting on Backlash, the band’s fourth album, which even has some Russian lettering on the album art (a covert way to mention, in another language, that he’s back with the Honeybears).

Lewis isn’t a spy for the Kremlin, but he is quite good at taking elements of American sonic lore — classic soul, R&B, and blues — and mixing them with full-throttle rock ‘n’ roll. Though some might tag him “throwback,” it’s really anything but: The urgent grooves of “Sexual Tension,” the blast of horns that ends “Lips of a Loser,” and the punk energy of “Shadow People” are all as modern as anyone who might choose a Big Muff over synth keys.

Backlash is the Austin-based Lewis’s first album in three-and-a-half years — the longest break of his recording career, and a product mostly of a careful, thoughtful process that took a little longer than the normal recording cycle tends to allow.

Backlash has an incredibly strong rock ‘n’ roll spirit, beneath all of the soul references. Does it bother you to constantly be referred to as throwback?

It doesn’t bother me really. You have to have a way to classify stuff. That’s just what people do. I’m more annoyed with how, nowadays, people won’t find out about you unless they’re told by a blog that it’s something good versus actually checking it out. It’s gotten so cheapened.

Do you feel like rock ‘n’ roll, itself, gets a fair shake in the scheme of things? And on those blogs?

In popular music, it’s tougher: Rock ‘n’ roll is just not big anymore. And I feel like, back in the day, you had to go to the record store and actually check shit out, to see if you liked it. There was a word of mouth, but now people need to be told.

So is the live show even more essential these days because of that?

Yeah, with the way that stuff is now, it’s the best way to get the music out. You gotta prove the hype versus what you actually are.

These days, a lot of soul music doesn’t always fall under the umbrella of “Americana,” maybe limiting how much the music is found from those very audiences. Do you think soul and R&B should have more of a table in Americana?

Yeah, dude, for sure. I think blues is; but I would say Americana is traditional American music, if you ask me. And this is classic stuff.

You’ve been outspoken on your Twitter page about the Trump administration. Do you think artists have an obligation to speak out on social and political issues?

I try to keep politics to a minimum because I feel like people want to hear me play music. I think it’s better to say things through your music. Social media is not real life, and I don’t think you can judge a person on social media. I put crazy shit up. But I can’t stand Trump. I fucking hate him and I don’t feel like he’s making people feel like they are welcome in this country. He’s spreading the hate.

Do you think all the resistance and reaction to Trump’s reign will breed music that’s activist at its core?

Yeah, I hope he’ll spark a wave, like in the ’70s or ’80s with angry punk rock stuff. Or the ’60s — you had war and all that shit inspiring music. We’ll see what the youth has, what they’re going to say.

Do you think you’ll react politically in your music?

We’ll see. I think eventually. I try to let the songs go where they want to go, and there will probably be a song.

There’s some Russian lettering on the cover art of Backlash. You sure you’re not trying to send a message to Putin?

I did that before that shit even happened. It’s kind of crazy. That was the Honeybears thing. We tried to drop the name and everyone got confused. I figured, if I had to put the name [of the band] on there, it might as well look cool. People just don’t like to do the research, I don’t think. It was always the same band, but different dudes. It’s kind of weird that stuff is like that now. It blows.

“Power to the Pussy” could be an anthem from the Women’s March, so that’s probably more evidence that you aren’t spying for Russia.

It’s the power of the pussy, dude! My cousin coined the term. It kind of falls into what’s going on — we’ll see if I get it to be in the next march.

A grand marshal role, maybe?

[Laughs] Yeah! We’ll see what’s up.

Where did the phrase “Flash Eyed,” the album’s opener, come from?

That’s from Amos Tutuola, a Nigerian folk dude. He has a story about being lost in a jungle with all these different ghosts and one is “flash-eyed.”

It seems like you take inspiration from all kinds of places — Nigerian folk stories, your cousin, and everything in between.

I take inspiration from life, I guess. I like to read, and I’ll read a cool story about someone and go with that. Life in general — anything I see around me — it ends up coming out in the songwriting. I like having a cleaner vocal sound so you can understand what’s going on lyrically.

What are you reading right now? Do you feel like the value of literature has decreased in the social media era?

Overall, people read less with all the stuff that we have out there, though not artists, I don’t think. I’m reading [Russian writer] Maxim Gorky. I’ve been reading all his stuff lately. One’s about this spoiled rich dude, the Russian version of There Will Be Blood. The kid grows up and is an asshole.

Like Trump?

[Laughs] Kinda. Yeah.

WATCH: Quiet Life, ‘Finally Back’

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Artist: Quiet Life
Hometown: formerly Portland, OR
Song: “Finally Back”
Album: Foggy
Label: Strange Light Records

In Their Words: “‘Finally Back’ is a typical rock song — no frills, just a bit of loud guitar and words about driving home with a six-pack. We met Bill Antonucci years ago, when he was working for Paste and Pitchfork. We were happy to have him behind the lens documenting the first show of our month-long tour. He did a great job showing some behind-the-scenes things. Rough Trade is a great club, too. Looking forward to getting back there.” — Sean W. Spellman

Photo credit: E Ryan McMackin

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.

BGS Class of 2016: Books

Posted on by Editor

Yes, indeed, this was a great year for music (just check out our stacked 2016 albums list) and, luckily for all the bibliophiles out there, it was also a great year for music books. Because there's nothing better than reading a good book while your favorite music plays, we've rounded up a few of our favorite books from the past year. From Whisperin' Bill Anderson's life story to a memoir from the one and only Bruce Springsteen, there's something here for everyone.

Just Around Midnight: Rock and Roll and the Racial Imagination by Jack Hamilton

Slate writer and University of Virginia at Arlington professor Jack Hamilton tackles the complex relationship between race and rock 'n' roll in the 1960s in this new book. It's an essential addition to the rock 'n' roll history canon that covers new, much-needed ground.

Slim Harpo: Blues King Bee of Baton Rouge by Martin Hawkins

Slim Harpo forever altered the culture of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with his own take on blues music. The only available biography about Harpo, this book preserves the legacy of one of the genre's most important artists.

Whisperin' Bill Anderson: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music by Bill Anderson and Peter Cooper

Whisperin' Bill Anderson is one of the most celebrated songwriters in country music, with hits for everyone from Ray Price to Eddy Arnold. In this autobiography — written in tandem with music writer Peter Cooper — Anderson offers a behind-the-scenes look at Music Row, his storied career, and the difficulties he faced as the music industry evolved.

Born to Run by Bruce Springsteen

An autobiography from the Boss … need we say more? 

Anatomy of a Song: the Oral History of 45 Iconic Hits That Changed Rock, R&B, and Pop by Marc Myers

"Proud Mary," "Carey," "Mercedes Benz," and 42 other legendary songs get the oral history treatment in this anthology from Wall Street Journal columnist Marc Myers. It's a fascinating read for anyone, but should be especially so for anyone hoping to write the next classic song.

Photo credit: Abee5 via Foter.com / CC BY.

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Andrew Leahey’s Rockin’ Tees

Posted on by Editor

“Your clothes are an extension of personality … they allow you to broadcast who you are, what you believe in, what you want, and so on, which basically allows you to have a conversation with the outside world before you even open your mouth.”

Since accepting a job at a music site that came with a loose dress code nearly a decade ago, not much has changed about Andrew Leahey’s style. You’ll catch him any day in some combination of an old concert tee, snug jeans, and boots. These days, his look is completed by his full beard and long, '70s locks. Duane Allman vibes all the way. He has stuck with what he loves — he knows it works (and we know it works). So, I don’t think he’ll be changing it anytime soon.

For Andrew, it all starts with the right concert tee. They connect us to a time period — a favorite song, album, or musician — ultimately connecting us to a feeling. Leahey enjoys sharing his interests through style, giving people a view into his personality they may not have seen otherwise. Some of his favorite old concert tees are Tom Petty, Bruce Springsteen, and Aerosmith. If you know his music, you know this makes perfect sense. He’s sifted through racks on the road, as well as his go-to vintage spots in Nashville, Tennessee, over the years, keeping his eyes peeled for the right selections and it’s totally paid off. His collection of ringers, raglans, baseball, and concert tees would make anyone jealous. What I mean to say is, his collection makes me jealous.

Andrew effortlessly swings his vintage rock 'n’ roll look from a chill home and travel attire to a solid stage look with minimal changes. Black or brown cowboy boots? Sunnies, blazer, denim jacket? No jacket? Cords or denim jeans? You get the point. With the swap of one or two items his look transitions for whatever comes next. An added bonus: This also helps keep the suitcase small.

Home

When spending time off the road and hanging around the house, Andrew pairs a tee with his favorite flared, faded green cords and brown boots. I love that he rocks a pair of cords. I haven’t done that since middle school! Seeing him stylin’ in cords immediately takes me back to the classroom and the sound of my classmates walking around. You know, that zip! zip! sound made with each stride.

Travel

When it comes to long tour drives, without a guaranteed pit-stop at the hotel before his next gig, having something that is comfortable, stylish, and an easy transition is a must. Andrew rides in comfortable dark denim, black cowboy boots, baseball concert tee, and sunnies. An outfit he can easily roll out of the van, throw on a button up (or a blazer) and be show-ready.

Show

No stiff, starch collars here — Andrew still rolls in his vintage tees for the show, throwing on a light, plaid button-up (worn unbuttoned), denim, and black cowboy boots. I definitely see pieces of his style icons — Susanna Hoffs and Tom Petty (pre-tophat) — shining through.

I love how simple Andrew keeps it. A laid-back, worn-in, rock 'n' roll style that tells a piece of his story. Check out his recently released Skyline in Central Time, if you haven't already.

 

For more retro-classic style tips, check out our feature on Reuben Bidez.