Books, Pics and Blues

Why David Rovics IS the mainstream

2011-05-07T17:57:00.001-07:00

On his recent UK tour, American singer song-writer David Rovics was good enough to speak with Books, Pics and Blues about his new album, how Woody Guthrie should have edited his songs and why he's historically in the mainstream.

How would you describe what you do?

I’m basically just a singer songwriter but it’s just that most of the songs I write are about current events and historical events. Because of the influence of the music industry over the past century or so we think of the bardic tradition as being a novelty now and the tradition of writing songs about nothing but love and partying and sex as being normal. So people tend to call what I do ‘protest music’ but I prefer to turn it around and say I’m just a singer songwriter and the music industry is promoting sex music. Because that’s what the situation is if you look at it in the broader historical context.

The music industry has only been around for a century but music has been around for much, much longer. So what I’m doing is actually in the mainstream of the tradition of songwriting. Around the world there is this tradition of writing songs and singing songs about current events. In Europe in the middle ages they were called the troubadours but they have different names in different places and it’s a long, long tradition all over the world.

Is that division between ‘ordinary music’ and politically engaged singer-songwriters true everywhere or is it a geographical phenomenon?

Pretty much everywhere in the world there is this dichotomy between the industry and political types. In places like Latin America and the Arab world where you have a lot more discontent than you have in Europe or North America and you have a mass movement tradition of various kinds then there’s a blending there. There’s a big Arabic pop music industry for example, and in the pop music industry it’s all about “habibi” which is like “my darling”, same as in Europe or north America. But then there’re other musicians, like Sheikh Imam, and these people are gods and goddesses and are known by anybody who speaks Arabic.

The same’s true in Latin America, they have a pop music industry where they emphasise the same party songs but everybody also knows Silvio Rodriguez and Pablo Milanez and Mercedez Sousa , these people are totally political and insanely popular. I don’t know if they go to the same award ceremonies as the pop musicians but they’re hugely popular and they sell a lot of records.

Even here in Britain you get people like Billy Bragg who are quite well known and very political. I don’t know if anyone in Europe has the same status as Silvio Rodriguez but I think that’s because the conditions in Europe are a lot more comfortable.

Do you have a favourite place to perform?

It’s always wherever there’s a big protest, that’s my favourite place to perform.

Aside from that I don’t really have a favourite place, there are a lot of great places to play. My less favourite places to play are where the audiences don’t speak fluent English because there’s nothing quite like your audience understanding you.

I used to enjoy performing in front of American audiences because they’d get all of the little cultural references I’d make but after years of touring in Europe I don’t feel that way anymore. I wouldn’t say I understand British humour but over the years I’ve come to understand it more. I can now make jokes that Americans wouldn’t understand but British people would laugh at and that’s a neat thing.

How has Obama changed things in the US?

Definitely for most people in the US, Obama’s election was seen as a very therapeutic thing. I think that one little event had a tremendous impact in terms of healing of the divide of the legacy of slavery. For black Americans to know tens of millions of white Americans voted for a black man helped a lot of people realise that white people are not all racists. But it didn’t solve the problem of the division of class in the US, there is still a massive illiterate underclass that is the continued legacy of slavery and hasn’t been addressed by any government since the abolition of slavery.

Is it harder to write songs about him than it was about Bush?

Yeah, because there are so many complicated factors, mainly the fact that he’s eloquent. His eloquence is a kind of vague eloquence where he doesn’t like to get too specific about things with good reason, because he’s not going to deliver any of the things he talks about and he knows it. It was easier to write songs about Bush because he was such an idiot. Somebody in his administration actually called the war in Iraq ‘Operation Iraqi Liberation, O.I.L.’ without realising the acronym they had just spelled. That’s the sort of thing you couldn’t imagine the Obama administration doing. Bush wrote the satire for you, you just had to make it rhyme.

When you’re songwriting do you begin with an idea and look for a tune or the other way around?

It’s always about the concept first. If there’s something I want to write about then I’ll be thinking about it, reading about it. Usually it will require reading about it because it’s not like I’m often writing about something I’ve just witnessed, it’s usually happened somewhere I’m not. So then I’ll think about what will be a good angle for this song, what will represent the essence here in a line or two? Often I create a chorus around that and once there’s a chorus or a concept then the words just fall into place.

The hardest part is coming up with a concept because there’s so many different ways you can tell a story. But it’s not going to work as a song unless you have a really fitting melody that makes it come alive because usually songs are not poems and they don’t work as poems, you have to have good music to go along with it. I’ve written a lot of lyrics that I’ve never come up with music that I was satisfied with. Sometimes you just know when you’ve got the music, it just clicks, and other times I never really know when it’s done.

Do you see your politics and your music as separate?

I’d definitely write about things I don’t believe in because it makes a good story. But then some songs I’m writing from a perspective of somebody who did something and people can think I’m condoning everything that person did or not condoning it. I don’t say so in the song, that’s not for me to do because what I’m doing when I’m writing a song from a certain perspective is trying to be true to that person and that perspective without bringing in my own moral judgement on the person I’m writing about. I think it’s better to just write from someone’s perspective and let people draw the conclusions they want to from that.

I’ve written a couple of songs from the point of view of suicide bombers and I think it would ruin the song if I added a verse at the end saying I don’t condone suicide bombing but I understand why somebody would do it. Woody Guthrie did that a lot. I think Woody Guthrie’s brilliant but I think a lot of his songs would be better without the last verse because the last verse is when he gets all moralising.

I guess my perspective comes through when I’m writing based on what I choose to emphasise or not. I would write a song from the perspective of a fascist but I think in the course of the song it would become clear that this guy is very damaged and that’s why he’s acting that way. The important thing is for people to understand each other not necessarily to agree with each other.

What does the new album sound like?

A lot of it is pretty rock n roll, like rock ballads. Most of the songs involve drums, bass, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, vocals so it’s a real full sound. We’ve got great musicians, oh and there’s some fiddle and keyboard in there.

If your sound is a solo guitar and voice thing there’s a lot of power and urgency to that arrangement and that works especially well in concert. But on a CD when people are talking and listening, they won’t hear the guitar and I’m sure you’ve had the experience where you’re listening to a singer songwriter in the car and it sounds shit because you can’t really hear the voice and maybe you can hear the top string of the guitar and the rest of him blends in with the engine noise. With a band you can listen to it and really listen to it or as background noise.

I just love the arrangement; we went for almost cliché sounds for different songs. I’m a better anarchist than you is punk rock, easily recognisable old school punk rock. We were trying to emulate that 1980s London sound. Then on Burn it down we were trying to emulate that South African band that played with Paul Simon on Graceland.

Why is it a web-only release?

It’s certainly one of the best studio recordings I’ve ever done and it was expensive. Normally if you’re spending thousands of dollars on a studio and great musicians you put it out on a CD but I thought I’d put it up on the web, but not where I put the rest of my stuff.

Most of my stuff is up on soundclick and people can just click and download anything they want but this one is up only through my website. So in order to get to it people have to fill out a little form and the form involves required fields, such as their email address. Basically anyone who wants to get my CD for free has to get onto my email list. I hope that’s not too annoying, hopefully anyone who wants to download an album from me doesn’t mind hearing from me every few weeks.

The main thing was that I have millions of songs downloaded and streamed but only 8000 people on my email list and I think I could have bigger audiences if people knew where I was playing. Also people have to pledge something for the album. They can donate zero but I’ve found people that would normally download songs for free, when faced with that zero think “actually I can probably afford $5 or whatever” and that adds up. I wouldn’t say this will replace CDs but I think there’s real value in having a web only release like this because there’s various way you can use that to your advantage as a musician.

What’s the biggest political problem in the world?

There are so many problems you could point to that are kind of obvious for a lot of people, like climate change or the danger of nuclear power. But ultimately the biggest problem for humanity is, and you can put it two ways, either ‘a lack of democracy’ or ‘the class divide’. I think they go hand in hand because any society that has done away with the class divide is highly democratic.

It’s a very insidious thing capitalism, it does provide a lot of wealth and it’s not like a dictatorship where only a few benefit, there is a lot of meritocracy in capitalism and people can work their way up because it’s a fluid system and it’s very productive. It also has these massive downsides, like if you’re too poor to fit into the economic system then you don’t matter, also there’s no way of taking into account the environmental costs of what you’re doing so the system is designed to make everybody kill themselves. If we continue on the capitalist model that’s where we’re all headed, we’ll just destroy everything.

It’s like being a speed addict and only thinking about speed as something that will cause you to not fall asleep at the wheel and get where you’re going. If you think of it that way it’s an entirely positive thing but if you don’t factor in the cost of your health then that’s a big problem. I think capitalism is our biggest problem and we need some form of democratic socialism, that’s the solution: grassroots control of our lives and an economic model that takes into account reality rather than this stock market fantasy.

So what’s the opposite, what gives you the most hope?

What gives me immense, immense hope for the future of humanity is seeing the way the movements built and overthrew two governments in Tunisia and Egypt in the last few weeks. Also the really very, very significant revolutions and other developments that have been happening in Latin America, especially over the last 13 years.

A lot of what I learned about the world came from reading Noam Chomsky and he was writing, long before it was popular, about the IMF and the World Bank and the kind of impact they had on Latin America and other countries in the world. Coming out of that background and the anti-capitalist movement of the late 90s, the power of the IMF and the World Bank was immense. Now they’re powerless in terms of Latin America. They have no influence. That’s tremendous.

All these protests we had about hauling the IMF out of Latin America, we didn’t succeed necessarily but the people of Latin America succeeded. They’re sovereign for the first time in 500 years, they’re deciding their own fate for the first time in 500 years, and it’s just in the past decade that these movements have actually come to power: Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, that’s what gives me a lot of hope.

David Rovic's radio show

2010-09-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Just discovered that Mr David Rovics has an online weekly radio show. You can listen to it at: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/davidrovics

For those who don't know David Rovics, he's an amazing folk/bluegrass singer-songwriter. I don't think it's any exaggeration to say he's the natural heir to people like Woody Guthrie (not that Woody would have wanted an heir I'm sure). I've been meaning to post something about David Rovics for a while, so watch this space, I'm sure I might soon.

The Last Days of Something Special

2010-08-23T05:25:00.000-07:00

Standing outside, the Last Days of Decadence looks like any one of the pubs and bars on Shoreditch High Street. But step across the threshold and you enter the glamorously debauched world of a Prohibition-era Speakeasy.

The decor is authentically 1920s, and the drinks too match. A handful of girls at the bar are decked out in full ‘flapper’ outfits, accompanied by boyfriends sporting suspenders and trilbies, although most are uniformed in jeans and t-shirts. Tonight’s entertainment isn’t rigidly anachronistic either, the theme taking second place to putting on a damn good show.

Our compere for the evening is a flamboyantly camp vaudeville act, who sings and baits the crowd in a sequined Union Jack waistcoat. He introduces a Barbarella-themed cabaret dancer and a stand up magician who shocks the audience as frequently as he entertains. Then the act I’m here to see.

Beth and the Black Cat Bones make an understated entrance to the stage. Refreshingly full of energy they start in fifth gear, belting out their 50s-inspired Blues. Lead Vocalist, the eponymous Beth, has a tight leash on her extensive range, delivering the sort of formidable female voice that characterised Motown.

Rhythm is the essential component of anything you want people to dance to and the Black Cat Bones have that covered. The sturdy drums and bass, played by Charles Benfield and Rob Pokorny, are joined by Jess, as rhythm guitarist, for most of the songs. But when she hits her cue, Jess breaks into wild solos, inspiring envy in the heart of every guitar owner in the room. Having earned the nickname ‘B B Queen’, she never strays into indulgence.

Tonight is Jess’ last night, not that it shows. When they finish their set, the audience won’t let them. Often the encore is merely a convention, with Beth and the Black Cat Bones it’s the only way the crowd can satisfy their cravings.

The Last Days of Decadence is a fantastic venue for an act with the originality of Beth and the Black Cat Bones. Velvet curtains on the stage, mirrors on the walls and martinis on the bar remind you that going to see band should feel this indulgent.

All photos by James Munday, for more of the night click here.

For a taste of the magic that was the old Beth and the Black Cat Bones line up, their EP 'Off to the Moon' is available now. For more information or dates of gigs with their new line up, go to www.myspace.com/bethandtheblackcatbones

There's cabaret every Saturday at the Last Days of Decadence and most of it's pretty awesome.

24 Pesos - Busted Broken and Blue

2010-08-13T09:24:00.000-07:00

So you're a self-respecting bluesman who wants to stick on a record and get dancing, what do you do? You invest in a copy of the new album from London three-piece 24 Pesos.

The album is a mix of Beastie Boys delivery, guitar picking that it's a crime not to dance to and lyrical references name-checking the great and good of Blues. Stylistically it flits from acousitcally mournful, dipping a toe over the border with Country, to spitting rhymes like old-school hiphop.

For those afeard that this may be too much experimentation, be like a double bass and fret not. The songs are consistently danceable tales of girls and partying, from the opening track Maxwell Street to the closing ode to the fuller-figured woman, Neckbones and Gumbo.

This album is well worth seeking out and suffers from only one major flaw, it isn't as good as seeing 24 Pesos live.

Stompin' Dave's Electric Band - Mystery Train

2010-07-31T08:19:00.000-07:00

Stompin’ Dave Allen is one of the hardest gigging musicians in British blues (if you don’t believe me check out his tour dates) and he never fails to entertain. Now’s no exception as Stompin’ Dave’s Electric Band release their latest album Mystery Train.

As an artist, Stompin’ Dave is hard to define; he sounds perfectly suited to being a solo acoustic performer, but equally so as the front-man for this electrified three-piece. He mostly tours in the UK’s South East but his voice is pure Americana.

The new album is in keeping with that spirit of ambiguity, as Dave shifts from whooping like Jerry-Lee Lewis amid mad piano solos on I’m On Fire to sounding like a 60 year old Detroit bluesman on Mean Sad World. This mix of styles keeps a tight hold on you as the album switches between well known classics and self-penned originals which sound so much like classics that they’ll have you questioning whether or not Stompin’ Dave invented the blues.

Backed by Graham Bundy on drums and Chris Lonergan, playing bass so rhythmically you could set your watch to it, Stompin’ Dave serves up frantic lead guitar and measured, soulful piano with deft skill. The result is an album that not only sounds like it features a host of blues legends, but also sounds as fresh as music did when they were writing it.

Mystery Train is out soon, available from www.stompinstore.com

How to feel blue, part 1

2010-07-22T12:48:00.000-07:00

I’ve had a couple of friends talk to me about getting into the Blues lately and the one thing they all complain about how hard it is. It’s a bizarre contradiction; most Blues fans can talk passionately about their favourite artists and tracks but finding a way into the genre is almost impossible.

It might have something to do with the fact that most music stores lump Blues in with ‘World Music’, ‘Easy Listening’ or, if they’re especially small/apathetic, ‘Other’. It might also have something to do with the glut of middle aged, white Blues-accountants who’ll dismiss you quick as you can say Robert Johnson for not having the latest Scorsese box-set pre-ordered.

But fret no longer new-comers. In my on-going quest to talk about the music I love until a court order is taken out against me, I’ve prepared the following must have intro to the Blues.

Son House – Death Letter

Son House will always hold a place in my heart. Robert Johnson might get the credit for being the quintessential Bluesman but an early recording of this song graced the Library of Congress archives before he was even born. He released 21 albums over the course of his long, strangely clean-lived life. Most of these were recorded live in the traditional Delta Blues style.

The song is a typically Son House mix of Christian soul-searching and emotive, rhythmic slide guitar. It also features that fine Blues staple: the dead true love.

Fleetwood Mac – Coming Home

Rumours might be the best selling album of all time but FM’s earlier, perhaps less well-titled album, The Pious Bird of Good Omen is where the true Blues gems can be found. From the distorted electric slide intro and right through its distorted twelve bar blues Coming Home is 2 minutes, 38 seconds of twenty four carat Blue.

Rory Gallagher – I’m Not Surprised

Rory Gallagher is, in this humble writer’s opinion, the greatest electric guitarist the world has known, in any genre. Having said that, I couldn’t decide between songs for just one to recommend, Bad Penny is great, so are Loan Shark Blues and Tattoo’d Lady. I decided that as his back catalogue was so flawless I’d recommend one of his more unusual songs.

I’m Not Surprised is genuinely tender. It tell the familiar story of a man wronged by his woman to a backing of honky-tonk piano and acoustic guitar. Unlike most of the 1970s Blues, this is something you can put on and relax to... although it is equally at home played on an old jukebox in a smoky bar room.

So that’s it for now. Go, listen, enjoy, then tell your friends about these great songs. I hope I’ve given you a range of styles. These are three of the greatest songs ever written. However, even as I write that another twenty spring to mind, so I dare say there’ll be a part 2. The only question now is what would you have on your list?

A brand new hit of old fashioned Blues

2010-07-03T09:20:00.000-07:00

Every musical genre has its clichés. There are as few heavy metal tracks about unicorns as there are Rap songs about respecting women and learning to appreciate what little you’ve got. Blues certainly isn’t an exception to this rule as armies of middle aged, white Englishmen will attest, taking to the stage at open mic blues nights to sing about “goin’ down to the roadhouse” and how their baby has done gone left them.

All of this makes me very happy that the new Eric Street Band album is soon to be released on Southside Music.

For those unfamiliar with the other E-Street Band, their last album, the Journey, was a masterpiece of dirty bottle-neck slide guitar and lyrical originality. Their soon-to-be released offering, titled the Drifter, ploughs the same whiskey-soaked furrow.

The essence of good ol’ fashioned blues is still there, songs about drinking, dancing and one stands, usually followed by early mornings on the road out of town, are all there. What Eric Street Band does is to own these stories. They aren’t singing about a 1920s black American riding the roads, they’re singing about four old British guys doing it, and that truth makes the image that much stronger.

It helps that the band is fronted by Denis Siggery, a man whose voice is equal parts Rod Stewart, Roger Daltry and a 72 hour bourbon binge, and that he’s supported by three of the most competent Blues musicians in Britain. But that’s no reason why bands with healthy lungs and livers shouldn’t learn a lot from this.

The rest of us, we just get the joy of listening to it.

Tour dates and albums available at www.ericstreetband.com

Happy Birthday Howlin' Wolf

2010-06-14T02:09:00.000-07:00

This past week saw the birthday of electric Blues legend Howlin' Wolf. Here's a little taster, or possibly an old reminder, of the great man's work.

The untold story of Bobbie McGee

2010-06-07T10:01:00.000-07:00

“feeling good was easy when Bobbie sang the blues” Me and Bobbie McGee – Kris Kristofferson

It’s a frequent truism in Blues music that artists are often best known by others’ work. Son House is the guy Robert Johnson played with as a boy, Hendrix is best known for covering a Dylan song and Bobbie McGee is the subject of a croon by Kris Kristofferson or Grateful Dead. The truth about Bobbie McGee, however is far more interesting.

One of the most interesting characters of the American Folk revival, Bobbie McGee was never called on by the same fame that went knocking for Dylan, Donovan or Janis Joplin. Yet she undoubtedly influenced a generation of artists and did more for the ‘protest song’ than many who are better known. The proof of that lies in her legend which pops up in works for Richard Berman to Kat Walker to Janis Joplin, as well as those names that have already graced this page.

For those not familiar, Bobbie was a singer songwriter whose work falls into the genre-chasm of one person alone with their guitar. Her work shows clear signs of traditional blues and folk influences. Her stand alone album, Songs for Working Women, features versions of the staple tracks Bread and Roses and the Death of Mother Jones.

Yet her work stands out from the looming crowd of her contemporaries. There is a definitely Country sound to her songs, both musically and in the way they engage with contemporary issues. Her version of Union Maid, a song made famous by Woody Guthrie, opens with a Texas-fried slice of pedal steel but ends with a surprising openness on the subject of equal pay for women.

Writing openly confrontational lyrics, as Bobbie did, was incredibly brave at a time when Feminism had been sitting in the shadow of everything from the Black Civil Rights movement, through opposition to Vietnam to plain old indifference. Many of the issues she sang about are still being fought today and it’s impressive to think she was prepared to raise them as a performer in a time when politically active female singers were unheard of and men controlled the record industry.

The weight of the odds stacked against Bobbie’s work may be one of the reasons it’s so hard to find these days. Her one album is out of print and she fails to even have a Wikipedia page, seemingly the measure of cultural significance. With the rise of new media for music, the balance is being restored and both Amazon and the internet radio Spotify now hold MP3 copies of her album. So go, listen and enjoy the work of a woman who was as talented as she is unheard of.

A timeless Kind of Blue

2010-05-28T07:55:00.000-07:00

A new two part collaboration between the Kind of Blue Sextet and Paul Lashmar is shedding an unexpected new light on Miles Davis' seminal album Kind of Blue.

Long recognised as one of , if not the most important Jazz albums of all time, Kind of Blue has been examined from enough angles to make a nun blush. Quadruple Platinum selling, placed 12th in Rolling Stone's top 500 albums of all time and inspiration for everyone from James Brown to Pink Floyd. Yet against these odds, Brunel University lecturer Paul Lashmar has teamed up with a specially arranged band to offer a take on the album that is both new and surprisingly timeless.

Part of the Brunel University Jazz Outreach Project, which aims to make Jazz more accessible, the show begins with a history that finishes at the album being cut. Perhaps surprisingly, this evening of Jazz and lectures is likely to appeal to hipcats and square Jazz novices alike.

At the core of the show, titled simply Kind of Blue: Homage to Miles Davis, is a live performance of the album. This is delivered, in its entirety, by a band of the highest calibre musicians under the leadership of veteran Band Leader Frank Griffith. If arranging and orchestrating a band to replicate the sound of the two Manhattan recording sessions that created Kind of Blue weren't enough, Griffith also plays an active part in the first half of the show.

Lashmar's introduction to the scene that first created Miles Davis then Kind of Blue avoids indulgence at every step. No mean feat from a man who is visibly passionate about his subject. Key points on the road are expounded, explained and then it's off to the next stop. Punctuation in this whistlestop tour are provided by Griffith, who, along with his band, provide musical examples which make real every place, era and mood.

It looks likely that this show will be a small part of the Brunel University Jazz Outreach Project. If it's anything to go by, they will no doubt be a flawless juggling of musical history and toe-tapping music. And it should go without saying that if you don't own the album, you should daddy-o.

Where to feel blue this summer

2010-05-26T05:34:00.000-07:00

As I sit down to write this the air is full of the warm smells of charred flesh on BBQs and the equally burnt meat on the fat, red Englishmen manning them. If that wasn't enough, the site of novelty aprons and the sound of overly eager ice cream men sing the praises for the time of year: Summer might just be here.

Putting aside that sensual feast, what does British Summertime mean? Festivals. But where does the committed Blues peg their tent to get the most of this year's musical offerings?

Glastonbury

Glasto does a good line in returning artists, their performers being just as loyal as their patrons. This year Seasick Steve returns to capitalise on last year's performances, no doubt with his goodybag full of homemade instruments. Joining him are the Skiffle Punk Blues Folkies Hobo Jones and the Junkyard Dogs and Alabama 3, a band who can be utterly relied on to be both wasted and entertaining.

Seth Lakeman provides his own brand of heartache-twinged folk and smouldering good looks, a trade that Jackson Browne has been plying for years and continues to do so. At the other end of the spectrum, flying the flag for old, haggard and classic are the country legend Willy Nelson and king of the New Orleans Jazz scene Dr John.

Newer acts gracing this years festival are Frank Turner, The King Blues and the comedian Adrian Edmondson performing with his band The Bad Shepherds.

And if all that lot doesn't sink your battleship, then dance your socks off to John Allen and The Blues Band.

Carling Weekend

Known for satisfying the heavier, more mosh-heavy brand of music, Carling's Reading and Leeds festivals still manage to hold their ends up for some quality Blues.

Frank Turner and The King Blues both make appearances here, as well as at a few other major festivals. Whilst neither have the shot-to-stardom-after-50-years fame of someone like Seasick Steve, both are as entertaining as a barrel full of drunken chimps. The end result of said barrel would probably be a mixture of Blood or Whiskey, which incidentally is the name of an irish folk-punk act with bluesy edges playing this year's festival (there would be some chimp carcasses too, but unfortunately there isn't an act called that).

Perhaps the biggest name on Carling's line-up are the Brighton-based Mumford & Sons, whose stock in trade is a mixture of folk instrumentation, timeless fashion and god-questioning lyrics so beyond their years you'd find it hard to believe Lenoard Cohen hadn't written them. You'll dance, you'll cry, you'll stay near the front of the stage too long and will get punched by a Slayer fan.

Latitude

Known for gracing the party season with a middle-class, middle-aged combo of books, theatre and just a little music, Latitude provides a more mature festival. This doesn't stop them playing host to Frank Turner and Mumford & Sons too. Nor does it stand in their way of clearing a stage for the suprisingly dark musical stylings of Richard Hawley. The ex-Pulp and Longpigs member uses his acoutic six-string and a mellower than mellow voice to captivate an audience and shouldn't be missed.

For fans of 60s and 70s Soul, Jonathan Jermiah will hold the floor at the Word Arena on the Friday. His mix of Blues-Soul is served acoustically on a bed of orchestral strings with the faintest garnish of wise and heartfelt lyrics.

So whether you want to dance, dwell or just enjoy yourself, there's big Blues on offer at even the most mainstream festivals this summer.

"I'm not venturing into film" Liam Gallagher on his upcoming film

2010-05-17T03:55:00.000-07:00

Having long been accused of ripping off the Beatles, Liam Gallagher has snatched a page from the bands' Apple Corps days and has started a film production company. However, the singer, tambourine botherer and clothing designer insists that he intends on only making one feature film. At the Cannes Film Festival he said "I'm doing this one thing then I'm back on the dole."

The film will be an adaptation of Richard DiLello's memoir 'The Longest Cocktail Party'. Taking the same name as the book, it promises to be an affectionate and humorous take on the inner workings of the Beatle's record company in the two years leading up to the band splitting up.

Gallagher insists he wants the film to be more than just another biopic. He told reporters "It's a between the scenes thing", going on to say that it would tell the whole story of Apple. "No one will be auditioning for John, Paul, George and Ringo. It's about the characters behind the scenes".

Andrew Eaton, the film's producer, said talks were ongoign with Apple to license some of their music from the period. The soundtrack is likely to feature acts such as Badfinger and Billy Preston, as well as original material from Gallagher's new band.

Full details of the film are to be released later this month at the Cannes Film Festival.

Which 3 songs made the man that made the Blues?

2010-05-09T06:34:00.000-07:00

Happy Birthday Robert Johnson.

Despite there being no known records of Robert Johnson's birth, all the most informed guesses have it as May 8th or 9th in either 1911 or 1912. As one of the truest traditions of Blues is not letting a lack of evidence ruin a good story, it seems like a great time to look back at works of the man who is possibly Blues' brightest star.

The influence Johnson has had on the genre borders on the immeasurable; Clapton called him "the most important blues singer that ever lived", he was among the first ever people to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. All of which isn't too bad when you consider he only made 41 recordings in his short life.

What can you say about a man who is a celebrated as this? Very little that hasn't already been said, which is why here we're celebrating his own words with the three of his songs that tell his story.

Ramblin’ on My Mind

“Running down to the station, catch the old first mail train I see

I got the blues about Miss So-and-So and the child got the blues about me”

As with so many of his song, ‘Ramblin’ on My Mind’ recounts Johnson leaving a woman who did him wrong. However, it could just as easily tell the story of his childhood. Born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, the young Robert had to leave an early age after his mother entered into a dispute over land with a lynch mob. In the following years he was passed backwards and forwards between his mother and father before joining his mother more permanently in Robinsonville, Mississippi in 1919.

Spending his youth wandering set the pace for Johnson’s life. Like many Americans, he spent the 20s and 30s of the great depression wandering the country looking for work. The recordings we have of him now all date from two sessions in this period, in San Antonio Texas. The recording roster shows he laid down the tracks between two other ‘ethnic’ acts, a hillbilly band and a Mexican guitarist.

Cross Road Blues

Around 1929 Robert Johnson met the musician and lay-preacher Son House, who had moved to Robinsonville to be closer to his musical partner Willie Brown. The elderly bluesman recalls the young Johnson following him around trying, and failing, to imitate his style. The legend then goes that Johnson disappeared for a few months and returned with an unnatural ability to play any song in any style. You can hear the debt Johnson pays to Son House’s traditional style in the younger man’s versions of ‘Preaching the Blues’ and ‘Walking Blues’.

So many legends surround Robert Johnson, from the cause of his death to the things he saw wandering the dusty American roads, that without his recordings it would be hard to believe he ever really existed. One, however, captures the imagination like no other.

The story of the crossroads has been added to various parts of Johnson’s life. It tells of his insurmountable desire to be a great Blues musician and that he is told (as we don’t know, let’s say it was by a wise old man with only one eye) to go at midnight with his guitar to the crossroads by the Dockery plantation. There he was met by a tall, black man who tuned his guitar, played a song and handed it back. When he received it, Robert could play anything he wanted on it. The crossroads and magical abilities he is given tie this story in with much older Voodoo and Black Magic rituals and the Christian idea of a Faustian pact, in which the devil gives you superhuman powers in exchange for your soul.

Whatever the truth or history behind this story, and overlooking the fact that ‘Cross Road Blues’ makes no mention of the Devil, it has certainly helped to make the myth of Robert Johnson so appealing.

Kind Hearted Woman

“Aint but one thing,

Makes Mister Johnson drink,

I’s worried ‘bout how you treat me, baby”

A two-in-one love letter to the women of the world and the drinking they drive men to, ‘Kind Hearted Woman’ is a song that has helped to prop up one of blues oldest clichés. The image of the travelling bluesman, living for whiskey and women, is one of the few that truly fits Johnson’s life.

After his first wife died during childbirth, Johnson reportedly had a string of female dalliances. These were probably helped along by his burgeoning musical career. Whilst he recorded his 29 songs (some of which had two or three takes) in just two sessions, taking to the road again as soon as he’d finished, that was enough to give him some fame within his own community. About as far from noble as a down-home bluesboy could get, Johnson exploited that fame to get girls.

Just as with his birth, nobody knows for sure the circumstances in which Robert Johnson died. According to one story, his womanising was his downfall. After a string of affairs with married women, a jealous husband poisoned the singers’ whiskey with strychnine, killing him at the age of 27.

Happy Birthday to you...

In his few short years, Robert Johnson helped to define what the Blues is. Never limited by genre, style or the seemingly impossible, he set the stage, put out the chairs and even baked some snacks for the generations of singers and guitarists that followed him. So, on his birthday, why not stick on some of his music (it's all out of copyright, so you can listen guilt free online), put a dash of strychnine in your whiskey and enjoy one of the greatest guitarists and singers of all time.

Sam Hare - Down to the Sea

2010-05-04T08:19:00.000-07:00

Sam Hare has been a mainstay in the British Blues community for a while. In the last few years it’s been common to find him in bars that, whilst nice, were frankly below the status he deserved, playing with Ian Seigal, Matt Schofield or the late Hucklebuck. He’s also graced the pages of music magazines as a freelance photographer, runs the weekly blues jam at London’s ‘Aint Nothing but the Blues’ Bar and appeared in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes adaptation. Now his first solo album has graced us and it’s doing little to disappoint.

The feel of Down to the Sea is certainly more Country than some of Hare’s previous work. This doesn’t mean he’s abandoned the electric guitar noodling he’s great at, tight-rope walking the line between indulgence and failing to satisfy, but does mean a more laid back final product than some of his fans might be expecting. There’s more than a touch of Terry Bush’s Maybe Tomorrow about the thoughtfully melancholy Her Time of Day.

This lack of virtuosity marks Hare out as part of a new breed of Blues guitarist, one happy to stray from the spotlight and let other musicians lead a track. That’s all providing the end product sounds great of course. There’s no denying that it does on the album’s instrumental cover of Mr Bojangles or ‘One More Chance’ which is lead by a mean Honky Tonk piano courtesy of Joe Glossop.

By embracing a countrified sound, Hare hasn’t turned his back on good old fashioned Blues. It’s still there in bundles on tracks like The Bridge (send word from me). What it does mean is the sort of tired old clichés that usually begin “woke up this mornin’...” have been replaced with competently-written songs, wistful and teeming with traveller’s regret.

You can listen to tracks from ‘Down to the Sea’ on Sam’s MySpace page at www.myspace.com/samhare. Once you have, you’ll want to buy it and you can do that online at www.samhare.com.

Guitar Gabriel and some boogie woogie piano

2010-04-25T04:14:00.000-07:00

A friend introduced me to Guitar Gabriel recently. Like all great bluesmen, he's now dead but thanks to the magic of YouTube we can still enjoy his slightly drunken Blues ramblings. Gabriel is the guy singing, hammering the ivory is Henry Gray of Howlin' Wolf.

Takin' the Blues Back Home

2010-04-21T14:40:00.000-07:00

Once a month I review albums for a magazine called Blues in Britain. It isn't a bad job, not least because it means I get to expand my CD collection for free and usually I get to choose which artists I want to review from a great big list (that I later memorise and use to sound knowledgable).

So today, whilst sheltering indoors for fear of the first few planes allowed up falling back out of the sky, I received that joyous list in my inbox. Scouting around the internet to see which artists I liked, I got listening to a band called Call Me Albert.

I strongly recommend everyone listens to the free songs on their website. If any of you aren't convinced by their catchy, rock'n'roll name, maybe you'll be swayed when you hear they're a Welsh Blues band...

In particular, one song stands out, and not just because it's the first one. Called 'Never Gonna Dance', it boasts the unusual feature of a lead mandolin. This seems really folky and I admit I nearly classified it as 'not proper Blues', made a noise of impolite derision and moved on down the list when I heard this song. I'm glad I didn't though. Blues and Folk have become two very different genres in British music but they needn't have, their roots are inextricably tangled.

Take Rory Gallagher, arguably the man who started the British Blues Rock movement. In interview, Gallagher would always talk about his folk influences, sometimes even describing himself as a folk musician (he played the mandolin too). In 2003, 8 years after he died, Gallagher's label posthumously released an album of Folk songs Wheels Within Wheels.

I'm not suggesting that Folk is intergral to the genre because one great Blues musician liked it. Rather, Rory Gallagher picked up on the fact that the Blues came from Folk music, and quite a lot of what's great about one is there in the other.

Whilst you can argue for days about how the Blues started (and there are forums available if you'd like to), most people are agreed it has some connection to the music of black, American slaves. The songs these people were singing were mostly game songs and work songs, both using the music to keep time.

Listening to these tunes (there's a great album of recordings by Alan Lomax called Afro-American Blues and Game Songs available from the Library of Congress here) you can hear that they've got lots of the same lyrics and themes as Apalachian folk music. Early Blues was the fusion of those songs, the songs of the slave owners, with the more rhythmic music of the slaves themselves. For the first generations of slaves to be born in the US, it was perhaps the only bit of culture that was truly theirs; sung in the language of the country they were born into but with links to their cultural heritage.

If that's where Blues music came from, why should it seem odd to hear folky Blues sung by a Welshman today? The pioneers of electric blues, guys like John Lee Hooker, were carrying on a tradition. They were making the music they identified with relevant to their experiences and culture. So why shouldn't British Blues musicians do the same?

"Hello there, come on in..."

2010-04-17T07:25:00.001-07:00

Welcome to my humble blog.

Please, make yourself at home. Can I get you a cup of tea?

Starting these things is alway the hardest part. It's bad enough when I'm writing an article, or even a letter for that matter. I have been to known to blankly stare at emails for up to half an hour, willing the first few words into existence.

So I thought the best thing to do would be to invite you all round for a chat, to let you know what this blog is going to be about.

Biscuit anyone?

For those of you who don't know me, my name is Jon. Each week I plan to update you on what's happening in the world of the three things my life revolves around: Blues music, art and books. It is likely to be in that order. Not least of all because I have an Editor at the magazine Blues in Britain who likes to send me CDs to review. But there will be plenty more than just that. There will probably also be the odd insight into the unfurling of my life.

Feel free to comment on anything you see or read here, and to contact me if you want me to tell me about something you're doing or just fancy a chat.

So that's what you have to look forward to. Now you know where I am, feel free to pop in any time you like.