Gaye Adegbalola

Gaye Adegbalola

It is a rare performer who can pull off being funny with blues music, even fewer who use the truth to supply the lyrics. Gaye Adegbalola has been writing blues songs since the 1980s, when she was a founding member of Saffire – The Uppity Blues Women. She won a W.C. Handy award in 1990 for her song Middle Age Blues Boogie.

Her songs have always spring from her actual life and circumstances.  In her words: “While I try to maintain the BLUES FORM in all my compositions, I write about contemporary content, contemporary problems (often in a humorous way). The BLUES CONTENT thrives on double and triple entendre. It is poetically rich. My song topics address ageism, sexism, domestic abuse, unemployment, education, civil rights, health insurance, incest, i.e. contemporary problems.”

Richard Skelly, writing a biography of Gaye Adegbalola for allmusic.com^1. says it better that I ever could – “Gaye Adegbalola is best-known to blues fans as the flamboyant, flashy, very funny frontwoman for Saffire, The Uppity Blues Women. But on her debut release as a solo artist for Alligator Records, she's in fine voice, accompanied by some great players and, true-to-form, pushing into new thematic ground in her lyrics. That's why Adegbalola is a breath of fresh air on the contemporary blues scene…”

Yes, she is! I find it encouraging that an established blues performer writes contemporary lyrics – this is the whole thrust of my blog. But it is discouraging to realize that nobody else has recorded her fine contemporary songs on their own albums. ^2.  I understand why an artist might not record a song about wanting another girl in her jail cell (Jail House Blues) and many songs are too specifically autobiographical for artists who are not black, lesbian, abused as a child or battered as an adult. But songs like Blues in the House, Tomorrow Ain’t Promised, Cold Pizza Warm Beer and Only One Truth could work for anyone.

It is sad that the song with the highest number of iTunes purchases and Spotify plays is a cover tune -  It Hurts Me Too. Consolation - Big Ovaries, Baby comes in at #2.

Adegbalola is primarily an acoustic artist. Musically, most songs derive from musical forms of older “folk blues”, spirituals and blues standards. Her melodies and chord structures are less adventurous than her lyrics, which may be a result of her desire to preserve the Blues Form as she has expressed. She could stretch out musically a little more, as shown by Images which takes the spiritual form into an extra dimension.

Focusing on lyrics, let’s start with the Saffire songs. Middle Aged Blues Boogie helped them find commercial success and this song epitomizes the humor and “uppityness” that makes them popular. The humor is broad and tends to wear on me after a while because it seems too obvious. Given that the songs have to come across live in concert, maybe they have to be that obvious. Listening to Adegbalola singing about her vagina is entertaining the first couple of times but after four or five vagina-related songs, it feels like she is rubbing it in my face.^3.

I find many Saffire humor songs just a little too cutesy, even though they are honest and deal with life as it really happens in the 21^st century. Humor is balanced by songs about civil rights, injustice, racism, child abuse and there a bunch of songs I’d just call fun blues.

Continuing her career as a solo artist after Saffire disbanded, Gaye Adegbalola continued to be funny, entertaining, and also damn scary honest. Who can you think of that could pull off a humorous tune and a six-minute political speech on the same album?

I hope that Adegbalola inspires blues songwriters to write about what is actually happening in their own lives, and what they truly feel about these things.

Some of the topics she takes on -

Being a battered woman – You Don’t Have to Take It Like I Did

Being abused as a child – Nightmare

Contraception - Bareback Rider.

She shows her honesty when she addresses nuances and contradictions in her life. For instance, she has a ton of songs that celebrate being a lesbian, but she slips in a song like Hetero Twinges where she finds herself attracted to a man. My favorite Adegbalola song is Step Parent Blues - a great example of what modern blues could and should be. It is so specific and focused that it expresses the universal – any step parent, whether gay or straight, will empathize and identify with the singer. A lesbian wife wants to be closer to her partner’s child. She has been “Stepping to the side, And Steppin to the back, Steppin on eggshells, And taking too much flack. The law won’t recognize me, And you pay me no respect. I know you want me to step away, And step back. What am I supposed to do? I got those step parent blues.” Then in the bridge – “There’s no loving her, Without loving you… I need your help, To end my step parent blues.” This timeless song is so heart-felt, so real, so honest, so Gaye Adegbalola.

Blues in all Flavors is an album of blues songs for children, with a mixture of novelty songs and advice.  Topics range from vegetables (Blues for the Greens) to good manners (Please, Please, Please, Please and The Thank You Song.) Gaye Adegbalola was a junior high school teacher for many years (awarded Virginia State Teacher of the Year in 1982); most of these songs seem more aimed at elementary age kids.  Comfort and ease going to Grandma and Grandpa’s House. She sings about bullying – using the melody of Wooly Bully in Stop That Bully. One sparkling gem is It Hurts (the Picked Last Song). A very nice touch is that Adegbalola provides lyrics and chord charts for all of these songs on her web site to make it easier for kids to learn the songs (I assume). Many local Blues Societies have Blues for Kids programs – Gaye’s “Blues in all Flavors” album would be an excellent resource. She has published her lyrics and essays here on her web site.

Good songwriters know that using the naked, unadorned truth can be incredibly powerful. Gaye Adegbalola has that power under great artistic control. Artists who have this many humorous songs are often regarded as novelty acts. Is Gaye Adegbalola a novelty act? In a sense, yes, because she is novel – totally her own category.

I listened to the Gaye Adegbalola albums Bitter Sweet Blues (1999 Alligator Records), Gaye Without Shame (2008 Hot Toddy), and Blues in all Flavors (2012 Hot Toddy). Also the 32 Saffire songs attributed to Adegbalola as composer on allmusic.com.

http://www.allmusic.com/artist/gaye-adegbalola-mn0000801526

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaye_Adegbalola

http://www.adegbalola.com/index.html

http://www.gayeandthewildrutz.com/

1. http://www.allmusic.com/artist/gaye-adegbalola-mn0000801526/biography

2. With the exception of Saffire members. If I am wrong about this, I’d really be pleased, and eager to know who made the recordings.

3. OK, sorry. 

Becoming a tortoise

When I started this blog I figured it would culminate on July 1st 2015, Willie Dixon’s 100th birthday. But I haven’t come close to my goals because I haven’t devoted sufficient time and effort.

I want to have playlists of well-written modern blues songs to circulate to Blues DJs. I want to investigate all of the musicians that people have mentioned when I asked if they knew of good modern blues songwriters. I want to see a blues songwriting competition start up, read discussions about songwriting in the blues magazines and blogs, see a write-up about a young blues musician that focuses on the songs rather than how many Stevie Ray Vaughn licks he or she can rattle off…   

I have come to realize that there aren’t many people who feel the way I do about Blues songwriting. I believe that the Blues needs better-written songs to nourish the roots, to make new fruits. I don’t want the Blues to exist only in museums; a reference resource rather than a vital force that continues to shape music and inspire new music forms.

So… I missed my self-imposed deadline but I still believe this is worth doing. It’s important to me and that’s reason enough to continue. Slow and steady wins the race.

Madman-Architect-Carpenter-Judge (in that order!)

Betty S. Flowers, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin published an essay in 1997 entitled “Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge: Roles and the Writing Process.” Although her essay was directed to prose writers, the concept is even more useful for songwriters.

Flowers identifies four different personas who come into the writing process sequentially. Writing begins with the madman, who brings ideas and energy to the page, uninhibited.  Just write down any crazy thing - let imagination run wild for ten minutes and don’t stop to edit. Next comes the architect, who looks unsentimentally at the madman’s “wild scribblings,” selects the chunks that could possibly form into a song, and arranges those nuggets into verses, refrains, etc.

Along comes the carpenter, the craftsman, who does the detail work of making sure the lines are similar in length, the rhyme scheme is consistent, the words have an internal rhythm, etc. He nails the ideas together.  Finally, in comes the judge, who inspects the work, critically.

Writers get tripped up, Flowers suggests, when their judge gets in the way of their madman.

“So start by promising your judge that you’ll get around to asking his opinion, but not now,” Flowers writes. “And then let the madman energy flow. Find what interests you in the topic, the question or emotion that it raises in you, and respond as you might to a friend – or an enemy. Talk on paper, page after page, and don’t stop to judge…”

I believe many blues songwriters allow the judge to enter the process too early – he rules out topics and modern language that “don’t belong” in blues songs.  And perhaps we allow the architect to limit the song structures to blues forms that have been built over and over again in the past. Blues does have limits – but we could allow the madman to finish his part in the process before the other members of the team have their turn. 

Bruce McCabe and the Lawnmower Man

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Curtis Obeda

Curtis Obeda

One of the things that makes Curtis Obeda noteworthy and worth studying as a blues songwriter is that he writes for other vocalists (notably Willie Walker) as well as writing songs for his own band, The Butanes, where he is lead vocalist and guitar player. When you know that your song will be sung by another person, especially an incredibly talented singer like Willie Walker, you have to write more universally and give the singer words, rhythm, melody, meaning plus enough space to allow them to bring their own interpretation to the song.

Obeda was inducted into the Minnesota Blues Hall of Fame in 2014 in the category of “Blues Song” for “Crying to Do”, recorded by Willie Walker and The Butanes on the album “Right Where I Belong” (2004). In the nomination speech, Mike Elias said that Curtis “was comfortable and proficient in both Blues and Soul. He respected the history and limits of the genres.” ¹

He writes and performs across several genres including R&B, Soul and Blues. His songs for Willie Walker are most often about romance and the complications thereof. The songs he sings himself cover greater subject breadth and are often humorous.

Writing for Willie Walker, Obeda gives him lyrics that make sense and can be sung honestly and with feeling. The songs on the first album featuring Walker, “Right Where I Belong” (2004), are, with only one exception (“Change”), about the ins and outs of romance. The most recent Walker album “Long Time Thing” (2011) runs about 50-50 between romance and other topics and is more satisfying for that.

“It Ain’t Your Ladder” tells a woman that other people contributed to her success. She shouldn’t just pull that ladder up after herself once she’s climbed to the top, she should leave it where others might benefit from it –in other words, offer her own helping hand. Great song, taking a complicated subject and expressing it simply and effectively.  “Dirty Deeds” is another one I especially like – it’s more like the songs Curt sings himself with the tongue-in-cheek humor. “Betrayed” is a fresh angle on cheating: Walker sings how he was betrayed by his best (male) friend. In another writer’s hands it would be the woman who is shamed.

I have only one Butanes “solo” album – 2014’s “12 Frozen Favorites from the Upper Bayou”.

The language of the lyrics is pleasingly modern – words that people actually use in conversation. And the songs are smart, with a lot of humor in the lyrics. “Ain’t No Doubt” relates how the singer visits (and quickly leaves) a scary bar, a gay bar and a wine bar before he finally finds a bar he likes. But then his wife shows up. Each verse of “It’s Not That Bad” lists unpleasant things - at home, at the doctor’s and trying to get across town. In verse four he eats oysters in a month with no R… but it’s not THAT bad!

Sometimes Obeda’s cleverness gets in the way of the song. In “Call Me” he uses about every sense of the word “call” that exists – nouns, verbs, adjectival phrases… it’s a great dance number but the song doesn’t really go anywhere.  

He gives himself few songs that give opportunity for emotional expression in the vocal. They generally don’t have the telling detail of the humorous songs. In “Can You Help Me Brother” Curtis tells us how sorry he is, how wrong he has been, how he needs to get back where he belongs but we don’t know what it was that made him so angry in the first place. “Funny Way of Living” expresses anguish about his overbearing woman, but again, no poignant or cinematic detail that would make us feel the way he feels. If she had made him “cut his meat smaller and chew it twice” ² we’d have a bit more sympathy.

What songwriters can learn from Curt Obeda

• ·         He makes the songs catchy – sometimes a repeated refrain, sometimes a chorus. You can almost always tell what the title of the song is. It actually pisses me off that the hook line from “Amy Is a Gold Digger” keeps running through my mind since I don’t particularly like the song but it sure is catchy. The back-up singers are often used to repeat the title or hook, an effective tool for songwriters as well as record producers.
• ·         He puts a lot of work and craft into his writing – the last verse of a song is as well-written as the first. The scansion, rhyme schemes and meter are consistent from verse to verse. He keeps to the subject and theme of the song, the words fall naturally.
• ·         He gives the singer room to sing – plenty of long notes, good melodies and chord changes.
• ·         He adds humor – just the right amount for the genre, I think. He doesn’t limit the humor to sexual innuendo as is common in the blues.
• ·         He will write verses that lead to the chorus or refrain from different, but complementary directions. For example, in “Drift to Sleep” there is a linear story about missing his baby at night… In “Drives Me Crazy” the singer relates how it drives him crazy when his baby takes a long time to make a special dinner. In Verse two, she takes a long time getting ready for bed. In “I’m OK” the verses cover different periods of time – things happen in the span of days in verse one; they span seasons in verse two. In “If You Expect to See Another Day”, after each verse he uses a different lyric in the lift before the repeated refrain. It all adds interest, keeps you on your toes and paying attention.
• ·         You can dance to it! The Butanes mostly play clubs; club audiences want to dance. Aspiring blues songwriters might find bands who would record their songs if they make dance-ability a priority in their writing.

Good songs have the right balance of same and different. Curtis Obeda really has this down. Every song is approachable, not hard to get into. And once you are grooving along with the music, he takes you in an pleasantly surprising direction before he puts you back on track.

Notes.

1. “Limits”… just a word, but it gives me pause as I try to articulate for myself what these limits might be. These boundaries are hard to define; I guess everyone has their own perception of what is inside and is outside of a Blues limit. What is, or is not, the Blues.

2. A line from “B.S. (Bob’s Song)”

I listened to

Right Where I Belong (2004)

Memphisopolis (2006)

Long Time Thing (2011)

12 Frozen Favorites from the Upper Bayou (2014)

Butanes web site

Harrison Kennedy sets a great example for blues songwriters

Harrison Kennedy is a Canadian blues musician who was a pop star for a number of years with the group Chairmen of the Board. After this experience he learned to write his own music and play the guitar, according to the Welcome page of his web site www.harrisonkennedy.ca but there was a thirty-year gap, while he worked as a supervisor in a chemical plant before he began to release recordings of his own stuff.

Kennedy’s roots are down-home acoustic blues. His songs and his sound overall have a coherence and thematic consistency that speak to the integrity of his music; you feel he is just being himself. He has a distinctive sound, many tunes combine an electric band with an old-timey jug band feel, especially when he plays banjo. He is a remarkably good singer with a huge range.

Harrison Kennedy is a bridge between the blues of the 1930/40s and modern blues and R&B.  While his sound recalls the formulaic songwriters of the pre-war years, the songs usually stick to their narrative subject. Rather than just stringing a bunch of bluesy lines together, the verses have linear narrative. We don’t find many huge surprises music or lyric-wise but the songs are well-written.

Many of the songs have modern topics – “One Dog Barking” talks about how the “profit motive” is dominating and screwing up the world like a bully in the school yard. Kennedy mixes in a modern vocabulary.  “I Can Feel You Leaving” is a heart-felt, honest (but over-long) blues with lines like, ”My romantic gestures only met with your sighs”, “You take a piece of my heart with you when you go”. In “Them 90s Blues” he references Frankenfoods, lap dancers, sports bars, wars about gas and “They made a baby in a Petri jar; This morning it was front page news”!

He is willing to go out on a limb with his lyrics. For example, “Leading Lady” is an ambitious attempt to use the metaphor of the stage for life in general. It doesn’t quite work because Kennedy doesn’t give us any detail or “furniture” that paints a scene of a stage theater. Another example is “Look A Like” where he sings about how seeing another woman he is attracted to makes him afraid of losing his own woman – an interesting topic and angle.

Kennedy’s lyrics more often “tell” than “show” – we don’t get to see things through his eyes but we do get to experience how he feels about his subject from the way he sings and plays.

Songs I enjoyed most – “Cruise Control” where it “felt like the twilight zone…” Could Be Me, Could Be You”, about being (or not being) homeless, is the song that made me search out Harrison Kennedy after I heard Eric Bibb’s cover. “I’ve Got Your Number” uses numbers (duh) but does a good job of relating them to the woman who is the subject of the song.

I felt that the earlier albums have more “Kennedy substance” in the songs. The 2014 record (official release Feb 27, 2015) has many lyrics that are blues middle-of-the-road, well written to be sure, but could have been written by anybody. “Shake the Hand” and “I’ve got News for You” have a bit more interesting detail. And “Jimmy Lee” is a nice positive love story that gives us a real sense of person and place as it devotes the four verses in turn to him, her, their morning and then their evening.

I found it encouraging that many reviewers praise Kennedy’s using modern lyrical themes, keeping the songs short and not piling on long virtuosic instrumental solos just for the sake of it (let it be said that there is plenty of virtuosity in the playing).  Harrison Kennedy is setting a good example for blues songwriters and I hope this positive critical response will lead others to do the same.

Albums I listened to:

High Country Blues (2007)

One Dog Barking (2009)

Soulscape (2013)

This Is from Here (2014) (All on Electro-Fi Records).

Allmusic.com has excellent and informative reviews for Harrison Kennedy’s albums here.

The Next Big Thing in blues will come from Europe

It is telling that the blues songwriters that I find to be the most progressive and in touch with contemporary times are either European residents or spend more time gigging there than they do in the USA. This makes me think that the better songs, the new approaches, the real, honest and modern stuff will form and develop in Europe, not the USA.  

I guess that’s not too surprising when we remember that prior to the “British Blues Invasion” of the 1960's and 70's, the American blues audience was very small, especially among white people. All of the important developments in blues songwriting and performing had already happened (within the USA) and were complete by the time we Brits started to pay attention and copy it. But the general US audience was totally unaware of this incredible music right under their collective nose!  

Is it possible that European audiences are more open to change and growth in the blues? Even actively looking for something new instead of the same old same old? The new blues will need some love and nurturing before it can mature, and that might be happening in Europe right now.

Good songwriters take care with the words that go into their songs. You don’t listen to the words unless you are in an environment that facilitates hearing those words. That is - not a noisy bar where the music functions primarily to get people dancing, grooving and buying drinks. It is unusual to find blues being played in a listening room type of indoor venue in the USA. These are typically reserved for musicians that we label singer-songwriter or folk.

This is my first post in a while – I've been touring in Florida and Texas to enjoy the warm winter weather we don’t have in my home state of Minnesota. I did a lot of listening while driving 7,500 miles over six weeks and will be posting regularly over the next month or so.  

Year of the Blues Songwriter makes the news!

Encouraging to find that other people might be interested in better blues songs! This article about my campaign appeared in the Minneapolis newspaper yesterday.

Al Cook - Blues Songwriter from Austria

Al Cook is a tireless traditional blues song generator. He takes themes, musical fragments and lyrical phrases from the blues corpus, combines them with his own stuff and ends up with original songs. Some of these are better-written “traditional” songs than the actual traditional songs he draws from.

On Moving Back to Alabama on Cook’s album “The Birmingham Jam”, for example. He takes a couple of lines from Charley Patton’s Going to Move to Alabama. Patton sings, “Say, mama got the washboard, my sister got the tub, my brother got the whiskey, mama got the jug.” In Cook’s song, “My sister got a washboard, my daddy got a jug, now give your kinfolk a great big hug” merges the Patton lines into a song with more depth and interest. It is the story of a family moving back to Alabama from Chicago after their dreams of a better life did not come true. It has a linear narrative, and some imaginative phrases –“It’s so cold in Chicago the birds can hardly sing; they’d freeze in flight if they could spread their wings. They’re flying back to Alabama…”

Al Cook is from Vienna, Austria. So he is writing not only in a foreign language, but an idiomatic subset - blues idiom. After 50 years of listening and playing traditional blues, his fluency in the blues is obvious. He thinks about what he is doing, and his place in blues tradition, as evidenced by the blog entries on his web site. I find his vocal stylings a little too imitative of the older black blues artists, but then again, he is creating a historical representation foremost, a personal expression second. His imitations are top-notch by the way.  

I sought out Al Cook’s music on a tip from David Evans, author of “Big Road Blues” and perhaps the preeminent academic of blues music. Evans describes himself as a traditionalist where blues is concerned, and probably doesn't share my concern that modern blues songwriting is generally poor. Cook is a living example of the formulaic blues composers that Evans discusses in his book (and in a large body of academic writings in publications such as The Journal of American Folklore).

Al Cook released an ambitious project in 2013 – “Mississippi 1930 – A Fictional Journey to the Land Where the Blues Began”. He wrote the songs as far as I can tell. But they sound authentic old blues. Example – Jake Liquor Blues. Cooks spoken introduction to the song states he wrote it to honor Tommy Johnson, who recorded Alcohol and Jake Blues in 1930.1. Cook’s song is very different but has a very similar feel. This is what he does so well. (Cook’s song is also different from Ishman Bracey’s 1929 song with the same title.)  

Here’s my take on Al Cook – he’s written (and still writes at age 70) a ton of formulaic blues songs that use the phrases, meanings, feel, structure and sense of traditional blues. He probably does it better than you or I can. So, instead of writing your own lame, formulaic songs, think about using some of his good ones.  

Notes.

1. Someone recently paid $37,100 for a mint condition 78rpm record of Tommy Johnson's Alcohol and Jake Blues. The highest ever for a 78. 

Have you heard Eric Bibb on mainstream radio?

It is very encouraging how well-liked and respected Eric Bibb has become in the blues world. He is an annual nominee on most Best-of-the-Year lists and the International Blues Foundation honored him as Acoustic Artist of the Year in 2013 (his album “Deeper in the Well” was nominated too). But he states clearly on that album that he is no traditionalist. He sings, “Music is more than rules and tradition…If I feel it, that’s good enough for me” (in the song “Music”).

His songwriting is excellent – well crafted, written to hit his sweet spots as a performer, full of integrity and personality. I feel like I know the guy, though I've never met him. 

“Deeper in the Well” was the first Eric Bibb album I listened to from beginning to end. It is definitely a blues album (more so than the other five albums I listened to in depth) and Bibb brings new structure and chord forms to the blues tunes. The instrumentation is refreshing – fiddle, mandolin, banjo, harp and accordion are endemic to the structure and setting of the songs, not just guest artists taking solos. The language is plainspoken and doesn't try to be clever. The topics of the songs generally don’t get far outside the blues pantheon – life is good; don’t let yourself get messed up on drugs; life is what you make it; life has ups and downs; she’s so fine. But nothing is hackneyed and nothing sounds like an overused phrase that was stuck in the verse just because he needed a rhyme.  

Most of the original songs have a modern outlook and some have interesting twists and mechanisms. On “In My Time” Eric tells us how his personal life has ups and downs. He pairs up opposites to show how his life has gone and you get the sense that it was all good. He’s been treated like a boss/like a boy; like a tramp/like a star. Lived fast/taken it easy.  Played in Paris, Rome /on front porch back home. Ridden in Bentleys/on a mule. Great detail, cinematic in places and all with a ring of truth.  Once his credentials are established Eric gives us his advice - Best thing you can do is be a faithful friend.

In “Music” Bibb takes music snobs to task. He pokes fun at people who need to categorize music before they can decide whether to like it. “Like looking at the labels on the faucet tap before they can tell if the water’s hot!” Beautiful!

There are four songs written by others ¹, one co-write and two traditional songs. A very satisfying recording and I recommend it as a good first experience for people who are new to Eric Bibb.

As I listened further, I realized that Bibb is primarily a gospel singer. He describes his music on 2008’s “Get on Board” as "a further exploration into the place where blues meets gospel and soul."  That’s a good description of all the stuff I listened to, especially the emphasis on “further exploration”. Eric Bibb makes new cloth out of the well-worn garments he has lived in for years.

He shows his blues chops on “Blues Ballads and Work Songs” (2011) – a compilation of mostly traditional songs recorded between 2005 and 2011. But Gospel is the center of Eric Bibb’s songwriting – redemption, faith, courage, perseverance, life is what you make it, get on board, a new and better life awaits. Bibb’s Godfather is Paul Robeson; his father is Leon Bibb, a prominent African-American folk musician of the 50’s and 60’s.

Bibb released albums in 1977 and 1980, and then there is a gap until 22 albums since 1997. Many albums have lyric or subject themes (e.g. freedom and Martin Luther King on “Blues People”) or a thematic vibe (e.g. “Deeper In The Well”) that comes from the instrumentation and overall feel of the playing. 

Eric Bibb lived in Finland for many years. I will guess that he developed his music in relative isolation from any particular music scene – I’m thinking about folk, blues, gospel music communities that might have drawn him to center on a particular genre and adopt its definitions and rules. He goes his own way and does not limit himself to the boundaries on any particular genre. I thought it interesting that on “Blues Ballads and Work Songs” the original tunes were much less bluesy-folky than the covers. I was surprised (end encouraged!) that the album the IBF voted as acoustic blues album of the year in 2011 (“Troubadour Live”) does not contain a single traditional 12-bar blues.²  

Comments on some specific songs that taught me something as a blues songwriter.

The album “Jericho Road” was released in 2013.  Check out With My Maker I Am One. It is a very 21st-century blues lyric, set into a timeless gospel theme. The singer takes on 24 different roles of characters doing their thing – Okie, landlord, junkie, slave, juke stomper, banker, candy man, movie star  and states “…with my Maker I am One”.  It does have the traditional blues themes of life has its ups and downs or life is what you make it, but the roles themselves are a mixture of modern and blues stereotype.

On “Troubadour Live” Shavin’ Talk is particularly poignant and full of current-day language. As he looks at himself in the mirror while shaving, Eric muses on how lucky he is, given that life is far from perfect. He keeps the shaving story going throughout the song, and ends with a very non-traditional set of rising chords. It remains a blues song.

“An Evening with Eric Bibb” (2007) has a couple of songs I found notable. To Know You is a straight-forward positive love song, heartfelt and eschewing the traditional “she’s so fine” attitude. I wish there were more positive love songs in blues music. Shingle By Shingle is another great 21st-century lyric dealing with a traditional blues topic – life is what you make it – as he patches the roof, piece by piece.

Eric Bibb is a staple on every blues curator’s playlist that I looked at, including the internationally syndicated programs. He deserves much more mainstream radio play in the USA. I hope that happens a lot in 2015 – the year of the blues songwriter!  

Notes.

1. Including a lovely song by Harrison Kennedy (Could Be You, Could Be Me) that makes me want to explore Harrison’s music as soon as I've finished typing this post.

2. I am defining “traditional 12- (or 8-) bar blues” as having only I, IV and V chords. And certainly not a II major (even though Robert Johnson’s version of Love In Vain kind of does).

Mark Harrison writes modern blues songs. Hot damn!

Mark Harrison took up blues songwriting fairly recently in his music career after buying a 1934 National Trojan guitar – a wood-body resonator that Eric Bibb had traded in at a guitar store in London. As he tells it, he first tried to play traditional blues songs from people like Charlie Patton, Muddy Waters and Blind Willie McTell but they didn’t sound the same. He had no lessons, didn't read tablature or use video tutorials – he just played what he could. After a while he realized he was writing new songs, not versions of old ones.

His naiveté has paid off. Harrison’s songs don’t sound like anybody else’s, but they are full of the blues tradition that inspired him. I believe he will continue to bring a new audience to the blues and he exemplifies the kind of blues songwriting that I want to write myself.

Lyrics.

The first distinctive thing is his use of contemporary language and subject matter in his lyrics. Most lyrics would sound natural if spoken as part of a conversation. There are very few blues clichés or language that isn't native to London. He does occasionally sing with a slightly Southern USA-tinged inflection (time=tahm, why=whah, don’t=don’) but in general he sounds like he is singing with the same voice he uses when he talks.

Many songs contain portraits of people and events that seem like they might exist in his day-to-day world. We meet Smiler John, Big Mary, Deacon George, Georgia Greene, and even Mark’s Dad. We go with Mark to observe the neighborhood street corner, Highgate Hill, Starley Street… places we might have been to ourselves, people and places that make the songs seem like they are about our own lives.

Mark has advice for us in many songs – be here now, live in the moment and be grateful. He often makes a moral point or commentary on what’s wrong with the world.

Many songs have topics outside of the blues paradigm subjects (romance, travel and anxiety). For example, he writes literally and figuratively about bombs dropping during the Second World War. There are references to charlatans, Mexican gardeners, recurring dreams, panic attacks, a mule with its shoulder gone…all good blues subjects that have been ignored by most blues musicians.

A few songs are set in the USA and we hear words like juke joint, second line, Cadillac; for the most part Harrison’s vocabulary is refreshingly idiosyncratic.

The language in general is simple and straight-forward; it is not hard to understand what he is saying. There were a few lyrics where I didn’t get the point, but just a few. 

Mark’s scansion is generally consistent and rhyme schemes are tight, though he is willing to fudge a rhyme if he needs a non-rhyming word to get his point across. The lyrics are overly narrative in my opinion - he would communicate better if he were to show rather than tell: be more cinematic than descriptive.

Another area he could improve is to focus on very specific detail in order to better communicate the big picture. This is especially true with his characters and the songs about his own thoughts and actions. I didn't have much emotional connection with his characters – I know what they did but I didn't feel what they felt or why I should care about them.

Music.

The songs all have a definite melody. This will strike many blues fans as sounding somewhat less bluesy, perhaps because we have become accustomed to blues songs that restrict themselves to a pentatonic scale. 

The guitar sound contributes a lot to keep the songs bluesy, with Harrison’s scratchy voice adding some more of the same. When Josienne Clarke takes the lead vocal, especially on the earlier two albums, her sweet and pure tone takes the song into the realm of folk music. On The World Outside album, she slides into the notes a little more, gives the flat note a little more time before she straightens it out and hits the melody.

His songs don’t give him much room to emote vocally – not many long vowel sounds. This suits his vocal style, and also the conversational nature of the lyrics. However, I hope he writes some songs that would give a more accomplished singer some room to stretch out. His lack of vocal prowess may be limiting his songwriting.

Harrison often uses a chorus or refrain in his songs, unlike traditional acoustic blues singer-songwriters. Willie Dixon was among the first bluesmen to (re-)use these structures, and typically his songs were recorded by bands, not solo acoustic musicians. This practice helps make the songs accessible – the listener can learn and internalize the repeated sections, and even sing along (aloud or not). Every song on the 2014 album has a refrain.

The songs are quite highly arranged. At least one guitar part will echo or be in unison with the vocal melody. The songs almost always have riffs - lines the band play ensemble that might have started as guitar riffs. Some songs have a very major scale feel in the verse melody that becomes “bluesified” by using the b7 or b3 in a riff. 

As far as I can tell, there is little live improvisation captured on record. It would be interesting to hear the band live.

The music is stylistically similar over all three albums, I suppose this is natural given the same band members throughout. It seemed to me that instrumentals were longer and less numerous in the newest album.

I think that European blues fans must be more open-minded than fans here in the USA. The reviews of his albums in the European blues press praise his non-conformity but still include his music as within the blues tradition, rather than implying that it isn't blues. Mark Harrison has three albums out, gigs regularly and it looks as though his career will be a long one. This is a fortunate thing for blues songwriting and for the blues genre in general. 

Link to Mark Harrison web site

Notes. 

I listened to three albums - The World Outside (2014), Crooked Smile (2012) and Watching The Parade (2010).