Bruce McCabe and the Lawnmower Man

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

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.