THE SOUL OF JOHN BLACK Source: Blues Wax - Part 1 Date: 12/2009 Writer: Don Wilcox

Sittin' In With The Soul of John Black Part 1

If Blues is whiskey, The Soul of John Black is cognac, at least on his latest album Black John on Eclecto Groove Records. When I saw him at a label showcase in Memphis with some pretty other impressive acts including Jason Ricci and The Mannish Boys, Black stood out not just because his seductive, sly and carnally driven music is more like the modern equivalent of Johnny Taylor-era R&B, but because the energy that he puts into his sound is as distinctive as Sly Stone was when he put the capital F in Funky back in the early '70s. Texture and seasoning are just as important to Black's sound as melody is to the rhythms of most contemporary Blues.

He's not even copping to the title of Blues. He says Eclecto Groove was simply the open door to his sound, and that label was the easy way in. He says he's just lazy. Nope! This is good stuff from a young (by Blues standards) artist whose chops include time with Miles Davis back in the '80s when Miles was looking to tap into the rhythms of a young African American who had the pulse of the new generation. Never mind that Black's rhythms at the time were electronic, and he didn't know the first thing about playing drums.

Black's resume also includes eight years with Fishbone on guitar and keyboards, a 2007 solo album called The Good Girl Blues on Yellow Dog Records and this current CD which features a series of seemingly interchangeable players whose credentials include work with everyone from The Black Crowes to Sheryl Crow.

If he thinks he snuck in the back door of the Blues genre, Executive Producer Randy Chortkoff at Eclecto Groove has a more focused vision. While Black has those dangerous qualities of hip hop that appeal to the kind of white Blues fans who aren't afraid to venture down a dark alley on the West Side for a little touch, Black also manages to elude the qualities of hip hop that make crossover fans cringe as if they were hearing finger nails on a dirty chalk board. This music is funky, deliberate and slick as petroleum jelly in July. He glides, slides and seduces with textured sound that is not simply guitar-centric, but rather a finished package with a Christmas bow that says open me at your own risk.

Don Wilcock for BluesWax: I saw you down at the Blues Music Awards at the New Daisy in Memphis with the rest of your label mates there and picked you out of the bunch as being the hottest guy in the room that night.

John Black: Oh, wow! Okay, nice.

BW: I like to see somebody on board who drives the engine in new directions because if we all sound like post-World War II Chicago 1947, the whole genre is going to become an antiquated museum piece, and you're not doing that.

JB: No, I can't do it, man. It's against everything I'm about. I mean, it's good to know the history, though. I probably know more tunes than I can play.

DW: I got the feeling you don't play many other people's music. You don't do any covers, do you?

JB: No, not lately. Every now and again we'll bust out "Help," the Sonny Boy Williamson tune, and every now and again I might play "Come On In My Kitchen."

BW: Any particular reason for the Sonny Boy song? I love, "Help me, I can't do it by myself." That one?

JB: Yeah, see, it was in a store a while ago. It used to be the store called Hear Music, and they just kinda had all of this hard-to-find CDs, and I saw this Blues Today, and it had a poster with Hendrix, and he had the album. It was like if this is one of the albums that influenced Hendrix, I was like, "Really? Okay!"

BW: No kidding.

JB: Yeah, it had a picture of him with the album. So, I bought it, and it was Buddy Guy and Junior Wells doing that song, and it just blew me away.

BW: I wrote Buddy Guy's authorized biography almost twenty years ago now.

JB: Okay. Okay.

BW: He and Junior could do Sonny Boy really, really well. They loved Sonny Boy Williamson.

BJ: Oh, my God, they killed that song. To me, that was the epitome of the Blues. In a nutshell, the way Junior Wells talks some of the words mumbled and jumbled, and then he starts into the harmonica and just ridiculous, and they just crank it up, man. It's a smoldering track, and I was just like, "Wow! Okay, if I do like any covers, it has to be this one. This is for me. So, I started playin' that song.

BW: You remind me of them in that you're very eclectic. I love to read the reviews before I interview someone and see how many different people they're compared to, and you get compared to everybody in the book from hip hop guys to country folk guys. Even getting compared to J. J. Grey from Mofro.

JB: That was a little weird to me.

BW: Well, you know what if is, though?

JB: It's only weird because I don't know how old that guy is.

BW: He's in his twenties.

JB: He's in his twenties? He got gray hair.

BW: He may be in his thirties. I may have over spoken, but he's only on the scene for about five years. He's got two albums out on Alligator, I guess.

JB: I did a show with those guys out here in L.A.

BW: They're very good.

JB: Yeah, about five years ago when they did their first record. No, I think it was right before they signed to Alligator, I played a show with them just by myself, and yeah, they were good. They were good.

BW: Yeah, I like them. I thought that was a pretty good comparison actually because both you and Mofro are eclectic, but at the same time easily recognizable when you hear the song. In other words, if you did a blindfold test, you could tell it was you playing. I'm trying to figure out what it is about your sound that is recognizable, but it's recognizable in the same way that Sly Stone was recognizable, and what I liked about Sly Stone forty years ago was he was groovin', but he was taking stuff from all these different places, but it was so immediately identifiable as being his groove.

JB: Right, yeah, yeah, 'cause you can hear Ray Charles playing and everything. He was awesome on the piano, super funky on the guitar. One of my favorites. I get it, but I don't want to get it. I guess that's what I'm saying about the whole Mofro thing. They're definitely funky. I heard that Lochloosa album, and I love it. It's so funky, and it sounded like a hit record to me. It sounded like, wow, okay, this record is gonna blow up.

BW: Speaking of hit records, why do you identify yourself with the Blues when you could easily be labeled in a genre that would make you more money and well more records?

JB: Uh, you know what? I think I just snuck in the door that was open, you know? Snuck in the back door that was open really 'cause that's who was looking for me. I had actually did the Good Girl Blues album before the one that's out now. So, I did that record just because I wanted to do a record that was kind of my version of a Blues record because I'd been working on a short film that was based in the '30s, and that had to do with this Blues music, and from that I had stuff left over. I just went into this Blues record and next thing you know, I'm on Yellow Dog Records, and so from there it would just be kinda pushing me out there into the Blues world, and I decided it would be fun to take it on. I knew it would be - ha, ha - a lotta talk, but I decided to take it on. So, I don't think - well, you know what? Maybe I'm lazy or something.

BW: I don't get lazy out of you, pal.

JB: Well, I wasn't ready for the hassle of trying to take it to a more major label. Like right now, I wouldn't even be on a label right now. They would have shut it down. Like, "Oh, this didn't work out." So, I don't know. I just wanted to be with a smaller company, and this company, Eclecto Groove, was willing to let me pretty much do what I wanted to do. So, I just took that avenue and knew I had the Blues element in my music already. So, it just seemed like it would be a good way to go.

BW: Speaking of going your own way, one of the reviews I read from you implied that the musicians you had were all interchangeable, and you have total control, and these guys are just guns for hire. I don't sense that from the way you talk about your relationship with Miles Davis, and what I hear on that record. Is that inaccurate?

JB: Well, it's true. It's true. It's my thing. The thing is the guys that play with me are guys that I know from other situation that we've played together, and we knew each other. So I choose them based on knowing what they may do, and so when I put them in my world, I already know what they're gonna do. It's not gonna be anything that's so crazy. It's gonna be what I wanna be here because we know each other. Yeah, it's my brainchild, and it's all me pretty much, but these guys add their flavor and make it come alive. I'm not gonna attempt to play piano. I have no idea of how to make it sound great. I mean I can play the chord, but I have no idea of how to make the chord sound beautiful, you know?

BW: Right.

JB: So I call in guys that are professionals: professional bass players, drummers and keyboardists and vocalists, whatever.

BW: You told one reviewer that Miles taught you to play what you feel. Do you say the same thing to the guys that play on your CDs?

JB: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. I just played them the music and the demos and let them see how I wanted to go, and they pretty much play what is on the demo with maybe just a little bit of this one flavor in it, and when they're recording, I don't say anything. You do two or three takes and we just move on, and usually they know in the first take, and so it's all there and it's like okay, next song. To me it's better to get people who fill and understand what you're doing, and then you just let 'em go. That's the old Quincy Jones technique, too. You get the right people, and that's the old Miles Davis technique. You get the right people, and then you just hit record. In the moment, they're explaining to you what they're gonna do, they're probably playing their best stuff. Like this? Did you want to do it like this? And you're like, "Oh, shit! Tape record!" It goes down like that, and it's like in their first thirty minutes it's there. After that, you're wasting your time. It's already gone.

BW: I gotcha. Is it true you'd never played percussion when Miles had asked you to play percussion for him?

JB: Yeah, I had never played percussion, yeah.

BW: That didn't intimidate you?

JB: Yeah, it did. The thing is he heard what I was doing on my tracks and had percussion on all of my tracks, and it was just stuff that I had programmed, and when he was asking about a percussionist, I told him I would do it. Yeah, he didn't think I could do it. Well, he didn't have any idea that I would be able to do it, but he knew that I had an ear for what percussion should sound like or what it should feel like. So, yeah, it was crazy. I mean, the drummer wanted to beat me down pretty much [chuckle]. He almost beat me up one day. I think he just didn't like me because I had it too easy. Just being that Miles let me do whatever, and he would never really question. After he saw what I was doing, he didn't question me ever again. He just let me do it, and when you're playing sometimes, he'd just give you a look, and you're either gonna break or you're gonna say, "Yes, this is what I'm playing," because he's just looking at you. But it can be intimidating, but that's when you have to step up and say, "Yes, I mean what I'm playing."

"You know what?
I think I just snuck in the
Blues back door that was open, you know?"

BW: So he's looking for you to be brave enough to tell him, "Hey, this is the shit!'"

JB: Yeah.

BW: Right.

JB: Yeah, yeah, I mean, that's how it works. It's not a test, but its reality. If you wanna play in the band, you have to be bold enough to step up and do your thing. That's what he's looking for.

BW: So, you worked with him for several years. So obviously you gave him something he liked.

JB: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. He was a good friend to me, really.

BW: I can't imagine what it must have been like for you to be working with him at that age. How old were you when you were working with him?

JB: Twenty-seven I believe, but it was amazing, man. It was one of those things where somehow I was that guy who could do no wrong. Before I ever played in the band, I was already working with him, and I could go anywhere, do anything, and I had free reign, and everybody doesn't get that. I don't know why I got it. I think it was because I was just old enough to stand up to him, not as an equal but as a man. Either you want this or you don't. This is what I got. This is who I am, and I used to dress a little snazzier then, too, so I think he appreciated that. I was a natty dresser.

BW: He was looking for something from you that he didn't get from a lot of other people. What do you think you taught him about music from a younger man to an older icon as he was?

JB: I think I just brought him what was going on at the time which was electronic percussion. It was a big thing in hip hop and R&B at the time. You could watch Bobby Brown videos and see somebody has drum pads and stuff like that. And I just started with an interesting idea that you could take samples of a shaker or any kind of drum sounds or any kind of sounds and put 'em on these pads and manipulate 'em. So that was an interesting idea to him. I don't think he had seen anybody do that before.

BW: Did you ever listen to any of his stuff?

JB: No, I think I actually may have saw him play somewhere at one time or another, maybe even just online, but I didn't recall his style. I remember he was jammin' on guitar, and he had a brown guitar and all this stuff.

BW: Why isn't Chris Thomas on this album?

JB: Well, after the first record, he wanted to do some other things. Everybody was pulling him in different directions 'cause he played with me and was part of my band as co-writer, co-everything in my band, and he also plays with the Brian Blade Fellowship, Brian Blade the drummer, and he's also playing with this outfit out here called Vincent and Mr. Green which is Jade Vincent and this guy Keith Chauncey. Just playing with everybody. Everybody wanted him to play bass with them, and he was getting bogged down with that. He didn't want to be the bass player with everybody. So, he just kinda wanted to check out for a minute. So, he went to France and got married, and all of this stuff and was chillin' out, you know? He just didn't want to be bothered, and he especially didn't want to do a Blues record because he had been playing with Benny Carter and all these people, and they always tend to do a few Blues numbers, and he just wasn't interested.

BW: It's funny because when I listen to "Never Giving Up" which he co-wrote with you, right?

JB: Uh-huh.

BW: When I listen to that, just the sound of it reminds me of Chris Thomas King.

JB: Are you kidding me?

BW: No.

JB: He hates that.

BW: Really?

JB: Uh-huh.

BW: How do you feel about Chris Thomas King?

JB: I think he's definitely a great Blues player for sure. I saw him on one of those Scorsese films that did for the Blues a couple of years ago. Man, he was awesome. I listened to a little bit of his music, and I think he was definitely a lot bluesier. I don't know if he would do a song in that manner. That's kinda like a song - the way I singit, and the way I did the lyrics it was kinda like say if you gave a song to I don't know who today, Al Green. Back in the day Johnny Taylor liked doing his version of pop songs.

BW: Actually, Chris Thomas King is a very eclectic, and he does all kinds of different music from early Blues right up to hip hop.

JB: I heard some of that stuff.

BW: Some of his stuff I don't like at all, but the stuff he does in that more mellow vein I think he's very good.

JB: Yeah, yeah.

BW: I didn't mean that as an insult, believe me.

JB: No, no. I don't ever take it as an insult, but, yeah, I heard some of the stuff from a record that was out a year ago or something, and I was a little underwhelmed. I thought he was steppin' out a little too far out of his comfort zone.