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Talking To...Eilen Jewell
The Maze,
Nottingham
October 11
AW: You've had two albums since then, the album in the middle your 'difficult' second album, LETTERS FROM SINNERS AND STRANGERS, I thought you finally found that jazz sound which I actually love, especially on High Shelf Booze, a great song with the clarinet sparring with the guitar; you like jazz don't you?
EJ: Oh yes some of it, I haven't listened to as much of it as I have blues of country. I like Billie Holiday, she's one of my favourite performers ever, I always think of her as a blues artist but everyone else seems to think of her as a jazz artist but really it has both of those things going on.
AW: I think she rarely sang straight forward blues it always leaned towards jazz. I know you do a smashing version of Fine and Mellow and I first was introduced to that song by seeing that piece of footage, they say that Bohemian Rhapsody was the first ever pop video but people ought to look at that piece of footage with Billie Holiday, it's a black and white film and she's seated, she looks quite relaxed although a little bit nervous as well, and she's surrounded by the cream of jazz players of the time, Coleman Hawkins, Ben Webster, Lester Young, Roy Eldridge, did you see that and is that where you got the idea to sing the song?
EJ: No, I actually just saw that on this tour.
AW: Oh really?
EJ: Yeah, a friend of ours over in the Netherlands showed us it at his place and I'd never seen it before. It was like in the 1950s maybe? Later on in her career?
AW: Yeah.
EJ: I think so. I fell in love with that from.. I think she recorded it earlier than that and I mostly listen to her earlier stuff and that's kind of where my heart is. I always loved that song and it always stood out to me and I didn't know that she wrote it until recently and then I pieced it together that all my favourite songs of hers are the ones that she wrote.
AW: She was such an under-rated songwriter.
EJ: She really was. God Bless the Child and Strange Fruit, didn't she write Strange Fruit?
AW: Yes, that's astonishing that song, would you consider doing that? That's a little bit heavy that song.
EJ: Strange Fruit is heavy yeah, maybe I could pair it with The Flood and really depress people (laughs).
AW: Do them as a couplet (laughs)
EJ: Yeah (laughs)
AW: Well your new album is out and that's got a much more contemporary feel although it's quite rocking in places. You do one of Johnny Kidd and the Pirates' songs Shakin' All Over and you do quite a faithful version of it, you've maintained the iconic guitar riff throughout; did you have that in mind as a jamming song with the band and it just fit or is it something you do love, doing that song?
EJ: Oh I really do love it and it just kind of happened and in a way the new record SEA OF TEARS was actually formed around Shakin' All Over because the folks at our label Signature Sounds heard us perform it at a festival and we were just doing it for fun. We just kind of fell in love with Johnny Kidd and the Pirates and we'd been listening to them in the van and we thought Jerry would sound great doing the electric guitar part on that and we thought maybe it would be fun hearing a female interpretation of the song, there's no one that we knew of had really done that. So we started doing it live just for fun and when our label heard it, the folks there were saying okay, you really have to record that on the next album. We were kind of shocked and we said 'really, are you sure?' I mean so many people have done it and it was already a big hit but they insisted, not in a pushy way but in a flattering way, no it's a really great version and you should do it. Then we thought that we can't really very well just have all these slow paced country songs on there and then randomly Shakin' All Over, and it worked out well anyway because we wanted to gravitate a little more towards the vintage rock and roll stuff. We were already naturally doing that in our live shows, so we put down I'm Going to Dress in Black by Them and that fits in really well with Shakin' All Over and Sea of Tears is inspired by The Kinks; we'd been listening to some of that kind or early 1960s, mid 1960s rock, I love that.
AW: The Kinks are fabulous aren't they?
EJ: They really are; they're just to me like the pinnacle of rock and roll.
AW: Dave Davies had that nasty sounding guitar, he was one of the first to do it and you couldn't go out and buy a guitar like that, he used to stick knitting needles into his amp to get that sound, this is what they used to do.
EJ: It's amazing and now everyone kinda imitates that, the Punk scene was going for that sound.
AW: We'll just talk briefly about your side project, you got involved with the Sacred Shakers, which is a kind of melting pot of Western Swing, Bluegrass and Gospel music of course, there's the Gospel thread going right through that.. fabulous album. How did you get involved with that?
EJ: That was the brainchild of Jason Beek, the drummer in my band. The Sacred Shakers, this is a little known trivia fact, actually pre-dates my band and in a way is what made my band come together. Jason had this idea to start a country gospel brunch every Sunday at a local pub in Boston and he wanted to get together all his favourite musicians from the area, which he did and we would just play gospel songs every Sunday and that went on for a couple of years and that's how I got used to playing with Johnny Sciascia on the upright bass. At that time I knew that I liked playing with the band but I didn't really have a set band, I was just experimenting with different people, I didn't really know the sound that I wanted. I knew I had to record all these songs that I had written and so Johnny, because of the Sacred Shakers was a logical choice because we were familiar with him and we knew we loved his playing and then Johnny recommended Jerry Miller the guitar player, and there was Dan Kellar the violin player who is in the Scared Shakers and we asked essentially a mini version of the Sacred Shakers to do BOUNDARY COUNTY to record that and from there, that's become my band. It's a lot of fun but we couldn't keep doing them because this band started touring so much so I guess that's the thanks you get from us, for helping us form.
AW: It's nice to fall back on though isn't it?
EJ: Yeah, it's a fun hobby; it works out pretty well because the other Sacred Shakers can't tour as much as we can so when we go home we tend to do a show or two with them. We've only done a couple of out of town gigs. It's very much like gospel the way Hank Williams or the Reverend Gary Davis might have made it.
AW: Well Gospel has the best harmonies.
EJ: Yeah, we have a lot of harmonies on our record too and you know, we try, none of us are really trained singers so we don't know exactly how to perform the perfect harmonies to the rules of harmony or whatever, but we have fun with it, live especially and the spirit of gospel comes through for us.
AW: Finally, I noticed that you had two signatures on your guitar at one point, I don't know if they're still there, Loretta Lynn and Lucinda Williams..
EJ: Yeah and there's a third now..
AW: Really? Oh I'm eager to find out..
EJ: The new arrival is Mavis Staples, she signed it over the summer.
AW: I've seen Mavis play.
EJ: She's amazing. So I got my three gals on my guitar.
AW: So briefly sum up what it is about those three gals that you feel particularly inspired by.
EJ: I guess to really over simplify it I would say that Loretta Lynn is a huge inspiration for me because her voice is so powerful and perfect in my mind and she's also an icon, a country music icon, I could really go on about her, I'm a big fan but I love how gutsy she always was and is. There's a rumour that she's had more songs banned from the country music radio stations than any other country music artist and I think that's pretty great because she was singing songs that women were not allowed to sing, no one was really allowed to sing stuff about the birth control pill or divorce or women going bad, like I'm the Other Woman was sort of outrageous to sing about and how it's the woman's fault that she wasn't loving the man properly and so you can't blame her for being the 'other' woman. You know people weren't singing that stuff so she's gutsy and really brave and wonderful and on stage she's really fun, she's very spirited and I like that in an artist, I like that spirit and generosity on stage and fun loving-ness, not taking yourself too seriously. Lucinda Williams I adore her song writing so much and as a person I think she's just stella, I aspire to be a lot like her as well. Her father is a great poet and I think that she inherited a lot from him. If there is a gene for being a wonderful poet and a wonderful writer then I think she has it and it seems so natural to her. I always hold her as the standard for song writing and Mavis Staples, is just.. I feel like you have to see her to believe her. Her voice is supernatural I think and as a performer every time I see her, I guess I've only seen her twice but both times I felt really really happy whilst I was seeing her yet I was crying, she just brings something out in my that's so powerful and you feel like she is just wanting to give her heart to everyone in the audience and she has this wonderful heart.
AW: She owns the stage doesn't she?
EJ: Yeah, in this wonderfully positive beautiful way that doesn't seem Prima Donna-ish, you know egotistical in any way. It's a very spiritual thing for me to see her.