Talking To...Eric Bibb
Welcome to what is a first for the Talking To… series. Eric Bibb is both the first overseas star and the first blues singer to be interviewed for this occasional series. Eric did a number of interviews for the old paper magazine and it's with great pleasure I welcome him back.
Over the years, I've had a number of chats with Eric Bibb. These tend to happen next to the duck pond at Cherry Hinton in the years that Eric is playing Cambridge Folk Festival.
Eric is playing Cambridge again this year, but he's also playing the Brook, an impressive bar venue in Southampton. So I'm breaking with tradition, heading up the M27 and talking to Eric a bit closer to home.
Eric recently released a new album, "Get On Board" on the Telarc Blues label and is part way through a world tour that sees him playing a whole host of clubs, theatres and festivals.
It's the troubadour tradition in blues that saw Eric first making his name, but these days he can often be found out on the road with other musicians as well as solo. This tour sees his daughter joining him on stage for the first time. With his wife along as tour manager it's an extended family outing.
On the way to the interview I got caught in some horrendous traffic, at one point taking over half an hour to cover a mile, and was late getting to the venue. Eric was just about to go on stage to sound check when I arrived. Fortunately Eric managed to find me some time after the sound check, a time when a lot of artists just want to be left alone to relax and prepare, for which many many thanks.
So I came to be on a sunlit veranda at the back of the Brook, once again talking to one of music's nicest people as well as one of it's finest guitarists.
#E=Eric Bibb #N=Neil King
#N The last time we spoke was at Cambridge Folk Festival, which you're playing again this year.
#E It's been a while, not sure how long, but a while. I'm really looking forward to it. I'll be playing with Danny Thompson and Larry Crocket, my drummer. It'll be great to get back there. I was in the area when Ruthie (Foster) played there last year. Unfortunately didn't manage to get there and see her play, but really looking forward to it.
It's one of the delights of the Summer season, for any artist, the fact that it's been going for so long. It's got a great tradition and I love appearing there. It'll be an honour and a real hoot to play it again.
#N You're on the road a lot playing festivals like Cambridge and venues like this, The Brook. Do you have a preference or is just being out there playing live which is important?
#E I think having a mixture of venue types is what's invigorating. If it's all theatres or all clubs or all festivals it can get monotonous. I'm really looking forward to playing The Brook. It's a blues hotbed, there's a lot of old friends here. It's up close and sweaty and I like that. It's a venue that it's easy to do a good gig in.
As a musician that makes a living of the enthusiasm of music lovers, you've got to get out there. More than ever, the live way is the way.
The retail way, through the shops, is changing so drastically that really the only way to communicate with the fans is through live work.
#N Carrying on with the live piece, you've very much carried through the troubadour thing, even when you've got a band with you, is that something that's becoming easier?
#E For me it is, I've done the hard work getting known. I guess it's also easier for younger musicians to connect with their heroes and their predecessors. They don't need to go down to the Delta to find the real music, there's a lot of material and songs available via the net.
#N True, but they get to miss out on that trip to the Delta
#E [laughs]The net's not all of it, but it does allow you a research Mississippi John Hurt, Robert Johnson, the places where it all started.
#N Indirectly that brings us onto the new album "Get On Board". The title has so many connotations, get on board with the program, welcome, get on board. Join the bandwagon. Was that always the intent behind the title?
#E Actually the album title came in late. We thought we had the album wrapped up and then it came to me that we should really underline the obvious. I wanted to find a track that really got into the theme of the whole record.
I was actually on a short vacation in Spain and I was noodling around on my guitar and this "Get On Board" song came to me.
#N Which sort of proves that a blues guitarist, or I guess any musician, can never really be on holiday.
#E [laughs]That it so true
It was a song that really nailed it. It's like the universe was agreeing that there should be one more song. It turned out to be the title song. As you say, that song has a history. "Get On Board" is used in other songs, there's certainly other songs called that.
"Get on board little children, there's room for many more" is an old spiritual. It's really like let's all pull together and there's a lot to that. It's something that's lacking. Come on brother let's get together, that sort of thing.
#N It's a more spiritual album than you've done in a while.
#E The accent yeah.
#N It's also that dichotomy between the whole crossroads soul selling piece and climbing Blueberry Hill and seeing the blues promised land.
#E I wanted to really, on record again, let people know that the blues and the gospel side of African American folk music is really not separate. They are aligned, they are connected, they are part of each other. You don't really get the one without the other.
I know there's been this huge discussion about the devil's music, the lord's music. That dichotomy is something I don't quite buy into, to say the least. Many of my heroes played spiritual music, but were known around the world as blues artists.