He s a soul funk maverick with an appetite for protest songs. Numbered among his fans are Norma Waterson, Beth Orton and Taj Mahal. His musical lineage includes a grandmother who passed the time of day in the company of Woody Guthrie, and a grandfather who was hounded by the McCarthyites in the 50s. Is it any wonder that Ben Harper s credibility ratings run high?
His enigmatic personality doesn t readily lend itself to media exposure. First spotted by this writer one balmy summer s day on Sedge Thomson s West Coast Live radio show on KALW FM in San Francisco, Harper came across like a meek and mild Bob Marley, intense, fraught and timid of the spotlight. None of his three records have shifted significant numbers round these parts (although his world wide sales top the 2 million mark) but still he drew a sellout crowd to his debut gig in Vicar St. during this year s Guinness Blues Festival. And judging by the ecstatic reaction of the audience, the smart money s on a rapid upturn in that sales curve over the next few months.
Ben Harper makes music for people with appetites. In an age of musical prostitution, he doesn t shirk when it comes to the twitch-inducing subjects of personal freedom, racism, political will and some plain ol romance. So anyone with a hunger for the meat and potatoes of musical expression need forage no further. Ben Harper is carrying the torch so ably lit by Pete Seeger, Dick Gaughan, Utah Philips, Martin Carthy and Norma Waterson.
It s the morning after his spectacularly successful gig, a night that saw hundreds lip synch to every line of every song. It was a night of theatrical proportions, with Harper exercising an impressive control over a new audience. Remaining seated beneath his beloved Weissenborn guitar, he eventually stood up for the last song, turning that simple physical manoeuvre into an act of high drama.
It s clear that this is no flimsy dilettante, but a musician who has forged his own identity outside the corrals normally assigned to whippersnappers who ve yet to reach their 30th birthday. He sinks into the armchair in his hotel, hopelessly failing to hide his exhaustion after the final gigs on his current European tour. He s largely nonchalant about the rapturous reception he received the previous night.
I try to avoid expectations so as not to be let down, he offers, his voice creaking with tiredness, his fingers surreptitiously propping his eyelids open.
But I had a wonderful time at the show. And yes, I was surprised. I mean, we haven t sold any records here, we ve never played here. That was, of course, an overwhelming response.
Harper even had the distinction of having a black bra flung in his direction before he had finished the second song of the set. Hardly a pretender to the Tom Jones throne of lost knickers and rambling bustiers, he s more bemused than flattered by the unexpected attention he garners.
I suppose last night was just a result of word of mouth, you know, he adds, unconvincingly. It s an underground kind of thing, I think.
With a lyrical content that is positively political, and with album titles like The Will To Live and Fight For Your Mind, Harper runs the risk of being labelled cerebral in comparison with most of his contemporaries whose idea of intellectualism is to skip an hour s TV. Still, the question of whether his audience gets all his allusions is one that Harper refuses to linger on, preferring to leave the interpretation to the listener, and the lyrical analysis to some navel-gazing thesis writer.
It s something that could drive myself pretty much backwards if I focused on it, he suggests. I don t like to tell people how to listen to music, because that takes away a certain element of freedom. I put a lot of time into lyrics so it is something I want to put across as much as the music. But I d like people to get whatever their heart allows them to get.
Harper could also very easily find himself hijacked by the gamut of spiritual or religious causes, with his forthright style and his informed political consciousness. Even a cursory listen to his last three albums reveals a musician with enough colour in his palette to create an identity that s wholly his own, with no apologies to anyone else. It s this very eclecticism that he feels keeps him apart from the lazy categorisation to which so many artists fall victim these days.
I ve widened the playing field with each record, he says. I think that s good. I mean, The Beatles could do When I m 64 or something like Let It Be . That s a wide range. I want to continue bringing new sides out in my music, so that people can hear what you have to say, feel what you have to say, and feel the beat, feel the bass. All of that.
Harper is due to release his fourth album, Burn And Shine, later this year. It s as discriminating and resourceful a collection as ever, but this time round it seems like he s heading for bigger audiences, more airplay and most probably, bigger sales. And incredibly, he s still managing to slither between the book covers of blues, folk, soul and funk. Ben Harper doesn t sit comfortably in any one box, and that s exactly how he d like to keep it.
No genre is really big enough for where I m trying to get to, he insists. The sound of music that I d like to be my own. Every artist wants to be themselves, to have a sound or style that s their own, and I think that s being defined quite steadily in the records I make.
Harper s under no illusions about the importance of the live shows in transcending the imbecilic boundaries so often created by radio stations and other media.
If it wasn t for the live shows, we d have sunk into musical obscurity years ago, he offers with refreshing honesty. We haven t had access to much video or radio at all. And, fortunately, it s been my dream to tour, so it doesn t take on a feeling of being a chore at all.
Having cut his musical teeth with no lesser a luminary than Taj Mahal, Harper s kept very good company since then. His songs have been covered by a select group of people, including Beth Orton and Norma Waterson.
I met Beth in Colorado when we were both playing at this really weird radio convention, he explains. Anyway she asked me to play on her new record, Central Reservation, (on the opening track, Stolen Car SL), and when I got the tape, it was really intimidating because there was already a lot on there. Keyboards, two or three guitars, her vocals and harmonies, and I didn t really know what to do and neither did she! She just asked me to come into the studio and play! So I made the guitar sound like strings, with five or six tracks of guitar, and the lead slide guitar. It was something I was so pleased to be part of, though, because it s just such a good record.
Surprisingly, Norma Waterson, another Ben Harper fan and a British folk icon, wasn t an unknown quantity to Harper either. Although he grew up in California, he didn t fall prey to the egocentricity that tends to govern denizens of that sunburst piece of real estate. Instead, his grandparents saw to it that he was well versed in the intricacies of a whole host of folk singers from the 60s and 70s.
I grew up listening to the Watersons, Harper declares, with a certain pride in his grandparents informed repertoire. My grandparents loved the Watersons, so when Norma covered Pleasure And Pain it was a real shock. And you know what? Her version s better than mine! I have no problem in saying so, and I called her and told her.
It s a song that first demonstrated Harper s weakness for a sound that s remarkably at home in English and Irish folk company. Replete with uileann pipes and bodhran, it speaks of a sensibility finely tuned to other traditions, alternative ways of seeing.
That someone of Norma s musical stature decided to pay tribute to that song by covering it really confirms a lot for me in terms of songwriting, he adds. Not to mention Richard Thompson playing on it too. It doesn t really get better than that!
Ben Harper s etching out his own identity, alright. It s an individuality that was stretched bare naked during the live show in Vicar St. And if he needed proof of its worth, then the audience reaction must ve been all the reassurance he needs. Finally, he smiles reluctantly as he the savours the highs of the night.
It was fine, really fine, he affirms. It makes me feel real good about the prospect of coming back! n