STILL GOT THE BLUES

TEN YEARS is a long time in the music business, being about ten times the average band s lifespan. So for an Irish blues act to have not only survived but prospered over the course of a decade is something special. And when that act release their first CD after their first 10 years, gathering together songs recorded from a decade of music, the story seems even more unusual. But when that band is The Mary Stokes Band, who have studiously ignored the rulebook throughout their career, everything comes into focus.
Delighting fans around the globe with her own brand of blues and soul, Mary Stokes has been a stalwart, and an unsung one at that, of the Irish music industry since 1987. 10 Years On The Road is a culmination of all the passion and all the ravaged beauty that the blues can offer. So is it a retrospective of sorts?
I guess so, Mary smiles. I m doing a lot of material now which is moving towards working in the States and Europe. Over 10 years I felt that we came from a distinct background, which would be Chicago-style blues, and we have been through various stages to the point where the sound is less derivative and is more original. I felt that people who don t know what I ve done over the years deserve some explanation of where the music is coming from.
Although this is Mary s first CD outing, she has released four successful cassette albums, which have consistently sold well, particularly at her gigs.
We had this question of what to do for our first CD, she says, and I felt that it was more relevant to try to encapsulate what has gone on and where we are coming from.
To that end, the album includes tracks taken from all stages of Mary s career, using different line-ups and different instruments. For example, brass and piano make appearances along the way, but neither feature in Mary s current line-up.
10 Years On The Road is an independent release, which is something that Mary feels strongly about. We decided on moving independently because we felt that we had to make our own statement, she explains. You have people like Nick Kelly, who I got a lot of encouragement from. He got disillusioned by the rock scene, the rock system and the corporate thing. Having had two years where he sat back and thought about it, he decided to come back for himself, so you have that needy element it s something that you ve got to do. If you come out of any situation feeling stronger for it, well then it has got to be good.
Although the album is taken from many recording sessions over the past 10 years, it boasts a continuity which is all the more surprising, given that it encompasses every style of blues you can possibly imagine. Given the expertise on display, it s surprising too to learn that Mary Stokes wasn t always a blues aficionado, however.
Being the youngest in the family, she picked up on her older sibling s musical tastes almost by osmosis, which led her to bands like The Rolling Stones. At the same time, Mary was treading more formal musical paths, and sang choral music, as well as developing a love for folk music.
With folk, I felt that there were some parts of the music that I enjoyed and really liked, but it still didn t feel like it was me it wasn t coming as much from within me, she says.
She is quick to point out, however, the similarities between blues and more traditional Irish styles: An Irish lament is very like a blues song in many respects: it has the same power.
It was with the blues, though, that Mary finally felt at home: It was like putting on an old shoe that feels comfortable, she reflects, the emotional side and the honesty of blues.
The ancestral home of the blues may be Africa, but its spir-itual base and its popular home is America. So do Irish people really understand the blues?
Irish people are very literate with regard to music: they pick up on lots of different influences, she observes. A lot of Irish people, like myself, grew up listening to radio as a significant medium, where you had this incredible eclectic mixture of stuff. So, in general, Irish people respond to music very well. They get into it and let themselves go with it, she says.
Also, with blues being the root of all rock n roll music as we know it now, regardless of what genre it is, from heavy metal through to jazz, there is a blues element in most of what people recognise.
Although a lot of Mary s set was written by other artists, her band have avoided the covers tag, and quite rightly so.
I ve always tried to avoid doing covers of songs that people know, she explains. What I m trying to get at is a more essential understanding and then to put my stamp on that to create a sound that is my own with blues as its base. Providing that people understand that you re not going to play traditional music and you re not going to play covers of rock songs, and they are open enough, they react really well.
I have played up and down the country so many times all the highways and by-ways and it has been extremely rare that you wouldn t hit a chord with people at least once during a gig. If you get that one moment where people respond, you might still find the gig unsatisfactory, but you are justified.
To be in blues rather than rock is an interesting field. Essentially, with rock or pop, something either happens or it doesn t. It s very hard to come back from that, and it s equally hard to prolong a career in that field. Whereas, working through the stages as I have, I know the ropes; I m both incredibly impressed by good music and incredibly unimpressed by bullshit. I can see things and, I hope, read things fairly.
Mary cites the example of blues legends like John Lee Hooker, who spent many years on the road before he achieved the recognition he so richly deserves.
Blues is not a phase, it is something that stays with you, she points out. It is a political issue. It is an emotional issue. It is a musical issue.
Every year, from my point of view, there has been progress. There have been rough years as well as good ones, but there has been consistent progress.
Mary sees a lot of her future in the US and continental Europe. Not that she is planning on leaving Ireland for good, but the market for blues is much bigger out of this country.
There is no point in my pretending that it is otherwise the case, she muses. There are three and a half million people in Ireland, a small percentage of which will be seeking out a blues album. The comparison to the States and to Europe is obvious. It is an economic issue as much as anything else.
I am Irish and I love Ireland. It s a good place to come from and to return to and to use as a base. But really, it just makes sense to travel around.

VENUES A ROUGH GUIDE
Some of what might be termed the worst venues actually have such a great vibe, says Mary Stokes. It s a very intangible thing. Why is a dirty, run-down club or pub the place where magic just happens?
The Wexford Inn: You d go in in the middle of the afternoon to set up and it would be a bit dingy in the cold light of day, but you fill that place with 500 people and it was one of the best venues for live music.
Drogheda Boxing Club: The best or worst graffiti was definitely in the Drogheda Boxing Club. We had a brilliant gig up there, but it was quite an experience. The dressing room and the bathrooms were daubed all over it was pretty grim.
Walter s, Dun Laoghaire: That was a venue that I enjoyed consistently. We played there every Saturday night for a couple of years and we got about 350 people every time, and they were really into it.
Olympia Theatre, Dublin: The Olympia is a beautiful venue: it has a lovely intimacy even though it is a big venue. The Ulster Hall in Belfast has a similar kind of feel. Audiences in the North are brilliant they really respond to live music.
An Beal Bocht, Dublin: I always enjoyed playing at the Beal Bocht in Dublin, even though every time we played we were always given out to for being too loud.
National Stadium, Dublin: The Stadium was always a really nice gig, although it is less and less popular as a venue these days. I think Whelan s have taken over. I did a lot of gigging in Whelan s and as a venue it was very good.
Bruxelles, Dublin: Many of the gigs that I have played in Bruxelles have been really memorable, and I ve been playing there for a few years now. I have enjoyed that gig time after time and it has been really special, because there is a good lively crowd. I m not into reverential crowds at all. I like people to have fun and enjoy themselves. But it is nice when we can get to a point where I can do a song on my own at the end of a gig, and people stay quiet. So I have had some really special moments there.

The Blues Of The World
Billie Holiday: On the down side of blues, Billie Holiday still has the capacity to tear the heart out of me when she sings Don t Explain , which is not really a strict blues format, but it is such an incredible blues song.
Howlin Wolf: On the other side, a lot of the blues that I like is angry rather than mellow. The power of Howlin Wolf just kills me all the time. The harmonica playing that Little Walter puts across with incredible passion . . . I also like rockin blues, people like Stevie Ray Vaughan.
Memphis Minnie: I really respect a lot of the women players. She worked her own band in the 1920s, and travelled throughout the States and was an incredibly strong individual.
John Lee Hooker: I was fortunate enough to meet John Lee Hooker. I ve met a lot of great blues artists, and he always struck me as being a root that I loved because of the rawness of his music and the real strength of it.
We had played support to John Lee in Dublin and on that occasion we didn t really get to meet, it was more a passing Hello . I remember that I was a little disappointed that night. But John Lee s band wanted to go out after the gig. One of the only places in Dublin that you could go out and drink beer and hear music at that time was Bad Bob s, so we all bundled down to Bad Bob s, and we had a good session. We got on very well with John Lee s bass player at the time, a guy called Jim, and we enjoyed that.
That summer I was over in the States and saw that John Lee was playing a gig in New Haven, Connecticut, so I decided to go along. It was kind of a strange situation: we were paying into a gig where no-one knew us, as opposed to the Dublin scene where you would know a lot of people. We thought, Oh well, here we are, punters . Then, I saw Jim and we talked for a few minutes and he asked us if we would like to come down and meet John Lee. So, we sailed past a queue of people who were going in to meet him.
I remember just sitting there thinking that I was really happy, and that this was a pinnacle of sorts, because, meeting a legend is always special. But also, the fact that he was really entertaining and enjoyable we got on well. I really enjoyed that.
Bo Diddley: I enjoyed playing in the Mean Fiddler, as support to Bo Diddley. In fact, one time Bo Diddley ended up going home wearing some of our T-shirts, so that was great, laughs Mary. His luggage had either been stolen or got lost in London, so he and his band were stuck in Heathrow Airport with no luggage, so we whipped out five T-shirts to tide them over.
I believe Bo was photographed in Mojo magazine wearing one of our T-shirts, so that was fun.
Tom Waits: I think that Tom Waits has been influenced substantially by Howlin Wolf, in terms of the style that he uses. There is an enormous amount of blues influence there. I think that, because of his ability, Tom Waits has an incredible power to take that into his own music and create his own unique sound and approach. The fact that Tom Waits uses different sound and he takes influences as much from Eastern Europe as from blues and combines them, means that he has developed something that is quite incredible.
I saw him playing in the Olympia a long time ago and I felt that it was as much about theatre as about a gig, and it was as powerful as theatre.
Neil Young: Neil Young has written blues songs with incredible pathos and irony, and his lyrics and his performances of blues and his use of blues as the root of where he is coming from really appeals to me.
The album that we borrowed Vampire Blues from is called On The Beach, and that is the album that he was apparently sued by his record company over for it being non-commercial, but it happens to be a favourite of mine.
Again it s a case of developing a sound that acknowledges where you come from, but that you work beyond that and create something that is unique and is your own sound.
There are many blues players out there who fall into a trap of saying I want to sound just like Little Walter on harmonica or I want to sound just like BB King on guitar . To me, that is meaningless BB King is BB King and that s the way it is he got there first. But to say that you like the way he approaches something is different altogether. It s not a question of mimicking. n
10 Years On The Road is out now on MSB and distributed by Gael Linn.