JJ Grey & Mofro
It
was around seven years ago that northern Floridians JJ Grey & Mofro were
last in Australia, a trip which was, in fact, the band’s maiden voyage down
under. So it’s with no small amount of excitement that they embark for our
shores to play Bluesfest this year, armed with a cracking new album, Ol’ Glory, the latest in a catalogue
rich with southern soul and blues, country and rock ‘n’ roll, melded together
as only Grey and Mofro can.
“I
am lookin’ forward to it,” Grey smiles, “and as a matter of fact, Australia
really inspired me to get off my arse and get serious about doing something
with music. My wife was living in Sydney at the time, and I loved Australia, so
I thought maybe I could move there and do music. That never happened, but it’s
funny how that was part of it.”
Despite
Grey’s affinity with this country, it’s the country, and region, of his birth
that filters through in his music. Ol’
Glory is a prime example, brimming as it is with southern horns, gritty
guitars, songs that sway, songs that grind, a high point in the band’s career
thus far, steeped in southern American musical tradition.
I
was introduced to Grey and Mofro via their third album, 2007’s Country Ghetto, and was quickly drawn in
to what is a lean, driving, dirty record, quite different from the new cut,
which is far more considered, intricately arranged. Obviously this evolution isn’t
surprising, there have been three records in between, but as it turns out,
despite the sparse and raw feel of Country
Ghetto, Ol’ Glory came together a
lot more naturally.
“Yeah,
Country Ghetto, funnily enough, is
probably the second most produced of all the records I’ve been a part of,” Grey
muses. “I think Blackwater (the
band’s 2001 debut) was the most produced. And that is so weird, because even
when I listen to it, I think the opposite.
“With
Country Ghetto, I went into the
studio with just a drummer, and I played guitar on a scratch track while he
laid down all his parts… and then we layered everything else, one after the
other. Whereas, since probably Orange
Blossoms (2008), every record has progressively gotten more and more to
where it’s the whole band playing. In fact, [this album], the whole band
including the horns, played together over the entire album.”
This
‘live in the studio’ approach has played quite a part in the band’s sonic
evolution, the results being more fluid and free, less grit and grime, despite
the differences in production. Having said that, as Grey says, there hasn’t
been much change as far as location and equipment have gone.
“The
funny thing is that every record from Blackwater
to this record right now, has been recorded on the same gear, in the same
studio, the same guitars, the same amplifiers, same tape machine, same
microphones for the most part, same everything,” he says with a laugh. “I think
it’s just the arrangements just get a little tighter [each time].”
Tight
is the word, particularly in the live setting, and their sets at Bluesfest
won’t be any different. “I don’t like to look back too much, but [our sets at
Bluesfest last time], those were a couple of sets I wished we could have had
back,” he sighs. “This time though, we’re gonna come in and do what we do, and
that’s just share an honest moment, you know?
“And
that requires you to be there man, be
a part of the audience, you’re watching the audience put on a show, everyone is
watching each other… and so we’ll play plenty of stuff off the new record,
plenty of stuff off the old records, I’m lookin’ forward to it.”
Samuel J. Fell
***
John Mayall
He’s
the godfather of British blues, the man responsible, in large part, for
bringing this music that’s informed so much, to millions of English music fans.
Via the seminal Bluesbreakers, John Mayall reinterpreted the genre, along the
way displaying a knack for unearthing some of the best electric blues
guitarists in the world – Eric Clapton, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Walter Trout,
Harvey Mandel and Buddy Whittington, amongst many others.
Despite
the fact Mayall no longer fronts the Bluesbreakers (the name being retired in
2008), at 81 years old, he’s still in fine form, in 2013 clocking up a half
century in the game. “It’s something that I appreciate, and something that
should never be taken for granted,” Mayall says on his 50 years in music.
“If
people respect you for a certain originality, then it’s important to not take
that for granted, [you need to be] always striving for creative highs. That’s
what I’ve always done, and what I always will do.”
Last
year, Mayall produced his 61st release, A Special Life, an album which as he says, wasn’t that different
from his 1965 debut, John Mayall Plays
John Mayall, in terms of what went into making it.
“Not
in essence, I don’t think there’s that much difference,” he says. “The whole
idea is to get your emotions and the content of the song across in as honest a
way as possible. And I think the technology available today, allows you to not
have such a struggle with the equipment side of things. I think one helps the
other, for sure.”
At
its heart, it’s all blues, it’s what he’s done since day one, and it’s what
he’ll do until the day he dies. “To me, it’s always been exciting,” he says of
a genre he’s become a literal part of. “The musicians I’m working with, they
keep it fresh, we have such a great time every night we step on stage. I don’t
see any change to that situation.”
They
say the blues will never die. “That’s exactly right,” he smiles. Fifty years
in, and John Mayall is still the godfather, with no thought to giving that
title, or the musical world he’s made his home, up at all.
Samuel J. Fell
***
Tony Joe White
While
legendary swamp bluesman Tony Joe White might have aged over the years, his
songwriting process remains very much the same as it has for decades. "[Songs] are kinda handed down to you from the sky,
I just wait for a tune to come to me, I don't worry about trying to write it to
get it on the radio or anything,” he says in his distinct Louisiana drawl.
“Usually, I sit and take a look outside, get a few cold beers, hopefully
get a few words... then go into the studio and just lay it down."
This technique was utilised most recently for 2013’s Hoodoo, perhaps White’s swampiest
release since he began making records in 1968. The songs are lean, hungry blues
tunes, his trademark fuzz lathered all over them. “I’ve had my own studio for
the last 18 years, it’s an old civic war house,” he says.
“Still use my old 16-track, tape, old microphones, and we just
get in there and hit the red button. Then I might add a little guitar [later],
but most of the time, like on Hoodoo,
eight or nine of [those songs] are first takes.”
As White prepares to head back to Australia for Bluesfest in
April, his “seventeenth or eighteenth trip to Australia” since he first started
coming here in the late ‘80s, Warner are re-releasing the three records White
recorded with them in the early ‘70s – Tony
Joe White, The Train I’m On and Homemade Ice Cream.
“We were down in Muscle Shoals, one of those magic spots that
you can’t wait to go to,” he recalls of the sessions for The Train I’m On. “We was in the studio, everyone was there, ready
to go, at about three o’clock, or four in the afternoon, but there was no Roger
Hawkins, the drummer.”
“So we kept waiting and waiting, man. Then all of a sudden, at
about five, Roger comes walkin’ in, bare-footed, cut-off blue jeans, no shirt,
and he’s got fish scales on his feet,” he goes on with a laugh. “He’d been
outside cleaning fish, down by the river while we was up there waitin’, so I
thought, ‘Now, if my drummer has got fish scales on his feet, then this is
gonna be swampy’.”
It’d come as a surprise to many if anything Tony Joe White ever
did wasn’t swampy. As he says, “I dig
goin’ down to Louisiana, goin’ to my sister’s out in the bayou where you hear
the gators bellow, and maybe take a tape recorder and play guitar while they
holler.”
Now that’s the swamp. The real swamp. That’s Tony Joe White.
Samuel J.
Fell
JJ Grey & Mofro, John Mayall and Tony Joe White all play the Byron Bay Bluesfest, April 2-6, 2015. For playing times, tickets etc, head to the website here.
