Interview to CW Stoneking

On the occasion of the Mojo Station Blues Festival held in Rome recently, I had the chance to meet the Australian bluesman  C.W. Stoneking. Thanks to his precious cooperation,  we were able to ask some questions to one of the most interesting and esteemed musicians on today’s international scene.

STONEKING:   I must apologize for the delay we had to drive for nine hours straight to be here tonight and met a lot of traffic.

MPFR:  Hi,  you are absolutely excused, knowing the Italian traffic but most of all are truly  delighted to welcome you to Rome. Finally we meet a true Australian story-teller and blues man on stage from the insight. Because there is no doubt that especially your  lyrics are real fables?

STONEKING:  Yes, in fact when I write my music I also make up my own  of stories.

MPFR:  The fact that you were born  in the Northern Territory, must have been a very challenging environment human-wise but a bit secluded from the musical point of view.

 STONEKING:  Oh you know kids are adaptable anywhere, it’s not like moving  an older Australian from his environment.  After all I grew up with my American father,  and I grew up listening to his American music collection constantly.

CW Stoneking

MPFR:  This brings me to another question, we wanted to ask you what were your first steps, how did you take up the banjo and guitar?

STONEKING:  I started playing the guitar when I was 11. My mother had an old one in the shed she pulled it out from there and gave it to me, learned some chords of songs  I was familiar with, so all the kids that knew how to play the guitar sort of got together. Seen that I was a wild boy,  It was very soothing for me at the time.

MPFR:  Do you miss your banjo in your performances?

STONEKING:   I didn’t use the banjo on this record because I wanted different sounds. It had already happened in the past where I had to give up some projects recordings (say with wind instruments) that I enjoyed very much. With respect to the banjo, I can say that I have it always handy, in my house, and play it any time I wish. So, I don’t really miss it.

MPFR:  We, instead, missed you not being on the recording scene for six years. With your respect to your last record Gon’ Bogoloo, you really go down heavy with root-blues especially on Zombie and Mama got the Blues. Love me or Die is another of my favourites from Jungle Blues .They are all very intense as much as they  are unsual. The atmosphere reminds me  of primordial blues, that was sang in cotton field camps. You fundamentally talk about slavery, but try and put it on a “lighter note”. They are all tormented songs  and also thanks to your  voice have always had a vintage flavour, how do you obtain it?

STONEKING:  With respect to recording you can’t really help it. It’s like the Rolling Stones when they went to record to the States they wanted to sound like Muddy Waters but in the end they sounded like the Rolling Stones.  My last work was recorded very simply. And I don’t know if it depended on my laziness  or to get the record over and done with real quickly. Anyhow  that is what I really sound like and  has its positive sounds and shortcomings. As far as I know there hasn’t been in the past 60 years a full band with two microphones and two vocalists only.  With respect to music, my main influence goes back to the  ‘20s and ‘30s and it was in that period that milestones for American music and society were actually thrown.

Muddy Waters and The Rolling Stones

MPFR:  On Mama got the Blues bassline, which btw is one of my other favourite tracks,  with its flat line and rhythmic gait  betrays strange hip hop influence while your voice has a magnetic sound.

STONEKING:   Yeah that bassline i wrote time some time ago..... when i wrote Jungleblues, I was caught in  a trap. In Mama’s got the blues anytime i deviated away from it, it took many years to go back to it occasionally then figure a way out again. The hollow cry, the melody with which it began ,  so as to open an air, yeah, you know it is a bit hip hop you know,   I was inspired by  a 50cents hit which had keypad sounding (plays on table few hip hop notes) that could have been just the conclusion of that record now that you make me think about it.

MPFR:  (Just for a laugh) We didn’t not want to compare you with 50cents.

STONEKING: It always happens.  People ignore me when I say it. That is where the idea came from though. (laugh).

MPFR:  Just needed your confirmation (laughter!)

MPFR:   On Gon Bogoloo there are many female vocals with a doo wop influence  if not gospel . How did you find them in Australia and get those magical vibes out of them?

STONEKING:  They are are two sets of sisters The Kelly Sisters,I have known their father who is a very popular Australian singer-songwriter who recommended them. The Kellys  are here with us, and Vic and Linda Bull and Tom on the Zombie video.  At  first wanted to find a traditional African choir which i had seen on you tube, they are very hard to track  down. They are traditional and not interested in making records basically you know.  The two sets of sisters on the record and are that are  here  are very  different with respect to the sounds they have, they only needed some directives and the job was done.  
  

MPFR:  Our congratulations to them as well! They managed to enhance your characteristic sound.

STONEKING:   Will pass on the compliments to the girls.

The Kelly Sisters

MPFR:   With respect to record company, it seems you now have firmly chosen to propose your music through your own label King Hokum, this certainly helps  because you have a greater freedom in choosing your tracks. However this shall mean harder work with respect to production, distribution etc. What do you think?

STONEKING:  I use distributors in the UK, Europe, in New Zealand but not in America. It’s mostly worked pretty good, but having said this, I think i might downsize and go very independent to the point of mail order sort of thing.

The last Stoneking's album

MPFR:  Are you working on analog still?

STONEKING:  The last record didn’t touch the computer once. The CDs did but not the vinyl. But my first two records were  both recorded on computer.Some people claim that they can tell if a record is made analogically or through cd tech. That’s bull-shit.  One should forget about the gear.  it’s all about music and song-writing, if one’s really good, they can record even from a cell-phone.

MPFR:  What music do you listen to nowadays?

STONEKING: I listen to Gospel Records these past six yrs, the singing aspect of quartets which intrigued me very much. Don’t listen to too  much other music because I’ve got  four  small children and then if I start  playing other  records I’d have to go to rehab you know (laugh).

MPFR:   Well congratulations, four children! You might try with Amy Winehouse’s “Rehab” , perhaps they  might get the drift. (laugh)

MPFR:   Well, we better let you go to your deserved dinner. We know how far you have travelled and thanks for the time granted.

STONEKING:  Looking forward seeing you at the concert later tonight.

MPFR:   Won’t miss you, that’s for sure! 

by  Marina Parigiani © 2015

The 2015  Rome concert

Discography

C.W. Stoneking  (1998)

C.W. Stoneking & The Blue Tits (live) - independent release (1999)

King Hokum - King Hokum Records (KHR 01) (March 2005)

Mississippi & Piedmont Blues 1927-1941 - King Hokum Records (2006)

Jungle Blues - King Hokum Records (KHR02) (20 October 2008)

Gon' Boogaloo - King Hokum Records/Caroline Australia (17 October 2014)

Interview to James Taylor of the JTQ

James Taylor in the early eighties was the hammond-player of the English rock band The Prisoners and in 1987 after the band broke up, decided to lay the foundations for his own group  The James Taylor Quartet. The proposal was purely instrumental and was inspired by the blaxploitation films of the seventies but also to soul R & B of Booker T. & the MG’s. The passion for the movie themes is apparent in the first LP of the band, Mission Impossible, a collection of covers of acronyms  of movies made with hammond, electric guitar, bass and drums. The group's reputation was growing thanks to the countless concerts based on funky wah-wah sound, giving ample space to solos and active participation to the public.    

In the early nineties, the group changed its sound, including singers of the caliber of Rose Windross, Alison Limerick and Noel McKoy. The single Love The Life reaches a good level of sales. In The Hand Of The Inevitable, the wake of the movement Acid Jazz,  however,  remains their  best-selling record.

In the new millennium occurs a new change of direction towards a more funk and instrumental sound and a return to the original quartet, at least with regard to live concerts which remain the favorite form of exhibition of James Taylor et al. The British band has recently performed live in Rome Rising and Music Postcards from Rome was able, during the sound check in the afternoon  to ask  few questions whose answers have revealed the man who still believes in the strength of human kind notwithstanding his passed experiences and the JTQ’s future projects   to which  he is really looking forward to. It was a real pleasure talking to him. 

Interview to James Taylor of the James Taylor Quartet
by Marina Parigiani

MPFR: So, glad to finally meet you. I would like to start by asking you how your passion, your  career, the emotions that you inject with such enthusiasm at each concert, through your many albums have remained intact after more than a quarter of a century.  Where do you get your inspiration from?

JT: From  people, from human courage, from human hope. You know what I mean,  people in the face of despair  and  how people try to recreate their life in face of adversity.   Musicians usually reflect  what's going on around them really. Another source of inspiration was my father.....he was a great guy. He inspired me a lot to reach for beautiful things, beautiful relationship at the highest level with an audience for instance. If I  can create something beautiful is something fundamental for me.

MPFR:  We can say that the at the beginning of your career  together with the group "The Prisoners": you were mainly a band following beat and soul of the '60s are there any records of those years to which you are particularly attached?

JT: Yes, loads. I can say that. Particularly in those times, I was attached  to many records as a child such as Beatles and Rolling Stones. Many things are still valuable to me but  I don't listen to that music any more. So I can hardly say that I am attached to this or that record in particular. But as a part of my development  as a musician,   I mostly got saturated with records that had organ on it. It could be rock music of the Stones,  but if  it had  Hammond on it, I had to have it.

MPFR: Few days ago Ian Mc Lagan, keyboard player of the Small Faces passed the way.

Ian McLagan - 1967

JT: Ian,  oh he was an absolute huge hero for me.

MPFR: Oh great because we are great fans of Small Faces.

JT:  Me too. In fact when you asked me the question I thought you were going to ask me  if there was a seminal record for me and I was going to say "Odgens' Nut Gone Flake" but there were  many seminal records. Oh the way he used to play his instruments,  because you see it is such a complex and interesting sound that when I used to listen to him I'd ask myself how does he get that sound out of that  organ?  And also this goes for "Up the Wooden Hill to Bedfordshire" and all the music he performed. I think he was phenomenal. But never had the pleasure of  meeting him personally.

MPFR: How did he influence your music?

JT:  He had a massive, massive influence. When I'll play tonight you will hear some of Ian Mc Flagan too.

MPFR:  I have noticed  the way you merge jazz, R&B and funk doesn't make it easy to describe your music at all. However I have also noticed, as a female, that when you want, you give great space to romanticism. How do you combine rhythm with sentiment?

JT:  This sounds like an ultimate question! (releasing  a contagious laugh).

On my recordings you mean? 

MPFR:  Yes, you do, especially on your recordings.....

JT: This is an interesting idea to explore, but the fact is that you don't have to combine them together  you can just oppose them and see what happens when you push  them once they are beside each other.  I will start together  with a sort of  romantic mellow which has hardly any rhythmic quality at all. It is far more related to a  sentimental sound.  My biggest hero is Beethoven, he combines romanticism with sentiment.   And he does it by pushing something very sentimental into something very muscular, very powerful,   then into something gentle again, a pure bipolar genius.

MPFR: By listening to your many records, you seem to love making covers especially detective ones, can you tell us which are the elements that guide you towards a specific choice?

JT: When we were children we were literally overwhelmed by American detective stories and often those movies were quite revolting but the scores  were wholesome and who wrote them? Lalo Schifrin and we are still attracted by his music. With respect to covers, however, we use them as hooks for that part of the audience that does not know us yet. Some follow and know everything about us, others only know few things we've done. Covers are mainly used to make our audience interact with each other. We usually decide on the spot what should be played as we don't have a play-list and the audience telling us what they prefer to hear becomes a part of our interaction with them as well.

MPFR: You have also participated to a true OST, that of Austin Powers. Did you like that movie?  How was your experience with the movie industry? What is the difference at working at your own album such as let's say The Money Spider  instead of performing for a real movie?

James Taylor invites us to go on back stage away as sound-check has just started.

JT: The movie was not successful. They were wanting to take our ideas and make them theirs by often leaning on me.  They paid me well, but they did not give me enough space to  work on the whole thing. So I didn't enjoy that particular Hollywood experience although  I was invited to the movie's premiére  where I also  took my wife  along, but got an idea on how the movie world works, I suppose. To be honest with you, I did feel used by that environment.   Instead,   writing The Money Spider was very exciting because  I didn't have any obligation nor image to work on. When it is your imagination that counts  foremost it's another world altogether.  Without doubt. Indeed,  if your music is born from an inspiration or a circumstance, it will  sooner or later  encounter the favour of the audience, otherwise   someone may get that same image and get a successful connection with the listener. That's the skill of Lalo Schifrin.  He was able  to work and give colour and dramatize a story . There are very capable people working in this field.

The Spider Money Lp

MPFR: Your work in the past years progressively broadened with horns and vocalists. The James Taylor Quartet, however, has remained a Trade Mark of yours.

JT: It still remained my favourite form of exhibition because people love to hear the Hammond. I have been pulled in many directions,  I've flirted with many ideas. I've been called to different places. I worked with an orchestra, with a choir and the Quartet at the same time. We worked with up to 100 members on stage. But still JTQ remains my favourite.  Those people want to hear the Hammond, they want to hear that sound.  It's always the experience I enjoy the most. It's the purest thing and the least corruptible within this context,   It's really the music I enjoy the most , I feel.

MPRF:  So as your music has strongly evolved, how did manage to obtain the best out of your group after so many years? Because there must be some  kind of discipline.

JT: This is a very fragile collaboration, to work with other musicians on musical projects over a period of time, lot of travelling, lot of recordings and  the creative spark has to survive. So it's not only about talent, that's about serious people,  and these guys are not only profoundly talented but very serious and know who they are and what they want .  The guy who goes on stage is a bit of freak, he's mad. In a way what they are doing is exercising their demons on stage  and transform their madness  into something beautiful and positive with an audience by  producing sound is a way of connecting to God as it were. So that relationship permanently needs work in a very subtle way, it's very delicate,  it is like a dance. You are very sensitive to them and they to you and if you manage to stay on the same landmark you can do good work together.

MPFR: Sure you can tell. It's looks like as if you are embracing your guys as your family or considering it as such. Of course there might  have come times when one might have hurt each the other, but also others where  when  one  realizes that the one can't do without the other and by losing that  person just wouldn't be the same, then what happens?

JT: In fact doing without a musician you love, can get you broken hearted. It happens.  It is very painful. The idea is to create something and try to be as human as you can possibly be. To urge them to go on stage to  perform at their highest level  gets me very excited,  like a child, just like my father did for me.

MPFR: You know, I really appreciate the way you mention your father the way you do. He must have been a very positive figure for you. We had other artists talking about themselves but never opening on their personal background spontaneously. So I just wanted to say that your father would be proud of you for remembering him the way you always do.

 

JT: That is it. That is  what I am selling, selling my father's love

MPFR: Oh no, if you allow me James, you are not selling it, you are spreading your father's love.

JT:  Yes, you are right,  what am I doing is actually spreading his love.

MPFR: In the past century, Italy has given birth to great musicians namely Piero Umiliani, Ennio Morricone, Armando Trovaioli & Marc 4, Piero Piccioni but all these maestros, for various reasons, have received more recognition abroad than in their home country. Do you know their music and what do you think?

JT: Really, I didn't know that. I hate that. It sounds very sad.  I adore their music. That , that sounds very sad. I think they draw a lot from Verdi's opera tradition, they know how to dramatize  they know how to paint at their image. Verdi is the king.  Verdi still influences all kind of movie scores and is my numero uno for romanticism more than Beethoven. Because it took the emotional thing far more intimately than Beethoven did. He was a man who  knew true despair. He knew about true loss. He lost his children and wife, his composing made him be  always on the edge of falling.

MPFR: During the '90s you also approached soul and acid jazz, proposing female vocals and then with the new millennium you returned to a more direct and instrumental sound.  What memories do you have of that period?

JT: I was very young then

MPFR: You still are ...

JT: I meant in my head.....that period  was my loss of innocence .....It was like crossing the Rubicon then,  like Caesar, there was no going back then. I had addiction problems. I was going through my "hedonistic phase". I became successful  and became a drug addict.  I managed to stop all of  that and put things back into place. But there was a lot of shit being put around in those in years. Especially for musicians. In fact all the success and fame thing is a myth. For the happiest memories I have to go back years before then.

MPFR: Lately, you have included in your research some classical music such as Dark August and Pearl's Dance and you have performed your version of the Pathetic Sonata n.8 of Beethoven on Closer to the Moon, do you think that this could be a new direction to take or is it only a kind of experimental research break from funk soul?

JT: It is like recognizing extreme levels of beauty artistry that can be hardly perceived these days. As a musician I want to  find a way to continue to write great music, so I want to continue the tradition of greatest musicians and composers by sculpturing the sound of music as if it were eternal. And that is the direction I am working towards.

MPFR: In your last album you decided to sing "Closer to you", well, are you satisfied of the result and do you think you will sing again on your next recordings?

JT: No, I was not satisfied. 

MPFR: Do you think you'll ever sing again?

JT: It's just another instrument only that I am not very good at it. But yes, I will sing tonight.

MPFR:  Well, I think I have taken enough of your time and must thank you very much for having answered all our questions.

JT: I must say they were very good questions.

MPFR: Thank you James, I am happy you liked them!

The Prisoners, the first band of James Taylor