Ben Harper’s embarrassment and apologies over his new record Winter Is For Lovers
Blues legend Ben Harper has revealed his embarrassment about his new record and has an apology for his Aussie fans to go with it.
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The song titles read Istanbul, Manhattan, Joshua Tree, Paris, Verona. But all the musical roads explored on Ben Harper’s new record lead to a music store in Claremont, California.
Winter Is For Lovers is his debut instrumental record, a tribute to the blues, Hawaiian and classical guitar masters he discovered as a child in the collection of his musician mother Ellen Chase-Verdries.
It pays homage to the education he received courtesy of the myriad guitars he plucked from the walls of the Folk Music Centre, which his grandparents started in Claremont, on the eastern fringe of Los Angeles, in 1958.
Harper has owned the store since 1997, determined to keep the family tradition alive even though he ran away from it in his youth, to the great disappointment of his grandparents Charles and Dorothy Chase.
“The record is definitely a love letter to home, it’s in every note,” Harper says.
“I wasn’t supposed to leave that store, I was supposed to stay there and mind the till. My grandparents, while very liberal and open minded and worldly, were old school when it came to leaving the farm.
“My mum was a professional musician and I went to hundreds of her gigs as a kid, she never stopped or let her dream go out. She still plays.
“I wasn’t supposed to go … I had to get out of this place but to uphold my commitment to my grandfather and keep the store alive has always been important to me.”
The next generation is doing its bit to keep the family tradition alive. Harper proudly shares his eldest son Charles now works there, alongside “family” employees, many of whom have been at the Folk Music Center for 20 years or more.
“I love seeing my son thrive there. He plays and he sings and he arranges and writes songs in a modern r&b style, James Blake meets Bon Iver … he’s got all his own influences. I don’t want him to let that go,” Harper says.
“I want him to fly but I am glad he is sowing some roots there.”
An album of guitar instrumentals makes perfect sense from Harper.
For, as many thousands of voices have been raised at his sold-out concerts and regular Bluesfest appearances in Australia – a home away for home for the musician – there have been as many videos posted of fans replicating his signature style on his lap steel guitar.
The Diamonds On The Inside folk rocker said it was “embarrassing” he hadn’t thought to do this record earlier in his career. The pieces were there just waiting to be brought together as a conceptual album.
He was also apologetic that none of the 15 tracks bore the title of an Australian city; the 50-year-old has spent half his life playing gigs in Byron Bay and our capital cities.
“I know, that’s going to have to be record two. It really does,” he says.
“This record has kicked the door wide open; I’m hearing music in such a different way since the completion of this record.
“I’ve been doing a lot of writing – and I’ll get back to lyrics eventually – but right now I’m all the way in with instrumentals and musical movements and longer pieces.”
As well as writing, the pandemic shutdown bringing his tour life to a halt has afforded him the time to also channel his energies into producing and nurturing young artists on his new label Mad Bunny Records.
His work as a producer over the past decade – his credit appears on the debut album of Australian Grace Woodroofe, who he discovered via Heath Ledger, as well as Natalie Maines and Mavis Staples.
Mad Bunny has released the debut album by intriguing artist Birdthrower and Harper is also singing the praises of indie rock female duo Hey, King! after finishing production work on their first record due out next year.
“I am loving producing and having a label and a platform to at least give artists a fighting chance. It’s fun to see artists on my label getting on radio stations that my own music isn’t getting,” he says, laughing.
“I remember when Jack Johnson was opening for me and it became apparent he was going to be accomplishing great, great things and nothing to date has made me happier than people whose music I love excels.
“You’ll be hearing great things from a female duo I just produced called Hey, King! I loaded the place down with analog synthesisers and drum machines … and was suggesting things that caught them off guard.
“I don’t make Ben Harper records for anyone else but Ben Harper.”
And while his records bear testament to his innate musical abilities – he has three Grammys – Harper is revered as a live performer.
Like the tens of thousands of touring musicians whose lives and livelihoods ground to a halt with the pandemic shutdown of concerts, he misses the stage.
He promises an “intimate” concert to celebrate Winter Is For Lovers before the year is out; maybe a session around a campfire in his backyard to stream globally. Perhaps it will be something a little more fancy, now artists from Nick Cave to Billie Eilish are pushing the production values of the concert live stream as international borders remain closed.
And while he desperately misses the interaction with fans, a recent encounter had him laughing about how there are some things COVID can’t change.
“I signed a masked autograph even, a fan came up and asked ‘Are you Ben?’ You’ve got to be kidding me,” he says.
“First of all, we’re already breaking the code here … autographs are not quarantine safe. So I told him ‘Oh, all right, let’s get it done. Could you imagine if the pen I signed the autograph with gave me the virus … that would just be it!”
Winter Is For Lovers is out now.
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