Undoubtedly there was some head-scratching when the name “Ben Harper and Relentless7” appeared atop the lineup for this year’s Santa Cruz Blues Festival. A man who’s sold millions of records thanks to reggae-inflected acoustic hits like “Burn One Down” and “Jah Work,” Harper is often written off as mellow indie it-boy by old-school rock and blues fans raised on B.B. King, Stevie Ray Vaughan and Buddy Guy. But those people obviously haven’t heard his newest records.
On White Lies for Dark Times and the just-released concert recording Live From the Montreal International Jazz Festival, Harper and his newly formed four-piece band, led by longtime friend and guitarist Jason Mozersky, play crushing blues rock that borrows from at least a dozen other acts that have graced the SCBF stage over the years. Santa Cruz Weekly tracked Harper down ahead of his May 29 gig (the festival continues on May 30) and asked him when, exactly, he became the hottest thing to hit the blues since adultery.
“Art at its most sincere requires change and growth, and the blues has always been such a heavy foundation of what I’ve put forward,” says Harper in a voice so pleasantly enunciated it almost sounds like a song itself. “Clearly it was time for me to grow into the specific sound that I achieved through this nucleus. Creatively you can never deny what you’re supposed to be.”
History suggests that Harper was always “supposed to be” a musician. What kind of musician has been the question. A native of Claremont, Calif., Harper grew up surrounded by sounds and art through his family’s music store and venue, the now-famous Folk Music Center. With an African-American father, a Jewish mother and Russian and Lithuanian grandparents, his house was an artistic and cultural melting pot where he learned not only how to play instruments but how to build them, fix them and make a living with them.
At some point along the way he discovered the lap steel guitar. And though he’s equally famous for his acoustic and electric guitar work, the image of a grimacing Harper perched atop a stool and hammering down on a steel guitar is one that many fans over the years have come to associate with his music.
“My connection (to the lap steel guitar) is the kind of connection that you don’t know why it’s there, but your life wouldn’t be the same without it. That was the sound that just informed me on the deepest level of how I was supposed to sound,” he says. “And through David Lindley’s playing and Ry Cooter and Lowell George and Duane Allman and all the early Delta cats—Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell and Son House—they all helped me find the sound that’s taken my whole life to develop.”
Music and Message
Harper has never been content to limit himself only to music. A devoted activist who champions immigrant rights, ocean stewardship, freedom of speech and the anti-war movement, he’s been involved with the liberal advocacy group MoveOn.org since 2004 and also supports the ecologically-minded Surfrider Foundation and Living Lands and Waters, as well as the anti-nuclear power group No Nukes and the food distributing organization Feeding America. His latest endeavor is with the non-profit group Lift. On its website www.liftcommunities.org, the organization states that its mission is to “combat poverty and expand opportunity for all people in the United States.” With centers in Boston, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, Harper says the group’s volunteers train people to do everything from filling out government aid applications to finding free medical clinics to putting together résumés and providing actual on-the-job training.
“Lift maximizes the potential of the American system,” says Harper. “They break down the barriers of intimidation as far as getting what can help people progress, especially in the area of job training. I’ve been donating monetarily and with my time and it will be my focus for the next number of years.”
On White Lies, Harper immediately dives into politics with the opening track “Number With No Name,” a blistering rock jam with an anti-war message. “A casket lined with silver dollars and a number with no name,” sings Harper over the distortion-rich yowl of his lap steel.
Elsewhere on the album, Harper touches on violence and compassion, writing in “The Word Suicide,” that “The word suicide is irresponsible/Still you offered to buy me a gun/What’s so hard about sympathy?”
Still, his work with Relentless7 may be his most apolitical to date, with the majority of the songs showcasing raw rock and blues chops with classic themes on love, hate, sex and emotion.
Full Circle
Those who look closely next Saturday might spot a rather nervous-looking Harper peeking from the side of the stage at the opening acts. Not that he can’t hold his own with any rock musician on tour today, but the Santa Cruz Blues Festival lineup this year not only includes musicians like Buddy Guy that Harper says have influenced him for years, but acts he knows on a very personal level.
Henry Saint Clair Fredericks, a.k.a. Taj Mahal, for example, will be warming up the stage before Harper. The 67-year-old bluesman—besides working in bands like the Rising Sons and the Phantom Blues Band—played a big part in Harper’s early success when he invited the younger musician on his tour and later recorded Follow the Drinking Gourd, a blues and folk-centered album based on a traditional story about African-Americans escaping slavery. To say Harper thinks highly of Taj Mahal would be a gross understatement.
“Taj is the number one greatest musician on the planet. Period. End of story,” says Harper matter-of-factly. “Taj and I traversed the planet together and we find each other at different ends of the bill. The best part about it is I get to be inspired by him beforehand, which will make me play better. It’s also daunting; I mean, he’s really just the baddest cat in the world, so it’s like ‘good luck.’ We’ll probably come full circle again and see each other at a different point soon.”
Harper says he’ll also be watching the Saturday afternoon set of Joseph Arthur, who he calls a “true pioneer.”
“Over the course of a decade, Joseph has been the most consistent lyricist,” he says of the young musician known for combining electronic effects with traditional sounds. “Every record, whether it’s the [Lonely] Astronauts or his solo work, he keeps coming up with these chord changes that I think I should be familiar with, but each time it sounds like I’m hearing them for the first time. He’s just always so fresh and exciting.”
By nearly all accounts, Ben Harper and Relentless7 have earned the spot atop the SCBF bill. Though he doesn’t have the strict blues history of a Buddy Guy or a Taj Mahal, Harper has every bit the skill and all the passion it takes to be a respected blues act. Don’t expect it to be his final progression, however, as Harper says he’ll never stop experimenting with his sound.
“There’s a dream list that I put in front of myself,” he says. “You know, I’d love to play some slide guitar on the next Jay-Z record, I’d love to sing with Crosby Stills & Nash, I’d love to pen a song with Paul Simon. This is just dreaming out loud, and that can be dangerous. Ask me again when I’m 50 and we’ll see where we are on the list then.”
BEN HARPER AND RELENTLESS7 plays Saturday, May 29 as part of the Santa Cruz Blues Festival, which runs May 29-30 at Aptos Village Park, 100 Aptos Creek Road. Two-day tickets are $140 and single-day tickets are $75 each. For more information and a complete schedule visit www.santacruzbluesfestival.com
