I can tell you from personal experience that James Hunter puts on a killer show. I managed to see him three times in a fortnight in late 2007 and it got to the point where I ran into him so often that he might have been forgiven for thinking that I was a stalker. (By the way, I was not!).
Across the Monterey Jazz Festival, Austin City Limits and San Francisco Blues Festival I saw him perform to all sorts of different audiences and he won over every one. With a fine band and a simmering, soulful voice Hunter puts on such a killer show that I feel like offering you your money back if you don’t agree with me!
Of course, there were some nods of astonishment that this pale Englishman - who once worked on the railways, performed as Howlin’ Wilf and worked for years with Van Morrison - could sound so much like Sam Cooke or Jackie Wilson. Sometimes, you might almost think he is a distant relative of both! Whatever, he calls Cooke ‘The Chairman of The Board’ and you know that he has heard just about everything that Sam recorded and somehow assimilated the spirit of those recordings. And you know that if Van The Man had him in his band then he just has to be great. I can’t explain why Hunter thrills me more than someone like Eli Reed but maybe when you hear him you’ll understand.
A little known fact about Hunter is that he actually lived for several years in Essendon, one of Melbourne’s middle suburbs and home to the famous Bombers. He seems strangely reticent to give too much credit to his time here for germinating his career and when I mention that it must have had a massive effect on him he simply replies, ‘It might have.’
I point out that we like to take credit here even if a musician has had only a fleeting time here. “I think that’s fair enough,” he says. “I mean anyone who touches your soil is going to be influenced by it. It must have seeped through the soles of my feet, I wouldn’t be surprised at all.” That’s better.
A graduate of Essendon Primary School, Hunter believes that they may have a picture of him on their dartboard. By his own admission he only returned to Britain because his family ‘missed the miserable weather’, while his father returned here some years later.
Possibly more influential than his time at Essendon Primary – though it could be marginal – was the time Hunter spent with Van Morrison, whom he met while playing in a band as Howlin’ Wilf (a stage name that was thankfully dropped).
“It’s around that time I changed it and I reverted to James Hunter,” he admits, “because I thought that Howlin’ Wilf sounded too Hollywood.”
“It got my name about and it temporarily helped the financial position,” he says of his time with Morrison, “but these things don’t always last forever. The bulk of the stuff that I did with him was between ’93 and ’95. After that I scuffled a bit for a while. It was a very interesting experience. I mean, I really did enjoy working with him.”
“I met John Lee Hooker,” he adds. “We ended up at like a party around his bungalow in San Francisco. That was a bit of a highlight.”
Hunter’s 2006 album People Gonna Talk (his first US release) was nominated for a Grammy and his latest album, The Hard Way, is set to consolidate the reputation, especially as it features New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint on three of a dozen impressive original songs.
“Absolutely, that was a bit of a coup,” he says of Toussaint’s involvement. “I’m not sure how we managed that, but we got him. He lifted the whole thing he was an absolute perfect gentle man.”
“I had the nerve to ask him,” replies Hunter when I ask him how he actually snared Toussaint. “I had heard second-hand that he had been to see us and really liked us. So that gave me the knackers to walk up and approach him about doing our album.”
“He had a very elegant way with language,” he continues, “he has got a very unique way of expressing himself, he doesn’t waste words. He’ll talk about anything you want, so I was asking him about Ernie K. Doe and Edgar Blanchard and Guitar Slim and we’d sit talking for quite a while about stuff like that.”
Hunter is bringing his kick-ass five-piece band, most of whom have been with him for 20 years, and he mentions that double bass player Jason Wilson has a definite penchant for beer and pies.
“Do you still do those lethal meat pies over there?” he asks and when I point out that beer and pies are the national dish he sighs, “Oh Jesus, thank God for that, you ain’t changed it then?”
Hunter calls his horn section – tenor sax player Damien and baritone Lee Badau – The Girls, “because they are always off whispering you see, they don’t talk to the rest of us they go off to the side and whisper to each other.” Then he chuckles as he adds, “They play like one bloke, so there’s one blessing.” Jonathan Lee plays drums (‘the best drummer in London’) and the ‘token American’ is organist Kyle Koehler, the most recent addition to the band.
Hunter says he can hardly wait to get here. We can hardly wait to hear him!
The Hard Way is available now. Check Bluefest Program for performance times.