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Features PUSHING THE BLUES BOUNDARY Tuesday, November 06, 2007 “I feel better than ever. I’m going to be 65 and I feel as good as I ever felt,” says John Hammond. The veteran blues man just keeps getting better and better.
There are not many of John Hammond’s contemporaries still making vital music after 45 years in the business. Come to think of it, there are not that many of them still making any sort of music.
Bob Dylan, of course, comes to mind. Signed to Columbia by John Hammond’s father, Dylan released his debut album the same year that young John Paul Hammond did, 1962. Having stuck to the blues for all of those years Hammond’s path has not been quite as easy but like Dylan he is making some of the best music of his life in his seventh decade. For any musician that is a remarkable achievement.
Hammond’s recent albums In Your Arms Again (2005) and Ready For Love (2003) both won the Rhythms Readers Poll for Best International Blues Album and his Tom Waits produced Wicked Grin (with 12 Waits songs) seemed to mark a watershed in his career.
Hammond’s latest album Push Comes To Shove is a perfect example of how he has managed to keep his music invigorated. About to turn 65 this month, he enlisted G Love (Garrett Dutton) as producer. The album also features a stunning studio combo of drummer Stephen Hodges, bassist Marty Ballou and organist Bruce Katz. Dutton pitches in with some slide guitar, backing vocals and even a composition. Not renowned as a prolific songwriter, Hammond provides five original songs including the Mose Allison inspired ‘Eyes Behind My Head’ which sounds like an instant blues classic.
Last year when I met and interviewed Dutton he revealed that he was working on a ‘very special’ project but could not give the details. It was certainly a pleasant surprise to learn that it was the latest John Hammond album, even more so when you hear the results.
“It really came out just the way I hoped it would,” says Hammond, “and I got to work with some phenomenal player.”
“My wife Marla and I decided he would be the ideal producer,” says Hammond of G Love. “He’s young, he’s talented, he’s a blues fanatic and he’s a John Hammond fan.”
At first, it might seem like an unusual combination but as Hammond explains it the teaming is a natural progression for both. Not only that, they have a connection that goes back some years.
“I was playing a show in Philadelphia a while back,” explains Hammond, “and Garrett and his girlfriend came to the show and they were too young to get into the gig and they waited for a couple who looked old enough to be his parents to ask them if they could take them in. It turned out to be my wife Marla and me. That’s how we met him. Then over the years we played some shows together. There was a mentor series at The Bottom Line in New York and a lot of artists appeared with the one who inspired them.”
“I did a tour with Garrett about ten years ago, which was a little awkward,” continues Hammond. “His crowd hated me and my crowd hated him. “You know, about a month a go he invited me to sit in with him in New York at a gig he had in Central Park. I sat in for one song and we did ‘Tore Down’ and it worked out great. The audience flipped out and it was his crowd. He’s a special person.”
Dutton and Hammond made Push Comes To Shove in nine days – from recording to mastering.
“It was incredible,” says Hammond, who agrees with me when I suggest that he is extending the blues and that is the sort of thing that will help it survive.
“I think that since there has been blues there has always been artists who bring some other dimension to it,” he notes. “There’s always been a lot of diversity in blues; it isn’t just the same thing. It’s always had that individuality that every artist brings to it. I think it is phenomenal that there are young guys like Garrett who have a take on it. I mean, I’ve sat around with him and we’ve played blues together and he can really play. He’s not just fooling around.”
Dutton inspired Hammond to write more songs for the new album – it is a skill that might have come late to the blues man but has certainly paid dividends with almost half the album being originals.
“I think the last few years of recording have been most intense,” says Hammond. “I’ve worked with some phenomenal players including Tom Waits, also Duke Robillard, Little Charlie & The Nightcats, JJ Cale, David Hidalgo. My wife Marla has become an incredible producer. I’ve written eight songs in the last four years – and I never wrote songs before. I feel better than ever. I’m going to be 65 and I feel as good as I ever felt.”
‘Eyes Behind Your Head’ is perhaps the most exciting song on the new record with its classic blues style and wry lyrics.
“It’s inspired by Mose Allison who I have idolised for the past fifty years,” explains Hammond. “He doesn’t miss much. He’s still playing. Unbelievable. What a guy! He’s special. I’ve toured with him in the past and I’ve gotten to hang out with him. He’s a very funny guy and very wise. He’s been there when he was the only white guy playing blues for Atlantic and he told me some really funny stories. He’s got that incredible circumspectness. He is not expecting the world to fall at his feet. He works his ass off and he’s a great lyricist and a great piano player. He’s got it all.”
“I did too when I first heard ‘Seventh Son’ I had no idea he was white,” agrees Hammond when I mention that for many years I thought that Allison was black. “I had no idea that he was white. When I started my career I was in Los Angeles and I played at a club in Hermosa Beach called The Insomniac - it was a kind of hippie emporium. This was in ’62. Across the street was this famous jazz club called The Lighthouse. One night I was playing at this joint and I looked at the marquee of The Lighthouse and it said Mose Allison. So between sets I went over there and my jaw fell open. I saw that he was white. I never knew that. Not that it mattered, he was just great. Since then I’ve gotten to know him and seen the whole spectrum of his reality. He is a phenomenal guy.”
Hammond also has a deep respect for Tom Waits and has included a version of Waits’ ‘Cold Water’ on the new album. I mention that Guy Clark has said that he will always include a Townes Van Zandt song on any album he makes and Hammond seems to have the same feeling about Waits’ material.
“That’s right!” he agrees. “Tom really was so generous when he produced that album [Wicked Grin] and it opened up a whole new world for me, a whole new audience that are Tom Waits fanatics who checked me out. As a result, things have got a lot better for me over the years. He and Marla were very inspirational to me to start to write songs. I’ll always include a Tom Waits song in my show!”
“It was important,” explains Hammond of Wicked Grin, “because I was with Point Blank/Virgin when it still existed and I had made a record for them which I thought was a very good record but it didn’t sell as many as they hoped it might and I was afraid that was going to be the end of that reality. Marla somehow talked Tom into producing an album on me and as soon as Virgin heard that Tom was going to be involved everything changed. It really did bring a whole breath of life into this forty-five year career of mine.”
Marla, who is sitting next to her husband during the interview, laughs when I ask her how she managed to convince Tom Waits to produce Wicked Grin?
“I settled a domestic problem for them,” she says, “and the answer was why not produce a record and you can go to work like all Daddies and come home, have dinner with the family and put them to bed.”
“It was brilliant,” says Hammond.
Hammond says he is excited about the guitar festival in Adelaide, having played several before – one with a Tom Waits theme (which he says ‘was right up my alley’) and a tribute to blues great Charley Patton.
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