ERIC BIBB is not your common or garden bluesman. Fact is, though, he?s not a John Lee Hooker ?90s clone either. Just who exactly Mr. Bibb is remains intangible, as vaporous as ether, as incorporeal as the hoary old holy ghost.
But with his third album poised at the starting gates, it looks like his cover will soon be blown. And judging by the rapturous reception afforded a rake of outtakes from his latest album Me To You at his last gig in Whelan?s, it?s likely that Eric Bibb?ll be encountering his name on more than the sides of buses before too long . . .
?My new album is somewhat of a departure,? he suggests, ?because there are equal parts singer/songwriter, and straight-ahead country, Nashville type of vibe, and gospel. There?s a duet with Taj Mahal and a duet with Pops Staples, and Mavis sings on that too. That was just fantastic.?
Evidently Bibb is well able to handle the vernacular of the blues in any and every neighbourhood. He?s a musical linguist with an ear for the nuance and cadences that shoot through the blues from all manner of obtuse directions.
?You know, I met Taj Mahal in the ?70s and he was exactly the kind of role model I needed,? Bibb avows. ?Later on I sent him a tape of choral duets from Mali which became one of his all time favourite records. Then later we thought about the possibility of working with Taj and Linda Tillery and The Cultural Heritage Choir, a fabulous acapella group. If you can imagine Sweet Honey In The Rock without the heavy politics, that?s it. And earlier this year, Linda, Taj and I collaborated on a children?s record called Shaking The Tailfeather, which comes out in October. So the last year has just been a volcano of wonderful activity. It?s really exploded for me.?
Bibb possesses enough savvy to let his songs tell their own story, unencumbered by too much ornamentation. A refreshing antidote to me usual production overkill that so many recording artists resort to, particularly on their first few albums, and a sign of a singer comfortable with his own sound.
?I must say that I had great support in framing my songs from Goran (Wennerbrandt), who produced my second album, Good Stuff,? Bibb ventures, ?and our heroes would be singer/songwriters like Guy Clark, who?s so aware of the power of a song unadorned. He?s a wonderful player, and he?s always surrounded by very tasty players but he makes the song king, and I intuitively second that emotion.?
Bibb?s gene pool made no small contribution to his current world view. His father, Leon Bibb, was a stalwart of the New York coffee house scene in the ?60s, and introduced Bibb Junior to everyone from Bob Dylan to Judy Collins and Pete Seeger. Old man Bibb?s social skills programme was nothing short of prescient; before long Eric was swapping songs backstage with the best of folk?s heroes, and leaving most of them gobsmacked by the sophistication of his writing.
?My Dad?s influence on me in my formative years was so immense,? Bibb nods, ?that I know subconsciously I?m drawing on it all the time. My Dad, wonderful singer that he is, is capable of fronting a symphony orchestra, yet my formative years were spent with many evenings, lying awake at night listening to my dad rehearse with his guitarist in the living room. So the sound of one guitarist with my father?s voice was something that was around me constantly.?
Bibb Snr. didn?t shrink on his responsibilities in the travel department, either. Before he hit his teenage years, Eric?s passport was already well stamped.
?We went to the Soviet Union when I was twelve,? he recalls, smiling, ?and my dad did 30 concerts in the Yalta/Crimea area. His bass player was the one from the Bolshoi Ballet. It was amazing. But my listening then was so wide: at home it was Songs of the Auvergne, and John Lewis from The Modern Jazz Quartet. Then when I went to school I learned about writing for strings, and singing Verdi, and you know, it just got very stressed out ? in a great way!?
The London Blues Festival offered Bibb his first kosher platform for his own brand of eclectic acoustic blues. But he?s understandably wary of the restrictions imposed by such easy classification.
?I agree with Taj Mahal, who in an interview said not so long ago that he found it amusing that people still saw him as a blues performer,? he avers, ?because even though blues is in the marrow of his bones, as it is in mine, for an intelligent aware musician, there?s just so much that?s related and that works by mixing it.
?To stay with one narrow genre either reflects a lack of interest in other languages or a strategic decision, because you?re making so much money that it?s ill-advised to break rank. So for me, it?s been a challenge to sneak in some other influences into my music without having the Blues Police holler too loud, you know!?
Bibb?s a resident of an unlikely Scandinavian outpost, Stockholm, not exactly the first location that springs to mind when you mention the blues.
?A sort of second hippiedom hit Stockholm in the ?70s,? he offers by way of explanation, ?and coming from the New York village artsy scene was like reliving the best years of my early adulthood! I met great musicians, great blues collectors who encouraged me to dive headlong into the roots thing. So I?m very grateful to several friends in Sweden who helped me incubated in this music, because if I had stayed in New York I would probably have been distracted by having to make career moves, and so on.?
His immigration also owed at least some of its roots to a disillusionment with matters political.
?I was very turned off by a lot of the strife in the States in the ?70s,? he admits. ?I came from very political people, from a background that was always very cross-cultural, so when things started to get very polarised racially in the States, it was distracting to the point that it interfered with everything.
?Coming to Stockholm, I felt, gave me the chance to observe myself without the reflection of this racial history. I felt it was essential for my sense of self, to resolve some identity crises. And I really appreciated the breathing space that Sweden afforded at that time.?
However, Bibb gave New York another try in the early ?80s, where he relocated for five years before returning to Sweden.
?I tried to further my career there at that time,? he recalls, ?but I was discouraged by the greedy ambition that seemed to have taken over the folk scene there. I felt that people were no longer led by a strong commitment to their music. That strong grounding in left-field politics that used to enrich the quality of the music was missing. And I started to feel disillusioned, like I was having to walk over corpses to get anywhere in New York.?
Mercifully, Bibb?s no longer on the graveyard shift. Me To You has sent him on all manner of alternative paths over the last few months.
?It?s an album, I hope, that showcases my passion for blending related styles,? he suggests. ?There are some wonderful musicians playing there: Dave Bronz, who?s Clapton?s bass player, Kevin Wilkinson, the drummer from Squeeze who?s fabulous, and Paul Jones who?s playing harmonica. And I hope that, even if people are astonished by the leap from live acoustic to a studio record that pulled out quite a few stops, they?ll recognise that musically it?s not really a huge leap. They won?t be saying: ?God, he?s gone techno!?.?
Was he surprised at the ecstatic reception he?s received in Ireland over the past few months? From the day he picked up his guitar to launch the Guinness Blues Festival, he?s had the city, and lots more besides, in the palm of his hand.
?I was very pleasantly surprised at the media attention,? he avers, ?and I was stunned when I came to Dublin and saw my name on the side of a bus! That?s never happened to me before. I was really knocked out to be up there beside all these wonderful people like Taj Mahal and Dr. John and John Hammond. I?d been playing in a little club in Stockholm for a farthing for so long, and all of a sudden my name is on the side of a bus in a new town!
?But as I?m still only getting used to the level of music industry involvement in my music, I?m beginning to realise that it?s not just the music you make, it?s the timing, your approach, your attitude that may or may not work for other people for all kinds of reasons that have nothing to do with the music per se. But I figured there would be a positive response to my music here because this is a music-loving culture. Still, I could not have anticipated the degree of embracing that took place, largely through word of mouth.?
It?s certainly clear that Eric Bibb is equally at home with the songs of Woody Guthrie, Dwight Yoakam, Richie Havens and Taj Mahal. The terms ?black? and ?white? blues ring hollow when he picks up his guitar and lets that larynx breathe free.
?When I made Spirit And The Blues, my first album,? Bibb explains, ? I knew that I basically had to make peace with songs that had been haunting me since my childhood. My first love, which was folk music in different forms, whether blues or bluegrass or Irish ballads, was my foundation so certain songs reappeared in my consciousness, like Woody Guthrie?s ?Lonesome Valley?.
?All those racial lines were really reinforced by marketing people who called them ?race records?. The musicians on the street, the hobos were all mixing it up. Leadbelly sang cowboy songs. He sang tin pan alley songs. The songster was much more of a real phenomenon than even the bluesman, because the bluesman existed for record label purposes. They mixed gospel, ragtime, country, blues. Jimmie Rodgers sang straight-ahead blues. So that?s nothing really new.?
Perhaps political correctness might have had something to do with the barriers raised between performers and their songs.
?What happened in the States, I guess,? he muses, ?is that for a long time it was politically incorrect for an aware African-American to give too much lip service to hillbilly culture, because of the negative aspects of it. But now it?s nice that people are aware that the songs are what are important, rather than having to pare off parts of me so that I can have a career. And that?s what?s wonderful about what?s happened lately.
?The feeling I get with this newfound success is that me as a person is something that people wanted to see happen. If I wasn?t me, I?d want to see someone else crossing those boundaries, because that would encourage me. And on the cusp of the millennium, it?s time for breaking down the barriers, whether it?s Chet Atkins or Robert Johnson.? n