Eric Bibb – Migration Blues

ERIC BIBB

Migration Blues

Stony Plain

ericbibb.com

stonyplainrecords.com

As I’ve said often before, Eric Bibb is one of the most inspired, and inspiring, of contemporary blues and folk artists. Eric has been quite prolific over the past two decades, releasing many studio albums, live albums and collaborative albums and the quality of his work has been consistently high. My best-of-the-year lists here on the Folk Roots/Folk Branches blog have included an Eric Bibb album for six of the past eight years – and they were on my lists many times before that when the Montreal Gazette was publishing my annual picks.

Migration Blues, a topical and timely set of songs about the migration of peoples and individuals – from country to country or place to place – is one of Eric’s most powerful and compelling collections.

Before discussing any of the songs, I’ll mention that this is an intimate recording. In addition to Eric, who variously plays various guitars and six-string banjo, the core musicians are multi-instrumentalist Michael Jerome Browne of Montreal on various banjos, various guitars, fiddle and mandolin; and harmonica master JJ Milteau of France. The three virtuoso musicians – whether all three or two at a time – are a seamless unit.

The album opens with Eric’s “Refugee Moan,” a haunting song sung from the perspective of a refugee praying for a way out of his war-torn country to find a home somewhere peaceful. The song is a universal plea that could apply to refugees from any of the conflicts that have plagued our world in recent decades – even recent centuries.

Other songs about refugees include “Prayin’ for Shore,” a heartbreaking account of refugees – such as the millions who have left Syria over the past six years, or the Vietnamese boat people of a generation ago, or the displaced Jewish Holocaust survivors attempting to reach pre-state Israel after the Second World War – who cross treacherous waters in flimsy boats because they have no other choice; and “Four Years, No Rain,” co-written by Michael and B.A. Markus, which reflects how combinations of war, drought and even terrorism affect refugees.

“Delta Getaway,” co-written by Eric and JJ, reflects the experience of a pre-war blues artist from Mississippi who witnessed a lynching and feared for his life in the Jim Crow South setting out to make his way north to Memphis and on to Chicago. A similar theme is voiced later in the album on “With a Dolla’ in My Pocket” and, to an extent, on “Blacktop,” an older song co-written by Michael and B.A. Markus and sung as a duet by Eric and Michael.

“Diego’s Blues,” co-written by Eric and Michael, tells the origin story of the son of a Mexican woman and African American man. Diego’s mother was one of the many Mexican migrants who’d arrived in the Delta in the 1920s to find work in an area experiencing a labor shortage because of the migration of African Americans leaving the rural South for the urban North hoping to escape Jim Crow; while “We Had to Move” – inspired by the story of James Brown’s family – describes the reasons why the people in one particular African American neighborhood were forced to migrate somewhere else.

Michael Jerome Browne, Mike Regenstreif & Eric Bibb (2005)

There are three powerful instrumentals on the album. In the title track, co-written by Eric, Michael and JJ, you can virtually feel the footsteps of people on the move in the sounds of the instruments. In “La Vie c’est un oignon,” Michael’s fiddle and JJ’s harmonica wordlessly tell the story of the forced migration of 18th century Acadians from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island to Louisiana where they became Cajuns; and in the short “Postcard from Booker,” Eric plays a guitar owned by the late blues artist Booker (Bukka) White in a tribute that perhaps reflects the traveling life that White led as a musician.

In addition to the songs written or co-written by Eric, Michael and JJ, there are also superb versions of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land” (including the often unsung political verses) and Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War,” two songs which remain as powerful today as when they were written more than 75 and 50 years ago.

The album ends quietly with a beautiful version of the traditional African American spiritual “Mornin’ Train,” featuring Eric on vocals and guitar with Ulrika Bibb singing harmony and Michael setting the pace with his banjo.

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--Mike Regenstreif

The Socalled Movie profiles artist taking Jewish music in new directions

(This review is from the June 14 issue of the Ottawa Jewish Bulletin.)
As a teenager growing up in Ottawa and Chelsea in the 1990s, Josh Dolgin got into hip hop and rapping and adopted ‘Heavy J’ as his rap name. It was, it seems, somewhat of a misnomer. He wasn’t a person of excessive poundage and, apparently, his music in those days was not something you’d describe as “heavy.” In response, a fellow rapper took to calling him ‘Socalled Heavy J.’

The original ‘Heavy J’ eventually fell away and ‘Socalled’ he’s remained.

By the late-‘90s, Socalled had begun mixing klezmer and other forms of Jewish music with the beats and samples techniques of contemporary urban hip hop to create a unique, compelling and utterly original fusion. While generally remaining respectful of the traditions of Jewish music, he’s taken it in directions it’s never gone before.

Several years ago, Socalled, now based in Montreal, caught the attention of documentary film director Garry Beitel, whose works include Chez Schwartz, about the legendary Montreal smoked meat joint, Bonjour! Shalom! – which explores the relationships and tensions between the Chassidic and French Canadian communities in the Montreal area of Outremont – and Endnotes, about a palliative care unit. Over a couple of years, Beitel and his crew sporadically followed Socalled at home, on tour in Europe and the U.S., and on a klezmer cruise organized by the Dolgin family in 2007 along the Dnieper River in Eastern Europe. The result is The Socalled Movie, a documentary that explores Socalled, his creative process, and his seemingly disparate collaborations in a series of 18 vignettes.

The most joyous parts of the film are the frequently infectious performance sequences. Whether Socalled is leading his own band, which includes bluegrass and folk singer Katie Moore, and occasionally musicians like Matt Darriau of the Klezmatics, or participating in a unique collaboration like his musical summit with legendary funk trombonist Fred Wesley and klezmer clarinetist David Krakauer at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem, one can’t helped but be caught up in the music.

The film also reveals Socalled – like many creative people – to be conflicted and, sometimes, contradictory. In one interview segment he says that his fascination with Jewish music comes from his respect for Jewish culture despite the fact that he has nothing but contempt for religious beliefs and traditions. But, in another segment, he looks at an old siddur seemingly with reverence for what it represents. He dismisses Holocaust-education trips like March of the Living, but is deeply affected on the klezmer cruise when he visits the site of a Jewish massacre during the Holocaust. Socalled also talks openly about being gay – and even celebrates his sexuality with a concert at a Montreal porno palace that was a Yiddish theatre back in the 1930s and ‘40s – but will not reveal the identity of his partner or the nature of their relationship.

One thing about Socalled that I found particularly interesting is that while his main form of musical expression is hip hop, a genre that is often, and perhaps unfairly, seen as rejecting of older genres of music, and the musicians that made it, he seeks out older musical heroes to work with. In addition to Wesley, who was playing with soul legend James Brown long before Socalled was born, we see Socalled in poignant scenes with Irving Fields, a Jewish lounge musician now in his 90s, and Arkady Gendler, an older singer of traditional Yiddish songs who was a guide on the klezmer cruise down the Dnieper. At the same time, he’s also collaborating with contemporary hip hoppers like C-Rays Walz and D-Shade, and composing a solo piece for classical cellist Matt Haimovitz.

The Socalled Movie is a fascinating look at an artist who I suspect will continue to develop in interesting ways in years to come.

The Socalled Movie, co-produced by the National Film Board of Canada and reFrame Films, will be screened in Ottawa at the Mayfair Theatre, 1074 Bank Street, on June 18, 21 and 23 at 9:30 pm.

--Mike Regenstreif