Kinds of Blue

QUESTIONS BY DAVID BONNER | ANSWERS BY OWEN MAERCKS

ADDITIONAL COMMENTARY BY HENRY KAISER

"The blues to me is beyond a simple genre. It's a template to which a musician of almost any style can adapt and find a way in. And so this record is about bringing a lot of approaches to that template. It is indeed, kinds of blue."

—From Owen's liner notes.

Let’s start with the album cover. What kind of snake is that? Is it a nod to snake symbolism in the blues, in addition to being a nod to your profession?

It’s a California Kingsnake. Here’s how this evolved: Henry and I were discussing the record once it was in the can. I mentioned that it was a record of various kinds of blue; as the words came out of my mouth, I had an idea for doing a nod to Miles’ Kind of Blue for the cover. It would not have been possible to hold a guitar up to my mouth the way Miles holds a trumpet, so, given my career, I thought a snake might be a nice substitute. I chose the Kingsnake I use in my traveling reptile show as a further nod to the tradition of Kingsnakes in blues lyrics. The back cover layout is a continuation of the cover style of Kind of Blue.

How did you develop your blues singing voice? I wonder if you think of it as playing a character. That's sort of the way I hear it. I mean, it's not your natural voice, as your singing on Teenage Sex Therapist seems to be.

In the 40 years between the records I taught myself to sing. I was always the vocalist in my bands by default; I was the only one willing to do it. I always called myself a vocalist, never a singer. In fact, I wasn’t even sure going in to these sessions that I could pull off actual singing. I think I did OK, not great, but passable.

The voice is me, not a persona. When you sing within a genre, you must adapt the rules of the genre to your own voice. If I did a slack key record, I’d have to have a familiarity with that singing style and bring my voice to it. That’s what I have done with blues singing. It’s me, though I am of course channeling my heroes: Wolf, Screamin’ Jay, John Lee, etc. But it is distinctly me. I have always loved the blues, and I hope others think I am doing it justice.

When I was 13, my older brother Carl gave me three records: the first Spirit LP, the first Hendrix LP, and the first Velvets LP. It changed my life; I immediately stopped listening to AM radio, switched to FM, and started collecting records, any and all. One of the first things I randomly picked up was a double LP of Arhoolie blues artists, and that changed everything. It was like some deeply internal chord had been hit. I started collecting and exploring blues like crazy. The first guitar player I could vaguely imitate was Lightnin’ Hopkins.

I asked my brother if he had any clue as to why I felt so strongly for this particular music. He chuckled. When I was a baby, first home from the hospital, I would spend my days in my crib in my older brothers’ room. They were teens; this was 1954 in North Carolina. They were listening to Black radio stations as rock’n’roll was first evolving from blues. I literally was born with the blues.

Are you playing all the non-"Kaisertronics" guitar parts?

That's basically right. The melody playing on “Wild” is me. The third of the four solos on “Burnin’” is me. I wasn’t intending it when I played it, but to me it sounds like I am a barely competent Terje Rypdal! The first of the two on “When I’m Gone” is me. “Monk” is all me. The second guitar to come in at the end of “Wrong” is me. The solo in the first part of “Prayin’” is me.

Henry really tears it up on this album. I think these songs brought out his best in terms of both his playing and his special effects. Any thoughts on that?

I doubt that Henry would tell you it’s his best work, as it is just a piece of the puzzle of his playing. But there is so much on this record that touches on his influences you don’t hear that often: I hear Hendrix, Syd Barrett, Elliot Ingber, and more all over on this. As for his effects: Henry has worked out over the years a way of playing with the effects that is totally and uniquely him. Nobody else sounds like that. Nobody. That’s a special kind of genius. I mentioned afterwards to Henry how much of a psychedelic record it is; he commented “Well, after all, I am just an old psychedelic guitar player."

HK: I don’t even think when I play solos. I put out a saucer of milk for the elves, take a nap, and I wake up and the solo is there, so to speak.

When did you write the original songs on the album?

I’ve had the riff and the idea for “Burnin’” for 30 years. Had the concept for “Prayin’” and the coda also bouncing around for years. Both of those were completed for the record, and everything else was written in the second half of 2018. I have more ideas, but nothing written yet. I have at least one idea for an arrangement of an instrumental cover that needs to see the light of day.

On “Wild Time,” did you have any particular guitarist in mind?

I wrote it with Hound Dog Taylor’s way-underrated lead guitar player Brewer Phillips in mind, but the song comes off as the kind of stomp that Canned Heat or The Groundhogs might have played.

When I first heard it, I thought you were playing slide.

I hadn’t thought of it before, but, being a Miami kid, the band I saw as a kid more than any other was the Allman Brothers. They had a huge effect on me, and that melody line certainly could have been something Duane Allman might have played. The center solo is Henry. I told him to channel John Cippolina and that is what came out. If you squint your ears you can hear it.

On "Burnin,'" I'm assuming that Howlin' Wolf's "Natchez Burnin" is the point of departure, and that Saturn Alabama is a reference to Sun Ra, because "there ain't no Saturn Alabama."

I'm sure that Wolf entered my mind -- there are nods to him and Hubert Sumlin elsewhere on the record -- but really the source point is John Lee Hooker’s “Tupelo.” I wanted the rhythm section to reference the sound of Hooker’s band on the Serves You Right to Suffer LP -- that record is pure magic -- and I hear it in what they did. My fire is John Lee’s flood.

I once saw a solo autobiographical performance by Charles Nelson Reilly, and in it he recounted being caught in a fire within a circus tent, and that went into this song as well. It was an amazing one man show, and that was one of its pivotal moments.

And of course I am paying deeply felt tribute to Ra, but in a way I hope is subtle. I miss him as if he was a personal friend. He is sometimes in my dreams. So I brought some elements of science fiction into the story.

To me, blues lyrics at their best are a manipulation of the cliche into something personal. So in this piece, you hear a bunch of standard blues lines, but rearranged and reengineered into a more personal narrative.

I like how you work some of your personal obsessions into the lyrics. For example, you say "Burnin'" was partially inspired by Charles Nelson Reilly, and you compare the scorched earth as "stubble on a drag queen's face" -- references to your admiration and respect for gay culture. And "Beautiful to Me" has references to morticians, manatees, possibly Jeopardy, and Jack Webb characters -- Joe Friday, Pete Kelly, and a third name I can't make out.

Pat Novak, for Hire. My favorite Jack Webb character, radio only. To me, good blues lyrics are a often a manipulation and personalization of cliches, and so I tried to make Burnin’ a weave of standard lines, new references, and personal lines.

Do you see any direct connection between these personal references and the blues?

Everybody’s blues is unique to themselves and for me, the best blues are rife with personal interpretation and frames of reference. It’s all about writing out of personal experience, isn’t it? If I wrote a song that opened with “Woke up this mornin’“ I damn well better follow that cliche with something from within me and not another cliche, right? These are MY blues.

“Beautiful to Me” is actually a very sweet song. I can imagine someone covering it and making it a hit! A country singer, perhaps. They might have to substitute something for the mortician reference, though. I'm not aware of any hit songs that refer to a mortician!

I was standing in the bathroom one morning looking into the mirror and I exclaimed “Look at these old man bags under my eyes! Damn it!” Kimba said back to me “You’re still beautiful to me!” And thus a song was born. It started with about double the amount of lyrics; I had to really edit. I just wanted it to be funny and audacious. You can’t get more audacious than opening a song with gospel changes with the line “I don’t care what the good book says”!

“Iceland Boogie” sounds like it wouldn't be out of place on Lick My Decals Off Baby.

It didn't start out that way, although there are some things in the original concept that lean in that direction. For one, it’s in C minor with a major drone note. I like playing major and minor against each other; it tickles me and makes others uncomfortable. Also, the way I wrote it, it’s in what I call drunken 3/4 time -- there’s a hiccup that makes it not quite waltz time -- but when we recorded it it ends up just being three. By the time we arranged it and added John Oswald’s sax, well…

Why Iceland? Was that one of your recent travels?

Yeah, I went to Iceland a few years ago and fell in love. I mean fell in love. You get out of the plane and within three minutes it feels like you are on an alien planet. Plus it’s got a badass record store. The country does not have enough tribute songs. I'm trying to rectify that.

HK:

I intentionally gave "Iceland Boogie" the secret Zoot Horn Rollo sauce to make it more Magic Band. I have a telecaster with the same pickups as the one that Harleroad used on Clear Spot and for the Clear Spot Tour. It’s the regular tele bridge pickup out-of-phase with the HB-sized Gretsch single coil pick that Harkleroad has in that red tele. Then I played an added slide part with Harkleroad’s more aggressive live approach to the Clear Spot material and the Decals material from the 1972 tours.

Now that I think about it, before I thought of adding that Zoot Horn Rollo type guitar part in an overdub at home on the live track, my guitar part that I made up to go against Owen’s part was designed with the specific type of harmony chord voicing that are in 'Dali’s Car' on Trout Mask Replica. So I was trying to push the tune in that direction, and decided it needed to be pushed off of the ledge in the overdubs.

Also, in the solo at the end of the song, I am intentionally playing the way that Harkleroad played in Mallard in 1974 -- where he also used that red tele. A curious bit of trivia is that I was present in England at the recording of the first Mallard album for a couple of days visiting my Magic Band pals.

You've given the familiar preacher's daughter cliché a sacrilegious twist on “Prayin' On Me,” but I don't want to give away the ending. As for the long instrumental coda, can you say something about the structure of the composition?

The coda is in 5/4 time. It’s a knuckle buster of a guitar line; I wrote it and I can barely play it. But it does something I like to try in my writing: write a composed piece constructed in such a way that the soloist can play any note at any point and it will be right. Twelve tone theory in a rock’n’roll context. This is clearly compositional but also, as FZ might say, absolutely free. And Henry is playing the fuck out of the blues on top.

The solo in the first part of the song is me. Guitar solos should be like wrestling matches; good ones tell a story. That’s what I was aiming at with my playing on this record. If you listen to Elvin Bishop’s “Prisoner of Love,” he does an amazing solo on a detuned guitar, and so I wanted to do something like that. I think of it as Slack Key Blues. That Elvin solo achieves Godhead.

I mentioned how you work personal obsessions into the lyrics, and now you've compared guitar solos to another obsession: professional wrestling. I'll take your word that wrestling matches tell a story, but is there something about that particular form of story-telling that lends itself to guitar solos?

Yes. Both are non-verbal story-telling. That may seem a contradiction in terms, but not at all to me. There is a clear story arc in the best of both. They start in one place and take you to another. Most pro guitar players map out in some sense where they will go on a solo; most pro wrestlers will do the same. But the best of them (and I am in no way putting myself in this category, I just aspire to it, despite my very limited technical abilities), wrestlers and musicians, will go into the match with an idea of where it will end but get there through pure improvisation. (I just improvised that sentence.) Improvisors in both fields listen, see, react, and pull something from within them that goes deeper than the intellect, beyond conscious decision making. That is the soul of improvisation.

Is the fast picking on "Blue Monk" influenced by Chadbourne?

It occurred to me upon listening back that it was kind of an answer to Eugene’s cover of “Rocket.” Not intended as a tribute, but you’re right that it did end up that way!

I think it's great that the cover songs on the album are not obvious choices. The Robert Pete Williams song, "Wrong," is from an obscure Italian LP; Lonesome Sundown is not the most famous blues singer in the world; and Thelonious Monk is from the jazz world. Can you explain why you chose these three?

I have distinct ideas about recording cover versions. There are a limited number of justifications for doing cover versions:

a)The song/artist is poorly known and deserves wider recognition.

b) The song is well known and gives the potential record buyer a clue into the nature of the artist doing the cover.

c) The coverer has a different and unique take that brings something new to the song.

People who cover songs and bring little or nothing new to the table…ugh.

Lonesome Sundown is my favorite of the Excello artists, and that is one of my favorites of his songs. That said, on the original, the closing verse is pretty much a throwaway cliche that has no meaning connected to the first two verses. The first two verses are poetry, and unique, and so I wrote a new third verse to match. Otherwise, this is the “straightest” number on the record. (Justifications a and c.)

I have always loved Monk, and this tune in particular. Most people who cover Monk tend to straighten out what he does, rhythmically and harmonically, and even in the spirit. Monk was always funny, and sharp, and I wanted to preserve these aspects. I would like to think Monk himself would crack up if he heard this. As I have no jazz training at all, I was bound to either bring something new to the table, or completely fuck it up, or both. I will let the listener decide.

He was also one of the few jazz guys who could write a blues and make it sound like a blues. I am surprised more blues players don’t cover him. (Justifications b and c.)

“Wrong” was Henry’s idea. 

HK: I just thought it would fit Owen, and I like it that it seems like the lyrics could be interpreted as an unreliable narrator, and that makes the meaning quite different!

I was totally on board with covering Robert Pete Williams, but I was having a hard time coming to terms with the original lyrics, which were, let’s just say, not me. So I gave it a lyric expansion, in which everybody was wrong and equally so. Henry wanted to do it as a Country Blues, but I heard that riff as being a great take-off for an old-fashioned jam, so I suggested to Henry that we do it as an electric extension. The first part is set like the original, though of course Henry takes the guitar to places unimagined in a blues. The second part is my favorite thing on the record, as it takes me right back to our Monster Island days with both of us playing wild-time guitars in psychedelic ecstasy.

By the way, it is not a coincidence that the other person who covered Robert Pete Williams was Captain Beefheart, and so I made a lyric allusion to him in the middle of it. (Justifications a and c.)

I’d like to point out that the acoustic stuff with Henry playing and me singing were both single takes. We haven’t played together much in the intervening years between Therapist and Blue, but all we had to do was discuss the material a bit and go from there. It sounds like we had rehearsed that stuff, but we had not at all. Henry was not surprised at our ability to intuit each other, but I was.