Never Trust a Woman Who Loves the Blues

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This post originally appeared on my music column ‘The Crossroads’ over at Dad-Blogs.com on May 18, 2009.

Or so says Ben Harper on the track ‘Lay There & Hate Me’ on his newest release ‘White Lies for Dark Times’. While I may not necessarily agree with Mr. Harper on this particular thesis, what I do agree with is that Harper is back with his latest effort after his last two less than stellar albums. Looking to try some new things Harper put his long time band, the Innocent Criminals, on hiatus and melded his trademark mix of blues, alternative and folk rock, gospel and reggae with new supporting band Relentless7.

The groundwork for Relentless7 was formed back in the late ’90s when guitarist Jason Mozersky chauffeured Harper to a gig in Austin and demoed his band Wan Santo Condo for him. This initial meeting eventually led to Harper inviting Mozersky to play on his 2006 album ‘Both Sides of the Gun‘. Mozersky brought friends Jesse Ingalls (bass, keyboards) and Jordan Richardson (drums, percussion) along to record the track ‘Serve Your Soul’ and this trio would ultimately become Relentless7.

This is my favorite Ben Harper album since his 2003 release ‘Diamonds on the Inside‘ and that is saying a lot because, even though I love music, it generally takes me a few listens of a new album to determine whether or not it is something I’m going to purchase. However, after just hearing the track ‘Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart)’ on itunes, I immediately pre-ordered the entire album.

So, on May 5^th, when it was finally released for download, I was eager to tear into the rest of it and came away impressed. The first five songs are very up tempo with a definite blues vibe. The mood of the album becomes a little more mellow with the song ‘Skin Thin’ and reminds me a lot of Harper’s earlier work with the Innocent Criminals, specifically ‘Amen, Omen’ off the aforementioned ‘Diamonds’ album.

The song ‘Up to You Now’ provides a nice lead in to the track ‘Shimmer and Shine’ on which Harper rocks out the Weissenborn (lap slide guitar). The lyrics to ‘Shimmer and Shine’ also provides the album title, but it is the open line (“It takes a hundred miles of love to heal a mile of pain”) that sticks with me the most, putting it in major competition for my favorite song on the album.

If forced to choose, however, I’d probably go with ‘Why Must You Always Dress in Black’ as my favorite mostly because of its driving percussion and old school blues feel. That the song evokes memories of John Lee Hooker and his tune ‘Boogie Chillin’ is probably no coincidence considering Harper recorded ‘Burnin Hell’ with Hooker on the late bluesman’s album ‘The Best of Friends‘. Additionally, Harper leans heavily towards the blues as he modeled his slide guitar playing style after the great Robert Johnson.

All in all ‘White Lies for Dark Times’ is a solid effort by Ben Harper and Relentless7 and would make a solid addition to your collection if you are into blues and folk infused alternative rock. As some of you have mentioned that you aren’t necessarily into albums, then I would definitely recommend giving a listen to ‘Shimmer and Shine’, ‘Lay There & Hate Me’, ‘Keep It Together (So I Can Fall Apart)’ and ‘Number With No Name’. If you do decide to pick it up, leave me a comment and let me know what you think. I’d love to hear what you liked, or didn’t like, about it.

Do you have a music question for me? Is there something, or someone, you’d like me to cover? Leave a comment or drop me an email at pj@realmendriveminivans.com so I can work on it for a future article. Also, if you’re new here, consider joining Dad-Blogs and grab the RSS feedso you can get this and all of the other awesome columns delivered fresh directly to you. Thanks for stopping by and I hope you enjoyed the ride!