Ben Harper - A "black" Babel

Many musicians' biographies usually begin by stressing the chance circumstances and episodes that brought them into the record business. Ben Harper's case is different. His was almost a mandate, a charge to carry into the contemporary world the hymn to life that Bob Marley had begun to celebrate, while also lending his sung verses the authority and poetic sensitivity of a Bob Dylan.

He was born in 1969 in Claremont, California, 80 kilometres east of Los Angeles, on the edge of the desert, into a family of Indian and Lithuanian descent that had been involved in music for three generations: a luthier grandfather, a guitarist grandmother, a percussionist father, a singer-guitarist mother. Not mere enthusiasts but professionals, deeply in love with their craft, who inevitably passed their passion on to young Harper. And from childhood he showed remarkable skill on the acoustic guitar. Thanks to his luthier grandfather, he became acquainted with the Weissenborn, a slide guitar model dating back to the 1920s. "I believe in the acoustic sound of early guitars. It's the physical relationship with the instrument, but it's also the spirit of the acoustic guitar: that is, the roots of much of American music. My music is born that way, it's not an unplugged version of something else: because acoustic and electric, like slide and standard guitar for that matter, are completely different languages."

When he performed in public for the first time at age 12, Harper proved to be a child prodigy. Not only as a virtuoso of the six strings, but for his musical influences, remarkable for a child of that age: from Ry Cooder to Bob Dylan, from Edith Piaf to Sam Cooke, from Robert Johnson to Jimmie Rodgers, plus countless other rock, jazz, blues, soul and funk musicians, among others.

More than eclectic, Harper is omnivorous. Despite being African American, he doesn't simply write music that's "black" in colour. He is certainly aware of the importance of the African American musical tradition running through his blood, but he is far more aware that what he expresses is part of an evolution rooted in jazz, blues and rap, reaching all the way to rock and its modern offshoots. Harper has always maintained: "When I write and sing my songs, I don't think about any difference between a white audience and a black one. I believe only in colours." A conviction that leads him to break down the barriers between genres and to constantly savour new sounds.

But beyond his remarkable technical ability, Harper also shows that he has a mission. Refusing to be pigeonholed into a genre and to give in to consumerism, commercialisation and political propaganda, the Californian musician believes in humanity and its values. In peace and in the reunification of peoples. "Churches are division, but Muslims, Christians, Jews, Buddhists are all seeking the same God, and God doesn't divide anyone, he only unites. Separation has to do with racism." Looking around him, then, he wants to urge all peoples, of every colour and race, toward change. Harper is constantly searching for new answers. He seeks something that will lead him to change the answers he previously held.

In his first mission statement, 1994's Welcome To The Cruel World, he tries to make clear that despite all its flaws, "this cruel world" remains our Home nonetheless. Technically, the record enchants with its ability to absorb different, even conflicting musical genres into a single, moving design. The lyrics are equally surprising, revealing the moral integrity of a singer-songwriter in the mould of Dylan and Mitchell. At the time, he was hailed as the male counterpart to Tracy Chapman. But also a prophet of world peace, like Bob Marley. Who, along with the other Bob, Dylan, is perhaps still the artist he remains spiritually closest to today. Dylan's clear-eyed reading of reality and the Jamaican artist's celebration of optimism coexist within Harper's songs.

And it's precisely Marley's spirit that runs through, sincerely and even more forcefully, his second record of 1995, unambiguously titled Fight Your Mind. The young man from Claremont widened his horizons, embarking on an artistic path that, over the course of his career, would lead him to try his hand at every shade of black music. The lineup now included the talented bassist Juan Nelson, percussionist Leon Mobley and drummer Oliver Charles. Harper thus laid the first pieces of the band that, starting with the next album, would take the name Innocent Criminals — not a mere backing group, but true companions in life and on the road, somewhat like Crazy Horse were for Neil Young or the E Street Band for Bruce Springsteen. Where the first album had rested almost entirely on percussive beds over which the Weissenborn and acoustic guitars were laid, on Fight For Your Mind the lap steels begin to saturate with distortion, the bass becomes more prominent, and the range of sounds Harper draws from widens, just as, in parallel, his songwriting grows more refined.

The album opens with the quiet "Oppression", a kind of existential folk song in which Harper's voice sings, subdued, of the anguish looming over himself and the world. With "Ground On Down" the lap steel starts to heat up, throwing off feedback, while Harper howls in a hoarse voice over a bright-hued funk-blues, almost at odds with a cryptic lyric built around confused loves, hell and redemption; Juan Nelson begins to show his class, anchoring the band and giving the track a pumped-up, muscular drive. With "Another Lonely Day" things calm down, Harper singing in a delicate yet melancholy way about unrequited love, accompanied only by his acoustic guitar and a barely-there bass. "Gold to Me" reveals a sunnier side, the Weissenborn returning to his lap as Harper sings a soul tune of love for his woman. Using the Tone Bar (a kind of metal tube rubbed against the lap steel's strings to produce the typical slide sounds), he seems almost to want to recreate the warm horn sound so dear to Stax and Motown records, before opening up into an intense solo, an ideal springboard for his guitar flair. The same relaxed mood returns on "Burn One Down", a sort of folk hymn to soft drugs built on acoustic guitar and percussion.

On "Excuse Me Mr." the themes broaden, moving from an intimate dimension to a fierce indictment of modern industrial civilisation. Harper sings over a hypnotic bed of slide, bass and percussion, his voice filtered as if to embody the conscience trying to shake modern man, whose sole purpose is pure personal gain. Social themes return, somewhere between messiah and political leader, on "People Lead". These are hard times, but it's up to the individual to fight their way out of the mire — this is the spirit underpinning the album, a genuine manifesto for an active life. Once again the band's weave is threaded with distortion via wah wah pedals, mounted over a looping bass line, a wonderful blend of funk and singer-songwriter themes. Calm returns with the gospel of "Give A Man A Home", an intense, delicate track with vintage black-music atmospheres (not by chance, it would later be revisited with the vocal group the Blind Boys of Alabama). Soul also returns with the gem "By My Side", enriched by Ervin Pope's Hammond organ.

A true manifesto of Ben Harper's thought and vision, "Power Of The Gospel" is a kind of Christian-pantheist prayer for voice and guitar, capable of reaching moments of almost tangible intensity and of shaking even the most cynical listener. Similar themes continue on "God Fearing Man", where the band's work grows more ambitious, displaying all its class as it builds thrilling psychedelic soundscapes, stretching the track out to almost ten minutes, with Harper roughing up his Weissenborn, drawing out whistles and dissonances in a sort of hypnotic trance.

The album closes with the aching acoustic ballad "One Road To Freedom": in the end there's only one road to take, the one laid out by life itself, with its choices, its joys and its thousand sorrows, which for better or worse make us who we are and can grant us freedom.

On his third record, The Will To Live, Harper draws closer than ever before to the world of Bob Dylan. But only from a strictly musical point of view. Lyrically, in fact, Harper doesn't stray from what he had already celebrated and sung on his first two albums. What does expand, however, is the range of influences: from the blues rock of Led Zeppelin to certain Cat Stevens-style ballads and the "carnal" soul of Al Green. The aching "Jah Work" is perhaps the track that best exemplifies this new direction.

In 1999 came Burn To Shine, the album that reconnects him most closely with the black tradition running through his blood. Not just Bob Marley, but also Jimi Hendrix and black influences ranging from religious song to soul give shape to the sound. Even the swing of the 1920s surfaces on "Suzie Blue".

That same dense, stirring sonic universe is recreated in his live shows, where Harper is backed by his usual seasoned band, The Innocent Criminals, led by bassist Juan A. Nelson and drummer Oliver Charles. His live repertoire also features choice covers, such as Marvin Gaye's "Sexual Healing", the Verve's "The Drugs Don't Work" and Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love", which would later be included on his only live double album, Live From Mars, from 2001, with one acoustic side and one electric.

In 2003 Harper released his fifth studio album, Diamonds On The Inside. His mission to stir up answers had become a necessity. As an artist, but also as a citizen of an America struck at the very heart of its values and civilisation, living through some of the hardest days of its existence. The message, then, is an appeal to the peoples of the Earth, that they might find the strength and the light that must shine like a diamond in order to carry on. A reflective album, yet perhaps more than ever before brimming with life, hope and optimism, Diamonds On The Inside is arguably his finest work for its sonic and stylistic refinement and the depth of its lyrics. His acoustic ballads go straight to the heart, aided by intensely delicate lyrics full of optimism and hope. Starting with the first single, a tribute to Bob Marley, "With My Own Two Hands". And to exalt that inner strength that must shine like a diamond, the title track recovers not only sounds and verses reminiscent of Dylan but also the gospel of "When it's Good" and the African-forefather choruses of the prayer "Picture Of A Jesus", where you can hear the influence of Paul Simon, as you can on "Blessed to Be Witness". While the acoustic "Amen Omen" owes something to certain Rolling Stones ballads. And Motown sounds return once more on "Bring The Funk" and "Brown Eyed Blues". Even the early Lenny Kravitz lives again on "Touch From Your Lust".

All in all, it's a thrilling universe that captivates immediately, not least thanks to Harper's voice, supple and attentive to shifting tones and shades. In his vocal cords you can hear all the flashes and pain of the struggle for a world where harmony and love might reign. In the closing track, "She's Only Happy In the Sun," "Every Time I Hear You Laughing It Makes Me Cry…": these are days so joyless that a serene smile can even trigger a liberating cry.

From the encounter with the Blind Boys Of Alabama (a collective of singers all over eighty, blind and brimming with arcane creative energy) comes There Will Be A Light (2004), Harper's best album since Fight For Your Mind. "Take My Hand" launches straight into vibrant territory: percussion, liquid keyboards, wah-wah guitar. The atmosphere is steeped in mysticism. In an instant Harper's warm voice fills the room, closely followed by the entrance of the Boys, who underline certain key passages of the refrain. The ending is superb, with one of their tenor voices left alone to close the track. There's a mood shift for the next song, "Wicked Man," a cheerful, rhythmic chant that recalls Harper's rock past a little. Another change of course follows: "Where Could I Go" is an episode of soft lighting, a tear-jerking ballad that could have come straight out of the Sixties songbook of the great R&B masters, Otis Redding chief among them. After so much tenderness, we're back on the road right away: "Church House Steps" is a taut, sharp rock up-tempo, full of dusty nocturnal atmosphere. The Blind Boys loom large in the "supporting" vocal parts, ending up as the real stars of the show. "Well, Well, Well" is a (minor) cover credited to Bob Dylan/Danny O'Keefe: by this point Ben has already delighted us with the instrumental intro "11th Commandment," once again showcasing his talent on slide guitar. The Dylan cover paints an already fairly dark story in even gloomier tones, while the Alabama boys weave their voices together with Harper's: the result is pure gospel, blues welling up from the earth to admonish sinners. Among the many complementary colors found on "There Will Be A Light" there's also room for "Picture Of Jesus": a tasty slice of gospel-pop. The same goes for the country traditional "Satisfied Mind": when one of the Blind Boys takes the lead, the recording room seems to shrink to make space for him alone. With "Mother Pray" we're on purely gospel ground. The traditional is performed a cappella, with no added frills: three spine-chilling minutes. The title track proceeds in a melancholy, absorbed manner, unfurling a "Christmassy" pop. The closer is entrusted to the lively gospel of "Church On Time," a true celebration of hammond organ, call-and-response choruses and joyous hilarity. An anti-sadness cure that makes you want to sing along.

Arriving at his sixth studio album, the singer and multi-instrumentalist from Claremont releases, after just three months of work, Both Sides Of The Gun.

The album comes packaged as a double CD, though in reality it's only a little over an hour of music: the split feels more like a stylistic choice than a necessity, with Harper wanting to divide the record into two parts, one more romantic and spiritual, made up of ballads, and one more aggressive. The result, as one might easily predict, is uneven, and even on a quick first listen the first disc comes across as far weaker than the other half of the project; while songs like "Lonely Day" or "Waiting For An Angel" worked well on earlier albums, set as they were within a more varied context, here the nine ballads strung together feel noticeably flat. Even on repeated, careful listens it's hard to tell the songs clearly apart, and although some are good (like "More Than Sorry" and "Cryin' Won't Help You Now"), they still lose value within such a monotonous overall context.

The second half is far better, when Harper puts violas, violins and cellos back in the closet and ups the tempo with his band: whether it's funk (the title track), rock with a clear Stones-ish inspiration ("Engraved Invitation" and "Get It Like You Like It"), or country-folk with gospel streaks ("Gather 'Round The Stone"), the Californian proves he knows his craft and can write songs that, while not milestones, are highly effective and infectious. "Black Rain," where Harper calls in the strings to weave blaxploitation-style textures into a furious anti-Bush funk, is undoubtedly the album's standout, but the semi-jazz digression of "The Way That You Found Me" is also well worth appreciating.

Overall, it's a record that's not without merit, but one that, with a different "structural" choice eliminating the surplus material, would have hit far harder.

Lifeline (2007), the third outing with the Innocent Criminals, is nonetheless another misstep. Standing out favorably are the R&B-soaked rock of "Say You Will," the weissenborn instrumental "Paris Sunset # 7," and the rock of "Put It On Me," which recalls early Springsteen.

Also worth saving are the soul-rock ballad "Needed You Tonight," powerful and seductive in equal measure, and the melancholy title track, colored by impalpable plucks of acoustic and slide guitar, but that's where the good part of "Lifeline" ends. Because the rest is made up of well-worn, overly familiar ballads, somewhat country-rock in flavor ("Fool For A Lonesome Train"), often replicas of an already-heard-too-many-times Harper style ("In The Colours," "Fight Outta You"), or hopelessly bland ("Having Wings") and dull ("Younger Than Today").

The new Ben Harper is relaxed, the one who surfs with Jack Johnson — no more dusty roads, no more mothers with lesbian lovers, less room for gospel and fewer miles to march to keep from burning up again. Of the fire that once burned with rage inside the Californian, perhaps all that's left is the one people gather around in a circle on the beach with guitars and friends; good for inner peace, sure, but the old inspiration is gone.

Changing course so as not to stagnate, to give a jolt to a career that by now seems to have said a great deal, if not everything, it had to say; perhaps that's why, upon hearing the record by Wan Sant Condo, the band of Jason Mozersky — who back in the day served as his tour chauffeur — Ben Harper glimpsed in that sound the chance to reinvent himself.

It's not exactly a dramatic leap, this move by Ben Harper with The Relentless7; essentially, the volume goes up, folk is almost entirely set aside, the blues component is scaled back, and the overall tone becomes more rock, perhaps a bit funky, with electric guitars front and center.

The impression is that the Claremont songwriter is having a lot of fun in this new guise, amid rock with Lynyrd Skynyrd-style riffs ("Number With No Name") or bluesier ones ("Why Must You Always Dressed In Black"). Harper nails engaging, infectious singles by blending grunge and QOTSA ("Shimmer And Shine"), speeds up the breath of his ballads with electric, Pearl Jam-like cadences ("Fly One Time"), or happily returns to the emotions of certain songs from his early albums ("The World Suicide").

Harper's urge to take a few risks doesn't always pay off: while the funk-blues of "Lay There & Hate Me" is enjoyable, and the blues of "Keep It Together" — first electrified Kravitz-style, then slowed down — is intriguing, the excessive repetition, odd time signatures, and extemporaneous solos of "Boots Like These" leave one puzzled.

Despite a few bland songs, though, White Lies For Dark Times is a tight, well-rounded album, fun and enjoyable; Harper may not be in his ideal vocal form, but he throws himself into it with evident enjoyment, and the Relentless7 have the chops and energy to back him up in just the right spirit.

After the high hopes raised by White Lies For Dark Times, the following Give Till It's Gone confirms Harper's questionable habit of releasing too many albums in too few years, when perhaps, with a more adequate break and more careful reflection, he could have achieved greater quality rather than sheer quantity. The record is a collection of classically rock or folk-rock tracks that at times try (in vain) to recapture his old sound ("Don't Give Up On Me"), but which in most cases come across as unremarkable and bland.

A catchy anthem like "Rock 'n' Roll Is Free" or the syrupy "Feel Love" aren't enough to lift the average, while a few positive signs come from the gospel-tinged "Waiting For A Sign", the raw slide guitar of the blues-rock "Dirty Little Lover", and the closing "Do It For You, Do It For Us", where Harper rediscovers his lost verve.

Too little, too late, however, to save what amounts to an "ordinary" album, the kind of record you'd expect from some journeyman songwriter with little talent and plenty of enthusiasm, not from an artist who had once managed to invent a folk songwriting style that happily blended elements of black music such as blues, soul and funk into a proposition that was thoroughly high-quality and just original enough.

In 2013 came Get Up!, on which Harper returns to dig into roots blues alongside Charlie Musselwhite, a harmonica player of undisputed fame who also proves handy on the six-string when needed. It's no coincidence that the shadow of John Lee Hooker emerges as one of the record's chief inspirations (just listen to "I'm In I'm Out And I'm Gone"), since — or so the story goes — Harper and Musselwhite first met in 1997 during a series of sessions recorded for the celebrated bluesman. "Get Up!", released on the legendary Stax Records, is a two-faced record, with a run of delicate tracks skilfully alternating with more rhythmic ones, flashes of genius interspersed with moments that are a touch more predictable. Ten original songs, written by Harper for the occasion, which in many cases carry the same power as the traditionals they clearly draw on, equally at home blending with gospel choirs ("We Can't End This Way") as pairing up with good old rock'n'roll ("She Got Kick"). There's no shortage of typically Harper-esque moments either, as with "You Found Another Lover", which sounds very much like an outtake inexplicably left in a drawer. The record chases rhythm ("Blood Side Out", "I Don't Believe A Word You Say"), but also works with finesse ("I Ride At Dawn"), without shying away from starker, pared-back solutions ("All That Matters Now", placed at the end of the sequence), in a work that smells of the past while still managing to marry contemporary sensibilities with charm.

A year later Harper releases a small gem of intimacy, joined by his mother Ellen, multi-instrumentalist and vocalist on Childhood Home. The synergy the two display across this brief but intense springtime tapestry is the meeting point between parents and children, like when Ben's maternal grandfather, from his rocking chair in their home in Claremont, CA, watched with dark eyes as that Jewish girl came home and held little Benjamin Chase in her arms.

So the ten songs represent a clearly defined stylistic choice, a tribute to those who actually lived through those years of embraces (Joni Mitchell, Joan Baez, Cat Stevens), with Ben singing the songs written by Ellen and vice versa. The emotional exchanges found in the lyrics ("A House Is A Home", "Learn It All Again Tomorrow") are worth more than a thousand missed flourishes of sound, like strokes of ink passed gently over the soft belly of anyone willing to be lulled by tenderness.

"Childhood Home" is one long succession of depth ("City Of Dreams", "Born To Love You", "Altar Of Love"), interspersed with the folk-leaning Harper of "Fight For Your Mind" ("Farmer's Daughter", "Break Your Heart") and always true to the trait that has defined him as an artist across these twenty years of his career: sincerity.

In 2018 it's the turn of No Mercy In This Land, once again recorded with Charlie Musselwhite. The new album is the kind of record that tells stories of suffering and perseverance, a roaring catharsis in which the personal stories of Ben and Charlie intertwine, eventually merging with those of millions of American citizens. It's impossible, in fact, not to pick up on the references to Trump in the title track, just as it's impossible not to be moved by the final verse, sung directly by Musselwhite, in which he evokes the pain of being abandoned by his father and the premature death of his mother ("Father left us down here all alone/ My poor mother is under a stone"). Only the occasional organ note intrudes on the formidable pairing of Musselwhite's harmonica and Ben Harper's guitar, while elsewhere the accompaniment comes from piano and the rhythm section, following closely the pace of their moonlit blues. The harmonica player's past unexpectedly resurfaces too in the tracks "The Bottle Wins Again" and "Bad Habits", where Harper's voice mingles with the astonishing harmonica phrasing of Musselwhite, capable of evoking the wild atmospheres typical of Charlie Parker's jazz.

Over the course of the record, harder moments mix with more introspective ones, as in the case of the brilliant soul of "When Love Is Not Enough" and the piano ballad "Nothing At All", which evokes the contemplation of a solitary night. Thanks to this device, the Musselwhite and Harper record, which on paper could have come across as a "backward-looking" album, manages to keep the listener's attention alive throughout, through feverish tracks like "Found The One", carefully placed halfway through the record. So it turns out that, if it's true that the blues always tells a story (as John Lee Hooker used to say), the duo prove they still have the right words to tell it.

Two years later Ben Harper takes on his first entirely instrumental album. Winter Is For Lovers (2020) is a return to his roots, a journey back that doesn't stop at the start of his own musical path, but goes all the way back to the roots of folk music itself. So it's no coincidence that the Californian artist chose The Folk Music Store to record the full performance of the album, available on video on the world's most famous streaming platform. A place that smells of the sacred and of tradition, as well as of family. There, in the shop set up by his maternal grandparents, Harper's teenage apprenticeship crossed paths with the lives of artists like Ry Cooder, David Lindley, Jackson Browne and Leonard Cohen. Those were the Eighties, and ever since, the American singer-songwriter has never let his Hawaiian guitars gather dust, celebrating them once and for all on this occasion.

Although "Inland Empire" had raised real hopes — with a melodic line that hits the soul like a cough and deep bass notes that knock on your head like a recurring thought — the new album ultimately betrays expectations. Partly because an instrumental album, for someone who has made voice and words the cornerstone of his music, is already a risky venture in itself, and partly because Harper's technique on the instrument is good, but not good enough to justify a record as skeletal and minimal as the one released on 23 October through Anti- Records.

Few tracks manage to convey a feeling or an atmosphere, something from which you can recover a scent, a glimpse, a play of light, or even just a faint sensation. If "Joshua Tree", with its solemn progression, vaguely recalls the opening of "Power Of The Gospel", one of the finest songs Harper has ever written, "Toronto" paints a streak of melancholy over a black-and-white photo of Lake Ontario, but these are exceptions to a rule that never really stirs anything. Everything else, in fact, goes down easily and is just as quickly forgotten, like a place you've visited but can't recall a single thing about. "Winter Is For Lovers" ends up being little more than a decent backdrop for a night in with a glass of wine, or an attempted soundtrack for some road movie shot in wide-angle (in this respect, Ry Cooder's "Paris, Texas" seems like more than just a vague inspiration).

Harper drifts off into a sonic spectrum whose flaw isn't so much that it's narrow, but that it never changes. Permanently unchanged.

Contributions by Valeria Ferro ("No Mercy In This Land"), Claudio Lancia ("Get Up!"), Stefano Macchi ("Childhood Home"), Federico Piccioni ("Winter Is For Lovers"), Ariel Bertoldo, Dario Baragone

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