DeSoto Magazine April 2014 The Musical Ambassador: Rambling Steve Gardner

[Rambling Steve Gardner]

The Musical Ambassador: Rambling Steve Gardner

The Musical Ambassador: Rambling Steve Gardner Being a southpaw from Mississippi has a certain ring to it. For blues artist, Rambling Steve Gardner, the real irony and story to be told is that he’s an accomplished Mississippi Delta blues recording artist–living in Tokyo, Japan for nearly three decades. Both here and around the world Gardner has found a sweet spot among an ever increasing number of international blues aficionados who have a fascination with Southern culture, and more specifically, who want to learn about the provincial nooks and crannies that fill the Magnolia State. Traveling the Far East and Europe, Gardner acts as the point man for the Cultural Affairs Office of the U.S. State Department, a roving ambassador who not only performs, but teaches the history of Southern-born jazz, country and the blues, detailing the social forces that shaped this music genre between the early 1800s and the mid-20th century. A roots blues artist with a cult following that is quickly becoming mainstream, Gardner’s six CD albums released on Blue Cat Records include Hesitation Blues, Wooly Bully Express and Walking the Dog. Steve Gardner may be a rambling man but don’t be fooled by monikers. He earned a degree in journalism from the University of Southern Mississippi where he married this writing skill with photography and worked as a reported for the Jackson Daily News/Clarion-Ledger. “In the mid ‘80s I saw the writing on the wall as it pertained to the newspaper business, and decided that if I was going to be hungry and broke I would be hungry and broke while seeing the world,” says Gardner. Gardner’s ties to acoustic root music can be traced back to his youth in rural Mississippi. “When I was a boy I listened to my father play the “knives” in a local string band,” he says. The “knives” is a home devised rhythm and percussion instrument that required the use of Steve’s mother’s service ware that would normally be found in the kitchen drawer. 
“Growing up, I remembers stopping as a boy just long enough to grab a quick listen to black performers play the blues during a time when segregation blanketed the state,” says Gardner. His influences also came from outside the state. “My family took a trip to New Orleans where the music I listened to was compelling and drew me in like a moth to the flame.” He remembers the impact the transistor radio had on his ability to listen to music from far off places. These factors are all evidenced in the rhythms, sounds, melodies that fill the air when he sings, finger picks, and bars the round neck on his National Reso-phonic guitar. He began his immersion into the blues by first mastering the harmonica and then looking to play with others. Today, his weapon of choice (instrument), however, is a National Reso-phonic guitar, a stringed wood/metal instrument that features a metal cone resonator built inside the box. This one-off style of guitar was designed during the 1920s (before the electric guitar) when it was a problem for the acoustic guitar to be heard above the brass and woodwind instruments in the bands of that day. The morphing of the reso-phonic guitar from its acoustic cousin into a mechanically amplified instrument was an instant success and the music it makes is one Steve embraced the first time he heard it. “I bought my first one in 1980 and today I own several including the National Reso-phonic Guitar that I perform and record with,” says Gardner.

While the epistemology of the reso-phonic guitar is found in the Mississippi and Louisiana Delta regions,
the emergence of Rambling Steve Gardner as a performing and recording root music artist came after
he arrived in Japan. After several years working as a journalist in Japan, his rural Mississippi music roots
began to sprout and with his reception as a blues artist in Japan, his new career moved center stage.  It proved to be an instant and a perfect fit. “I really hadn’t planned to stay in Japan this long but my success here with root music opened doors in a place that I have come to love.”

Today, English is his second language and he travels around the country teaching root music and blues
guitar, holding workshops and seminars in Japanese Universities. Because the blues are and have always been an evolving art form, Gardner encourages his Japanese blues students to put their own language, style and Nippon feeling in their delivery and sound and not to simply emulate the music they have been weaned on. “Too often they try to sound exactly like Sonny Boy Williams, B.B. King, Robert Johnson or the many other blues icons that are part of the music’s rich history.”   Steve Gardner is a man who gives back to the country he now calls home. Since the 2011 Japan Earthquake and the nuclear disaster in Fukushima that followed, he has performed in fundraising concerts to raise money for these devastated areas. Twice a year he returns to Mississippi and the Southeast. He will be returning once again this summer.  “In a perfect world...when I reach the twilight of my years, spending six months in Japan and six months in Mississippi would be ideal.”  
His fond memories of a more halcyon time when he was growing up as a boy in Mississippi and the pride he has for the Deep South are evident in what he says and in the music he plays.  If his plans for future retirement ever comes to pass, he no doubt will share his many fond memories of Japan with his fellow Mississippians, tying two cultures together through music. •

DeSoto Magazine April 2014

http://desotomagazine.com/steve-gardner/

Explore the online magazine from cover to cover!
You can view our advertiser’s links too.
They make it all possible!

In order to indulge in this month’s DeSoto, we ask that your chairs be in the fully-relaxed position for take off.
Having been a travel hound since I left home at 16 to spend five weeks in France, travel has been a large part of my life. So, it’s with great pleasure and excitement to bring you an issue tied loosely to ideas of travel. We can learn so much from other places, people, and cultures–as Lazelle illustrates with his story about musician Steve Gardner. How many Mississippi blues artists call Japan home? Poetic irony, to say the least.

Contact DeSoto Magazine today and Explore the South.

DeSoto Media
2375 Memphis Street
Suite 205
Hernando, MS 38632

Phone: [phone]
Fax: [phone]

http://desotomagazine.com/desoto-magazine-online/