TAIPEI TIMES INTERVIEW WITH RAMBLING STEVE GARDNER 12/2016

[Rambling Steve Gardner]

 Questions for Rambling Steve from Taipei Times.

1. How did you come up with the name Rambling Steve? What is the name’s significance?

I have been using “RAMBLING STEVE” since the early 1980’s when I moved away from Mississippi and starting traveling and touring back and forth between home (Mississippi, USA) and Japan and Europe. On my first commercial recording released under my name, rather than as a side-man, “Rambling With The Blues” (2002 Blues Cat Records) the name stuck! (The recording, was a musical companion to “Rambling Mind”, a book of photographic images on Mississippi that I published in 1994.) Of course I’m a pretty good story teller and have been accused of being like my grandmother and never letting the “truth stand get in the way of a good story” as I ramble on.

Growing up in Mississippi, I was always called “Little Steve” after my father, who was also Steve, and called “Big Steve”. (Down south we almost never seem to use “Jr”, it is usually “little”.)

We always had some kind of “handle” along with our family names too. Big Steve, was always the “Electric Man” or the “Light Man” and then later on after he gave up electrical work and started drilling water wells, he was know as the “Well Man”. Older musician that befriended me always said, “...with all of those other “Steve’s” and “Stevie’s” out there, you better do something to let the folks know who YOU are. You better call yourself something other than ‘Little Steve’ so I did.”

2. Can you tell me a little about your musical background?

I was born in Mississippi in 1956. Music came into my life by way of an old 78 RPM phonograph and a handful of Red 78s, my cousin's Japanese transistor radio, our black and white television set and church on Sundays. And especially those great times when Daddy would play rhythm on four kitchen knives while Uncle Amos Parker played and sang. We had live music at Saturday night fish fries in the summer, where local musicians played their best Hank Williams and Jimmy Reed or dinner on there ground at church when it was cool enough. I picked up the guitar when I was about nine and harmonica later on and have never looked back.

I met and made friends with Sam Chatmon, of the Mississippi Sheiks in the 70's as I worked on a degree in photojournalism from the University of Southern Mississippi. (Thinking of playing music for a living back then was like planing on opening up a watermelon stand on Mars.) On visits with Mr Sam after a few photos and a home cooked meal of fried chicken or catfish, Sam would let me blow the harp with him on a few tunes. (His most famous was “Sitting On Top Of The World”.) Every now and then he would stop my playing by saying, "Steve, everybody needs a chance to be told to sit down!” (And listen.) I learned to take that chance when it was offered, after all you may not get another one anytime soon. Those afternoons changed my life. Opened my eyes and ears to another world of music. Because when I finally stopped to listen, I began to really “hear” the music.

Over the years my love of music and stories helped me to forge friendships throughout Mississippi with so many fine first and second generation musicians like Jack Owens of Bentonia, Jessie Mae Hemphill, granddaughter of Sid Hemphill who was recorded by the Lomaxs, James Son Thomas, grave digger and friend of Elmore James, Booba Barnes of Greenville, MS. and more who opened their homes and hearts to me. These folks lived through the good times and the hard time that were recorded on some of the first 78

records. They were the originals or had learned from them. I try to never underestimate my good fortune in having been able to spend time with them.

We laughed, played, sang and talked about nearly everything under the sun. Some of the best advice that I ever got was that you must find your own road into the blues, play your own songs and play them your own way. Usually they would say something like, “...You ain't me and I ain't you so just git on with it!" I did too. I received countless other advice on guns, liquor and the dealing between men and women but I guess that I had better keep that to myself.

(2B) How did growing up in Mississippi/the South influence your musical style? What does the blues mean to you?

Some of my favorite down home quotes and sayings are: “Don’t start me to talking I’ll tell everything I know.” “ Don't eat the fruit without praising the tree.” “You spend your whole life living and learning and then you die and forget it all...ain't that a shame!” “Everybody needs a chance to be told to SIT DOWN!” “If life is like a bottle of good whiskey, a rare and precious thing, then drink it up and don't waste a drop of it. And then shake the bottle real good before you let it go! Shake it, real good!” “Because EVERYBODY gets the blues some time.”

To me the “blues” is a musical mirror reflecting our lives back at us. Not all good, bad or in- between. The blues is the hole in your shoe and the warm place in your heart. The blues isn’t a color, it is all of the colors, all the sounds, all of the flavors, all of the smells and all of the feelings that let us know every minute of every day that we are alive. The blues tells it all but makes us use our imagination to hear it clearly. The blues is the music of the beating heart, the story seen by blind men sung into the deaf ear of the legless dancer. The blues is the dirt under our feet that will cover us over one day when we stop rambling. The blues is a song of pain from living too long coupled with the wink and crooked smile of knowing that it wasn’t all bad. The blues are as universal as they are individual, like the lines on our faces and on our hands our blues set us apart while bringing us together. Some blues we share with the whole world. We record it. Maybe even send it on rockets into outer space. Some blues we dare not share even with our own selves; we keep those blues locked down deep inside our souls. But shared or not all of these are “THE BLUES”.

Playing for many years, traveling and exchanging thoughts on the matter of “What is the Blues” with older and wiser blues players, no one seems to agree on much other than that you have to live, really live, to even get close to the blues. “The Blues.” I guess thats why the blues just grabs us by the heart and pulls us in when we hear it being done right. You can’t shake that beat. That beat is right inside each and every one of us. I think that is why the blues is so hard to play. Anyone can play “A Blues.” But “THE BLUES” is a lot bigger and tougher than any shuffle or boogie and it will never, ever be held back by only 12 bars. “The Blues” is a way of life, of living life. The Blues is never satisfied. Some might say that the Blues is kneeling in prayer while holding hands with the Devil. And they might be right. But no matter what you say about “The Blues”, it is like all things in this life. You have to work at it to be good at it. No amount of talk about selling your soul to the devil is going to help you unless you practice and work at it.

In the early 1990’s Mr. B.B. King was doing his Mississippi homecoming tour and I got to spend some time with him over two weeks of the tour while he was playing shows in central Mississippi and his adopted home town of Indianola. I got to watch the great man up close

while he was out doing his shows on his own time for his hometown friends, family and local fans. (I even got to play on stage at couple of the shows but well after Mr. King had returned to his tour bus.) What I took away from that experience is that a part of Mr. King’s philosophy was that the audience doesn’t always come out to a show to see you; the audience comes out for YOU TO SEE THEM! Take that to the bank and never for one minute forget it. It is true! I figure that if it works for Mr. B.B. King it will sure work for you and me! But you have to love what you do. You have to love it enough to share it. You have to put in the effort. You have to really care for those folks that you are playing for. You have to love what you are doing enough to share your time as well as your music. You may never know whose life you might touch or even have a hand in changing or saving.

I used to play in a little club in Tokyo the last Friday night of the month for abut 11 years. This young mother used to bring her two sons down into that smoky den to catch our early acoustic set. (We played from 9PM until 4AM) From the stage I watched those boys grow-up from elementary schoolers to early high school. I really didn’t know much about them except that they really seemed to like the music. On those Friday nights I always tried to look out for them sitting up at the bar sipping coca-cola with their mom.

In 2011, more than 10 years since I had stopped playing that club I was having a concert in a local 200 seat hall to raise money for earthquake relief projects shortly after the devastating earthquake and tsunami that hit Japan 3/11/2011. Anyway as the show got started I looked out into the crowd and right out on the front row was that small family, the same Mother, now with hair of gray with her two grown-up sons, sitting there enjoying the show just like way back when. It was really great to see them all again after all that time so on the break between sets we talked some and they told me that they had both become musicians of a sort playing Mississippi Delta Blues, rag time and jug band music on the street and in little clubs around their town. One of the boys played the washboard while the other played a National Reso-phonic Style-O guitar like mine! The mom added that about the time that she started bringing the boys around to the club their dad had passed away and that my music and live shows were about the only thing that her boys would show any interest in. She told me, “Your music kept me from loosing my mind. It kept our small family together. We came tonight to say thank you, to you and to donate to help others.”

Yes I choked up on hearing that. And it reminded me again of how powerful “The Blues” really is, because after all, “If life is like a bottle of good whiskey, a rare and precious thing, then drink it up and don't waste a drop of it. And then shake the bottle real good before you let it go! Shake it, real good!”

3. How has your music evolved over the years?

Well My basic bio describes me like this:

Rambling Steve Gardner, Mississippi Roots and Bluesman, based in Tokyo, Japan, plays original, acoustic roots and country blues music; finger picking and slide on National Reso-phonic guitars, with harmonica. You know, Big Leg Acoustic Stuff.

With more than seven CDs of traditional and original music, Rambling Steve Gardner plays and tours solo and with the JERICHO ROAD SHOW in the Southeastern United States, Austria and Germany as well as his home base of Japan, where many of his tours have been sponsored by the Cultural Affairs section of the United States Department of State and the State of Mississippi.

Growing up in Mississippi, Rambling Steve Gardner heard, learned from and played with many of the legendary blues greats from: Sam Chatmon of the Mississippi Sheiks, Booby Barnes, James “Son” Thomas, all in the Mississippi Delta; to Jessie Mae Hemphill the “She Wolf” of the Mississippi Hill Country, grand daughter of Sid Hemphill and mentor to Bonnie Rait; down to Central Mississippi Blues Man and long time friend, Jack Owens from Bentonia, protege of Skip James.

He has also opened shows and/or played shows with Kim Wilson and The Fabulous Thunderbirds, Mojo Bufford of the Muddy Waters Band, Big Jay McNeely, Shemekia Copeland, Gate Mouth Brown, Washboard Chaz, Jimmy and Eddie Burns, Jimmy Dawkins, Corey Harris, Alvin Youngblood Hart, Harmonica Shaw, Howard Tate, Ben E. King, Bill Wyman of the Rolling Stones.

But I think that the best description of me and my music is that it is “the real deal”. I alway try to be my best self on my worst day, with one foot pointed back at where I came from and one foot pointed ahead. I don’t like, write or perform what I call “blame songs”, mainly because I try to accept responsibility when something goes wrong if it is my fault. I try to dig in as deep as I can and consider where a tune came from, how it has changed and what it means to me and those for whom I might play it.

(3B) Has living in Japan shaped (your music) in any way?

Living in Japan has been a great experience for me. It has given me the perspective of distance to focus on my roots, my life along with the hard history the defines the American South. But living in Japan has also given me a spring board to return home to Mississippi and remind them of what great people and music that have come from there.

I played 32 shows sponsored by the State of Mississippi this year, promoting Americana in Mississippi along with Roots & Blues. (Do a very similar show for the US Dept of State from time to time, but I was over-whelmed to be brought back home and put out on the road to play that many shows and events.)

If anything, living in Japan has given me the resolve to continue on the path that I have set forth from the beginning. Acoustic, Americana, Roots & Blues—stories. If I were asked what I miss the most when I return home, it would have to be the stories. On Sundays after dinner, out camping or at the deer camp where the men gathered round to tell tall tales about “the ones that got away”. I was all grown before I realized that most of the stories they told were not about hunting “deer” but hunting “dear”!

My Daddy, my Granddaddy and Uncle used to tell stories. And every blues man that I have ever met worth a damn was an over flowing faucet of stories! I think that wanting to be a part of those stories, listening to and wanting to make those guitars ring surely had a hand in changing my life and putting me out on this path. It has always been hard enough to be my self, so I haven’t ever really wanted to “be” anyone else after they took cowboys off the TV. I’ve been lucky enough to have the chance to try a lot of things but no matter what I was doing I have always wanted to be in the middle of a good song and a good story. I hope that when I am long gone and there’s nothing left of me but my music that maybe folks might remember me and say, “He was the real deal and he sure could tell a good story.”

4. Why is it important for you to bring American blues music to Japan and to foreign audiences?

In my opinion the American South and Japan are very much alike. The American South was defeated and occupied after losing against the Federal troops in the American Civil war; a war fought on its on soil, just like Japan after WWll. Both areas have strict codes of behavior, manors and use a vertical paternal structure for their social interactions. (Yes Sir. Yes Ma’am. Brother, Sister, Uncle, Aunt and so on.) When visiting one always brings a gift of some kind such as a pie or a cake. Both are very guilt motivated. You are moved to do things because you have to rather than want to. Both have an exaggerated since of pride coupled with guilt and inferiority that is designed to keep everyone in their place. (The struggle in the American South by poor whites and blacks alike against all of this structure resulted in spirituals,as code talk, the blues, the civil rights movement, the KKK and on the brighter good side, southern hospitality.) Of course it is important to note that in both cultures when someone is being overly polite to you they are most likely mad as hell at you.

Both groups worship their ancestors, like and seek out a since of “real” and “authentic” while living in the past with a foot planted grudgingly in the future. Both groups feel that they are “special” and therefore whatever they create is “special”. That goes for music and the music makers as well. Jealousy kills more folks in the American South than fried food. A countless number of musicians have been killed because of their careless behavior around another man’s woman or another woman’s man! It is said that the late great Robert Johnson met his death by poison at the hands of just such a jealous husband who didn’t appreciate that feeling of “specialness” and attention being paid to his wife by the young musician.

After its defeat in WWll Japanese set aside a great deal of their own traditional music and sought to find out about western music. The emphasis was on rebuilding and musicians weren’t considered builders. So to make money Japanese musicians and the curious took American music as their own. (This behavior is not unlike the Japanese chess game SHOGI in which captured pieces on opposite teams are not “killed” off like in western chess, but change side after they are captured.)

Occupation forces blasted American music and culture out over military radio; imported records, movies and television followed close behind introducing new dances, fades, fashions, life styles and foods. USO shows brought musicians over and after the 1964 Tokyo Olympics the doors opened even wider to musical artist of all kinds from the west as the Japanese wanted to know, have and hear everything. Everyone from John Lee Hooker, Johnny Shines and the Beatles passed through Japan. The Japanese loved America and couldn’t get enough of cowboys, hamburgers and loud electric guitars or big fat acoustic ones; James Dean and Marilyn Monroe on the movie screens with Muddy Waters or even Elmore James sharing the juke boxes with Frank Sinatra, Lois Armstrong and Elvis.

The Japanese study the American south in school. Most know where to find the Mississippi River on maps, have read at least one Mark twain story and are planing a trip to New Orleans some day. Most notions of the American south are an image of cotton fields created by the movie “Gone With The Wind” combined with a dark crossroads where one can still sell a soul to the devil at a discount price while on the way to juke joints where all you need is a pig foot and a bottle of beer to get your mojo working. There are live houses and Japanese Blues bands everywhere you turn. The lyrics my not be too plain but the message is loud and clear-”Everybody gets the blues some time....”

5. How does your music resonate with different audiences and cultures? Ex. Younger listeners, people in Japan, Taiwan?

Well I tell you, I love to laugh and out here in Japan and other countries when I am on tour most anything can happen to bring on a good laugh. I was playing some shows in west Japan one night a few years ago when an older fellow walked up to the stage at my show with a small brown bag which he presented to me and said, “I heard on the news that all Americans like this, so I bought it for you.” I thanked the man, played another set, packed up and opened the bag on returning to my hotel to find a gift wrapped bottle of ketchup!

A couple of months back I was playing a small festival, not too far from Tokyo but out in the country all the same. After letting go on my take of “Oh Glory How Happy I Am”, a tune popularized by Rev. Gary Davis, a woman came up to me on the break and said, “I am not sure what that song was about but it touched my heart...and I just love the way that your guitar sounds like a tractor.” (I play National Reso-phonic single and tricones.) I really got a kick out of that. Other times folks, mostly kids want to touch my guitars. I have a one of a kind hand painted Tricone with Southern cotton fields and cotton bolls decorating it. But if you have never seen cotton before you might be like an elderly woman who came up to me at a show where I was promoting American culture for the U.S. Dept. of State. She hesitated and shyly asked, “Mr. Steve why do you have white mice painted on your guitar?” I took a closer look and sure enough the screws on the cover plate looked just like eyes and the cotton bolls looked like mice.

But maybe the most heart warming request that I have ever played was in the spring of last year. The Japanese wife of a good friend of mine was in hospital with cancer that had made a turn for the worse. She asked if I would play for her so her husband sent for me.

I was out on a short tour at the time along with my friend Chaz (Washboard Chaz) Leary, who plays with many groups but was touring with me and my group The JERICHO ROAD SHOW along with the TIN MEN. After we played the Yokohama Jug Band festival together we headed back to Tokyo where we went up to the hospital guitar, harmonica and washboard at the ready. Well there were protest from the moment that we walked onto the cancer ward. We explained that we just brought our instruments to “show what they looked like” so that everyone could save face then. (We didn’t say that we wouldn’t play.)

After a little while they wheeled my friend’s wife out of her room and into the lobby. She was swollen and had all sorts of the tubes stuck in her; you could tell that she was in pain, but when she saw us there she lit right up with such a smile as you have never seen. We talked some and then Chaz and I did a soft version of “This Train Is Bound For Glory”. We were all crying by the end, of course, even the staff who came over to stop us, but kindly waited until we finished the song, seemed moved by it all. The head nurse said to me, “We are so glad that you only showed your instruments. It is against the rules to play here”. That broke the serious mood, the tears dried up and we all broke out laughing- So loud in fact that they then asked us to leave. But they smiled and waved as the elevator doors closed.

My friend’s wife died less than a week after that. I played for her memorial service at her request too. I have played a lot of gigs, live shows and sessions since starting down this long road so many years ago but I will not soon forget playing in that hospital. Life, so fragile, so precious. Breaking the “rules” to play a simple tune, which turned out to be a dying woman’s last request re-reminded me yet again of how much music can and does make a difference in our lives. In a warmer light the tired old slogan takes new strength, “No Music. No Life.”

We live in the shadow of terror, doubt and devices these days rather than in a time when we might just take some time to get to know each other. Our access to “instant” everything had fed the monster of fear within us.

Yet, when I play shows for Universities and elementary schools the reaction is usually the same, except that the youngsters sing louder! Most come up to me and tell me that they have never see a guitar like I play or heard the kind of music that I played at all. And some sad young people tell me that it is the first time ever that they have heard music played live, not just heard at the karaoke or on television.

So I try to take most any chance to play for young folks especially if I can leave them talking and smiling. The world need more smiling!

6. What is “big leg acoustic stuff?” Can you elaborate on that a bit?

hahahaha! I have been playing since I was about nine years old. Beating the guitar and whistling into a harmonica. My Daddy, Big Steve, played the kitchen knives, beating them together kind of like Irish bones. I also beat on the banjo or washboard, mostly to keep folks from beating on me!

When we were young and got ready to dress up and go out, you had to put on your “Big Leg” pants. (Stove pipes for the men and if you were lucky you might see more than just a flash of ankle from the ladies!)

Big Leg music is what we used to call music for that special occasion. We used to have to GO out to listen to music played by musicians who would be wearing their BIG LEG clothes too. (Nobody went out or played music dressed like they were going to do yard work.)

I always heard two things for the older musicians that I played with. (1) If you don’t respect yourself, why do you think anyone else will respect you. Dress like it. Act like it. And other folks will treat you like it. (2) You can’t be anyone else but your self. Be YOUR best self. Play the music like you come into it. You are not me and I am not you, so it is up to you to take it form there.

That’s about what I do. This is one of my favorite expressions along with X-tra Large! I like to THINK BIG! I am looking forward to meeting you all as I have heard nothing but great things about the folks. SO look out! We’ll be up having some Big Leg Fun for sure!

7. Finally, what do you hope to get out of performing in Taiwan? Have you collaborated with Taiwanese musicians before?

I have lived in Asia off and on since 1980 and played shows throughout outside Japan, as well as: Indonesia, Bali, Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand, Burma and Philippines. I am so excited to have this chance to visit Taiwan and be apart of the Tiger Mountain Ramble. I have only heard positive things about Taiwan, except the weather in summer.

The headliners for the Yokohama (International) Jug Band Festival a few years back was the MUDDY BASIN RAMBLERS a very great group of musicians based in Taipei. We shared the main stage and hit it off like we had been playing together for years. Those guys

are talent over the top and then some. AND not only talented they are NICE PEOPLE! I hope that you all treat them right because they are sure going places. You can’t hold that much natural force of nature down! I am looking forward to meeting up with them again. Along with Douglas C Rapier a fine musician who creates events in the community.

I am also really looking forward to meeting new musicians and seeing what is going on in your part of the world.

Many thanks and all the best from here.

Rambling Steve Gardner Tokyo 12/2016

www.ramblingsteve.info

Rambling Steve Gardner Big Leg Acoustic Stuff!

http://www.ramblingsteve.info