Posted at 9:00 a.m.
The first time that Ben Harper made himself known to the Quebec public – we were there – was in 1994; a set of 15 minutes which paralyzed everyone with a handful of demanding songs from the depths of blues and reggae, fists in the air, singing I Riseunifying anthem.
“It was at the Spectrum in the first part of Colin James”, launches our interlocutor with the intact memory. He may be only 52 years old, Ben Harper, 28 and dozens of tours around the world later, remembers.
“Montreal is one of greatest cities on the planet “, he continues, also alluding to the Montreal International Jazz Festival, which punctually invited him.
With huge records during the 1990s like Welcome to the Cruel World, Fight for Your Mind, The Will to Live and Burn to Shine, still in the Americana tillers, the scaffolding of his fame was erected. An iconoclastic and unpredictable musician, he brought out Bloodline Maintenance, an entirely self-produced album, on July 22. Harper plays all the instruments on this delightful album, a corpus of 11 songs that clears new musical territory.
I had to put aside my usual creation methods to make a new alloy, it’s a sonic rebirtha rebirth, as if it were my first, and with each new record, I gain new fans and I lose some, we don’t get out of it.
Ben Harper
Social injustices (ProblemChild) and ethnic (We Need to Talk About It), nuclear threats (Where Did We Go Wrong), we are far from the songs of top 40.
“I discovered very young how to make a hit, Steal My Kisses, which was on the radio charts. I could easily have made a few variations of it for the rest of my life, but nothing would have bothered me more. So I ran in the opposite direction as far as possible. Imagine the heads of the Virgin bosses in 2004 when I told them I had a gospel record project. [avec The Blind Boys of Alabama]. I’m very unpredictable from song to song and record to record; being eclectic is my business. »
Not concerned about sales at all, obviously he defines himself more as a no hit wonder, “because you don’t need fame to advance in a career”. “I define myself first of all as an agnostic in love with God”, says the one who recently received a phone call from a certain Harry Styles, planetary star of the hour.
“He liked the way I played the guitar, I jumped at the chance. When I got to the studio, the first thing he said to me was, “What’s for dinner?” But once in the lab, it got very serious. »
An American in Paris
Like the song Free Man in Paris by Joni Mitchell (on the album Short and Spark), Ben Harper is now a free man in the City of Light. The anxiety-provoking climate in the United States is the main reason for this.
PHOTO LIONEL BONAVENTURE, FRANCE PRESS AGENCY
Ben Harper
“I’ve been coming here since I was 17 and I’ve spent long periods of time here. This time may be the right one, we’ll see. But there’s so much paperwork, bureaucratic hurdles: work visas, temporary resident visas, taxes, it’s not that simple, but I get to know people in the neighborhood, I leave my children [ses deux plus jeunes] hang out in the park and compose new songs while learning French. »
Without Juan Nelson, his early companion in the Innocent Criminals, who died last year, life goes on.
Life on tour at my age has never been so good. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke; it took me all this time to finally get comfortable with how to present my music.
Ben Harper
“We have just completed about thirty shows during a seven week European tour which made me live rare moments, with my new group. »
His unwavering adherence to the Weissenborn guitar, which he plays seated, the instrument lying horizontally on his thighs, the strings up, is notorious. Excellent player of lapsteel also, Ben Harper is eager to land in Trois-Rivières.
“We’re going to play some songs from Bloodline Maintenance, the days when I only played the new record live in a spirit of rebellion are behind me. I prefer to choose songs from my catalog, add a few surprises, but the main objective remains to make the songs on the record even better in performance, without moving away from the studio versions. »
Ben Harper will be in Trois-Rivières in blues on August 26 at the Cogeco Amphitheater. Supporting acts: The Lachy Doley Group and the Steve Hill Band.