Ben Harper “We Need To Talk About It” – it’s past time to do so

Photo: Michael Halsband

Taken from his new album ‘Bloodline Maintenance‘, due via his new deal with Chrysalis Records on Friday, July 22nd, Ben Harper cuts through with a new style on a song that speaks directly about an issue that it seems too many want to just avoid.

The musical new direction has Harper’s signature lap steel, supercharged through a powerful Dumble amplifier, to create an unruly tone he describes as “a sort of a merging of Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix.”   It is, he says “like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been befor.  Taking everything I’ve learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over. And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself.”

And the overdue difficult topic?  Well… the emancipation proclamation was on January 1st, 1863, and Harper is emphatic “Slavery – we need to talk about it.

About Jonathan Aird 2681 Articles
Sure, I could climb high in a tree, or go to Skye on my holiday. I could be happy. All I really want is the excitement of first hearing The Byrds, the amazement of decades of Dylan's music, or the thrill of seeing a band like The Long Ryders live. That's not much to ask, is it?
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