(Photo by Spring Waugh)
For the new Son Volt album Notes of Blue, founding member Jay Farrar tapped into his love of the blues for inspiration, with a song theme of redemption infused throughout.
“I think the spiritual aspect of the blues goes into the idea that music can lift you up and transcend your situation. Blues is always something I turn to in place of religion for me. Blues has been my religion so far in life,” he explained.
Farrar had three main artist touchstones he went to for this outing and here’s what he had to say about them.
Mississippi Fred McDowell (January 12, 1906-July 3, 1972)
“I would check out [Fred McDowell’s] bottleneck slide tunes. There’s an awesome power in his tuning and slide playing. I learned to play a little bit of bottleneck slide on this recording. It was an opportunity to try something that I had not really done before. I was trying to stay challenged and not stay complacent. It’s quite different from the other kinds of slide that I’ve played with pedal steel. It was definitely a challenge.”
Skip James (June 9, 1902-October 3, 1969)
“His haunting voice is what I was always drawn to. But I was also drawn to his alternative tuning and the resulting guitar voicing that ultimately goes along with that. It’s called the Bentonia tuning, which is E minor-based tuning that originally comes from the Bahamas. That tuning is on ‘Cherokee St.’”
Nick Drake (June 19, 1948-November 25, 1974)
“He is someone that I’ve admired for years. There really is no one that compares to his virtuosity on finger-picking-style guitar. I think I’ll be trying to learn some of his songs when I’m in the nursing home someday when I have nothing else to do.”
Son Volt will be appearing on April 7 at the Bowery Ballroom, 6 Delancey St., NYC. For more information, visit www.boweryballroom.com or call 866-858-0008. The band will also be appearing with Anders Parker on April 8 at Rough Trade NYC, 64 N. 9th St., Brooklyn. For more information, visit www.roughtradenyc.com or call 718-388-4111.
