Find out whoThe Spuits were and
how they influenced the band. Be sure to look for Spuits albums reissued
on MacIntosh Record label, including their greatest full length titles like:
"Spuitty Road", "Magical Mystery Spuit","Let it
Spuit","Meet the Spuits" and "Rubber Spuit"!!
For Robben Ford & The Blue Line second release on Stretch
Records, Robben Ford reveals himself to be a budding songwriter as well
as one of the great guitarists of the past decade. "I have always
been a player," says the one-time guitarist for The Yellowjackets
and the Miles Davis band. "I've always been coming much more from
the instrument, getting my inspiration from players like John Coltrane and
Miles Davis and people like that. Its pretty new to me to be concentrating
on songwriting but I've really been doing it a lot over the last three years,
and I think finally something original is starting to come about."
The title track of Mytic Mile is perhaps the best example of his daring
new direction that Ford has taken. He attributes the inspiration for this
moody composition to Bob Dylan's haunting "Man in The Long Black Coat."
Another tune that shows Robben's growth as a songwriter is the gentle acoustic
"Trying To Do The Right Thing," a personal statement of devotion
to his wife. Ford also puts his own stamp on the confessional ballad "Moth
To A Flame" and the funky wah-wah-inflicted "Busted Up,"
which draws heavily on vintage James Brown Grooves. "The lyrics
to that song isn't exactlt T.S. Eliot," says Robben, "but
the groove is there. It's funky, you know? I mean, "Cold Sweat"
is not a masterpiece lyrically; its more of just a feeling. And that's exactly
what we went for here."
The lone instrumental, "The Plunge." is a fretboard romp that
highlights Ford's virtuosity. And he holds othing back on the hard-hitting
original "He Don't Play Nothing But The Blues" or the slow grinding
"Worried Life Blues'" an early '60's vehicle for B.B. King. "My
songwriting is developing as time goes on," he says. "On
Talk To Your Daughter (his 1988 album for Warner Bros.) I only wrote two
songs. That was right around the time I started writing vocal oriented music.
All my writing prior to that had been basically instrumental. It's come
along to the point where on my last album (his 1992 Stretch debut, Robben
Ford & The Blue Line) there were only three instrumentals. And now I
am down to just one instrumental on this new album. So songwriting and lyrical
content has become important to me lately."
Blue Line bassist Roscoe Beck contributes one composition, the impassioned
"Say What's On You Mind" and the band kicks in one surprise
with one scintillating rendition of Cream's "Politician". As Robben
says, "That was something that Roscoe and Tom (Brechtlein) started
playing on sound checks, so one day I just hopped in on it and if felt good.
Later when we were doing the album that song came to mind. It was just before
the presidential elections so it seemed somehow appropriate. So we cut it
and it came out so good that we just had to get it on record."
Originally a quintent, then a quartet, The Blue Line has since been pared
down to a house-rocking trio. ( The addition of Bill has brought the band
up to a quartet in 1995). And Ford says it couldn't have worked without
the contribution of drummer Bretchlein and bassist Beck. "Roscoe
and I started playing together in 1982," says Robben. "He's
the only guy I know who can do what I want and he does it quite naturally.
I never even thought about using another guy. Tom came onto the band around
1986 subbing for Vinnie Colaituta. He became the regular drummer after the
Talk To Your Daughter album, and within the last couple of years we just
discovered something special among the three of us that we wanted to purse."
"I have a tendency to think there is all this weight on me,"
Robben continues. "I'm singing, I'm the only chordal instrument,
I'm the only solo instrument. But I happen to have two fantastic musicians
that I can rely on, so I can relax more that I think I can. It's something
you have to remind yourself of. And when you do, it's just the best."
In concert. Ford is given to a lot of added support by bassist Beck, who
has adapted a phenomenal two handed tapping technique that allows him to
play chords and bass lines simultaneously. And Bretchlein, shifts numbly
from shuffles to all-out rockers, from subtle brush work to solid funk backbeats
to excruciatingly slow blues grooves.
On Robben Ford & The Blue Line's third CD, Handful of Blues, the leader/guitarist/singer
gets back to what he's always been about, even when he wasn't playing it:the
blues. "Its like my brother Mark said," Ford laughs. "'Well,
you have regressed all the way now.' I have a tendency towards simple music,
but it has to be a real, authentic, artistic statement, and its never done
without complete sincerity. There's something that heppens when you get
the music down to such basics. Rather than needing to make the music simpler
so I could feel freer, I sort of rediscovered that kind of openness that
exists in the blues. That is the beauty of the blues, from a technical point
of view. It inherently has an openness, due to the simplicity that I personally
love."
Having self-produced their first two Stretch/GRP albums, the trio chose
Danny "Kootch" Kortchmar to produce Handful of Blues. "I
wasn't sure I wanted a guitar player producing," admits Robben.
"But the more we talked about it, he was obviosuly right to help
us do what we wanted to do on this album - very live, very spontaneous.
He basically insisted that that's the way the record turn out. He just wouldn't
let us polish it. We cut all the tracks for the album in four days. Not
because we had to, or that there was a time or a budget constraint, it was
just heppening." Breichtlein adds, "Having a producer meant
a lot. Once we took the hat off and gave it to Danny, we immediately just
became a band playing in a room. It allowed us to create." Kortchmar's
blues credentials were up to the task at hand. "That's really his
genre, where he's coming from as a guitarist," Robben adds. "He's
very much like me in that he learned all that stuff just by playing it -
like learning to swim by being thrown in the water."
Of the level of maturity and authenticity displayed by the trio, Beck comments,
"I don't think you get any sense that anybody's trying to prove
anything anymore. If it fits the song not to play something, then nobody
plays it; if it fits the song to play out a little bit, then somebody plays
out. And the potential has always been there to play 'the plain shit on
the deal,' to quote Jimmie Vaughn. Robben and I especially had that background
and were into blues in our early teens. Jazz was kind of natural progression
from blues and at some point the blues was a natural progression back."
Ironically, Robben's reputation as a guitar great forced him for many years
to neglect his natural vocal ability, which Handful of Blues shows is stronger
than ever. "My vocal chops atrophied to some extent. There was a
long period where I was not singing at all and when I would sing I'd just
go out and do it. For the last year I have been working with a vocal teacher,
so my range has increased tremendously, as well as, my control. I committed
myself to bringing my singing up to the level of my guitar playing and everybody
else in the band." Eleven of the CD's 12 songs are in fact vocals,
including seven originals by Ford and one by Beck, along with a lowdown
nod to Muddy Waters (Willie Dixon's "I Just Want To Make Love To You"),
a funkified reworking of the traditional "Chevrolet" and a jazzy
reading of the old Animals hit "Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood"
(inspired by Nina Simone's original version). "I thought,'We should
at least do one instrumental,'" Robben laughs. "So, "The
Miller's Son" was written about two days before we went into the studio.
I got the idea from listening to Sonny Boy Williamson, Rice Miller, who
was one source I'd never tapped. I tried to find a harmonica line he would
play that might inspire something, but I have to admit the Clapton influence
there. And I'd wanted to do kind of a Clapton dedication."
With Handful of Blues, Robben Ford & The Blue Line go back to what they
are about simply and sincerely, the blues. Robben smiles.
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