A Conversation with Jeff Black – HuffPost 5.9.14

Mike Ragogna: You’re considered one of the greatest folk artists of the last twenty-five years. What do you think it is about your music that people are hooking into?

Jeff Black: I can only guess–a song as a looking glass is the most interesting story. What I create from a melody or a lyric has as many interpretations as it does performances. Maybe it’s my attempt at it, that draws some people in, like being attracted to watching someone paint or draw. It’s the work that animates the art. I hope it’s the moment and the ideas drawn from listening that bring people in.

MR: Can you take us on a tour of your latest album, Folklore? For instance, how did this batch of songs come together and what was the creative process like?

JB: I wrote in the liner notes that I gravitated toward the songs that were born from a picture first. It isn’t a real stretch for me to sit down with my guitar or my banjo and work on melodies that become pictures and then words. That’s what I’ve always done. I think the difference is that I started with pictures and used that as the jumping off place. The real curious turn was that these pictures found me, or came looking for me rather, and wouldn’t be denied. I went through a period where I was writing constantly, furiously…even during the making of B-Sides and Confessions Vol. 2. It was as though I was possessed. These ideas were so persistent, I had to capture them or face wrestling with my clarity in a way that I don’t care to do anymore. It was a deliverance of sorts, like shooting film before the sun goes down, before you lose the light.

MR: What are a couple of the more revealing songs about you on the album and what are the backstories?

JB: I would have to say that within the title track “Folklore,” I might be revealed. I don’t want this world to ever let me go. I can’t imagine ever being done with all the work I have to do. I am comfortable in this dimension and I’m not afraid to turn to dust or be lost somewhere in an old song, especially the songs that will be sung or simply listened to a hundred years from now.

I wrote “Tom Domino” for my friend who is fighting cancer to send out as many good and positive thoughts as possible. To bring people together in a hall and share the story with the hope that the good multiplies and flies a little further, a little higher, is what I wear on my sleeve for my friend whom I love very much. It is the only way I know to stay near and keep a good fire going. The “double six up from the boneyard” reference is the clean slate hand in dominos – the new start. Not to mention my admiration of The Stones and Lou Reed.

MR: What is “folk” these days?

JB: “Folk” without a translator rings with a false and misleading definition. There’s so many categories–contemporary folk, post-modern folk on the indigenous tip, traditional folk, working songs, children’s music, acoustic music, country blues, country folk and blues, the list is infinite. Every person, our planet, this period of time that we live in, sings out of a folk song. Whether you are beating on a trashcan or strumming on a balalaika, music and the message that it carries lifts us up there above the wall so we can see a little further down the road. That’s what keeps us going. That’s what keeps us traveling. Folk is traveling music. Every one of us sings a folk song. It’s not about a revolt. It’s certainly not about utopia – It’s about a revolution in the sense that we regenerate our commitment to living and not just existing.

MR: Folk artists can be drawn to topics of the day or era as seen in the works of the Guthries, Joan Baez, and others. Is there anything in the news that’s caught your eye recently?

JB: I’ve been thinking a lot about the ghosts of our progress. I think that we have been told or led to believe that we have fully evolved–that our time is the pinnacle and that we, more so than anyone before, have come a long way. I won’t deny that. It would mean a lot more if we took more time to try to understand that we are here but for a blink of an eye, with a long way to go and that celebrating our differences are virtues native to us.

What I mean by that is moving beyond what we read in magazines, see on television and what we hear on the radio, to form our own opinions about how we see ourselves and each other. Every byte of information it seems is cleverly placed in front of us to divide. For people to unite and work through our real-time comprehension of our relationships so we can have a clear picture of who and how we put our peers into leadership positions in the government and our communities is an idea worth singing about. The conflicts of race, color, creed, war, politics, and the battles between the haves and have-nots were all curated by rumor and salesmen. I just don’t think the future holds a place for those rumors and the business of division.

MR: What draws you to this genre more than others?

JB: I think neighborhood has its effect. I grew up listening to old-time traditional country music on the AM radio. Guitars, banjos, harmonicas and songs that told a story. I can’t help but see a film in my mind when I sing the songs or see pictures like holograms all around me when I perform. Part of what I try to relay is the importance of the simple connection of music and melody with an intentional listener. This is not a lost art, but I feel it is slowly being stripped away by digital devices and our ever growing need to have immediate multi-sensory gratification. I may be haunted by it or drawn more than others but honestly, it carries me somewhere that I can’t explain.

MR: Which artists inspired you the most and what drew you to making music your career and life path?

JB: I was inspired by stories from my father about my family’s humble musical legacy and the poets of the day. Woody Guthrie’s “Bound For Glory,” Joe Klein’s “A Life” and my brother’s record collection that included some of the great Texas singer songwriters- Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt, Billy Callery, Jerry Jeff Walker…. I started feeling like if I was going to write songs then I ought to have something to say.

MR: What advice do you have for new artists?

JB: It’s the old Irish proverb that says “Everything will perish save for love and music.” If we lose electricity, gasoline, the Internet, the grid, all of these things that we hold so dear, we will always have music and we will always have stories. After all is said and done–write, write, write.

MR: Since as I mentioned earlier you are considered one of the great folk artists of the last twenty-five years, got any big plans for the next twenty-five years?

JB: I believe that anything creative fits in the plan. I have thoughts about gathering my poems for a book and exploring the idea of a screenplay. I am constantly writing and that keeps me on my true path. I would also like to continue my inconsistent hobby of ruining my perfectly good clothes with paint and mineral spirits.