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Ben Harper birthday - TIMH

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October 28, 2015 at 9:02am
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Benjamin Chase Harper was born 46 years ago today in Claremont, California. In those 46 years Harper has never met a guitar he couldn’t play or a musical genre he couldn’t make his own. From acoustic to electric, lap steel to Weissenborn, bottleneck to Dobro, from funk to reggae to rock to soul to folk to blues, Harper can do it all.

His childhood might hold the key to the mixed up, beautiful mess that is Ben Harper’s music. His father was African-American and American Indian and his mother’s ancestry is Russian and Lithuanian. They divorced when Harper was five years old and he was raised by his maternal grandparents along with his mother. His grandparents owned a music shop and Harper started playing guitar in early childhood. The music shop was well known among musicians and received regular visits from luminaries like David Lindley (Curtis Mayfield, Warren Zevon, Jackson Browne), Leonard Cohen and the legendary bluesman Taj Mahal.

Harper became steeped in the folk and blues music that was regularly played around the house and in the shop. At age nine he attended his first concert, Bob Marley at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, California. Marley, himself of mixed heritage, became an early idol of Harper’s. As he progressed into his teen years, Harper began exploring more blues and started mastering slide guitar. His teens also saw Harper begin to build a following in the Los Angeles and Inland Empire areas of California as he started playing regular acoustic shows.

His performances led to his first record, “Pleasure and Pain”, in 1992. The album featured Harper and guitarist Tom Freund covering blues songs along with a few originals. Perhaps the standout track on the album is a cover of John Prine’s “Angel From Montgomery”. The album was not widely heard but it was enough to earn Harper a lifetime contract with Virgin Records. He put out his first major label album, “Welcome to the Cruel World”, in 1994. That album was very well received in Europe and led to Harper playing his first major shows.

He quickly followed up on that release with his breakthrough album, “Fight For Your Mind”, in 1995. This record received considerable play on college radio and was a favorite of critics. It was on this album that Harper first used a few musicians that would eventually makeup the core of his main backing band The Innocent Criminals. FFYM was the album where Ben Harper’s sound, as difficult as that is to define, started to coalesce.  While the immediate reception was not overwhelming, FFYM did eventually earn gold record status.

Harper continued recording through the 1990s with The Innocent Criminals, releasing “The Will to Live” in 1997 and “Burn to Shine” in 1999. “Burn to Shine” featured Harper’s biggest hit, the poppy “Steal My Kisses”. The exceptional live album, “Live From Mars” followed in 2001 and featured one of the greatest covers ever recorded with Harper’s take on the Marvin Gaye classic “Sexual Healing”. The final album of what many consider to be “classic” Ben Harper came in the form of “Diamonds on the Inside” in 2003.

In 2004 Harper recorded the Grammy-winning Gospel album, “There Will Be a Light”, with the Blind Boys of Alabama. Not satisfied with a Grammy for a Gospel album, Harper teamed up with blues harmonica player Charlie Musslewhite for the 2013 release “Get Up!”, which earned Harper another Grammy. You may not recognize Musslewhite by name but you probably recognize the character he inspired – Dan Akroyd’s famous Elwood Blues from The Blues Brothers movie.

All told, Harper has released 12 studio albums and four live albums. If we are known by the company we keep then Harper must be one of modern rock’s greatest. He is highly respected among his peers and has recorded and played with John Lee Hooker, Robert Randolph, Stephen Marley (Bob’s son), Johnny Winter, Gov’t Mule, John Mayer, Natalie Maines, Rickie Lee Jones, Xavier Rudd, INXS, Tom Morello, Sheryl Crow, G. Love and Special Sauce, Yellowcard, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Taj Mahal, Marc Ford, Jack Johnson, Joseph Arthur and Dhani Harrison (George’s son).

If you’re unfamiliar with Ben Harper’s work I encourage you to take some time to listen to him. There truly is something for everyone in his body of work.

 

“Glory and Consequence” from “The Will to Live”:

“Burn One Down” from “Fight for Your Mind”:

“Walk Away” from “Welcome to the Cruel World”:

“Faded/Whole Lotta Love” from “Live From Mars”:

“Indifference” with Pearl Jam at Madison Square Garden in 2003:

 

This is a forum post from a site member. It does not represent the views of Eleven Warriors unless otherwise noted.

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