Ben Harper Teams With Charlie Musselwhite For Another Courageous Round With ‘No Mercy In This Land’ (INTERVIEW)

The highly anticipated follow-up to Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite’s 2013 collaboration, Get Up!, will finally hit shelves on March 30^th and it is every bit as emotional, dramatic, fun and entertaining as their first time out. Maybe even more so because with No Mercy In This Land the duo has gone deeper into the soul of life. “I was born to play with Charlie,” Harper said recently and it shows up in every aspect of the duo’s second album together.

When Harper speaks about working with the 74 year old harmonica legend, his voice softly vibrates with a disciple’s admiration. So writing another batch of songs with Musselwhite in mind was something that began once the last album was finished, knowing that sooner or later they would reconvene once again to make more music together. “Charlie Musselwhite is that very rare and hallowed place where blues past, present and future collide,” exclaimed Harper. “He transforms notes into emotions that feel both hauntingly familiar and brand new, as if hearing them for the first time every time.” For Musselwhite, blues is a feeling and gives equal praise to Harper for continuing the music in it’s rightful sound: “I think it’s safe to say that Ben has reinvented the blues in a great way, playing modern while preserving the feel.”

And feeling is all over No Mercy In This Land. From Harper’s strongly visual lyrics to Musselwhite’s emotive singing harp, songs like the title track, “When Love Is Not Enough,” “Nothing At All” and “When I Go” harken back to blues at it’s purest base, when it was nothing but a voice, a guitar or harmonica, and the truth. A bit livelier than true bluesman Son House but with the same bare bones honesty.

These days I speak in whispers, Travel only to and from; Come close you’ll see the red, Of a well bitten tongue – “No Mercy In This Land”

Harper, who released his first album, Welcome To The Cruel World, in 1994 and has taken home three Grammys so far in his career, is not one to write music that doesn’t mean something. When talking with Glide a few days ago about the truth in his songwriting, he revealed there are songs he has written that won’t see the light of day because of how personal they are yet he seeks out that truth in what he has to say. And Musselwhite seems to be his most inspiring progenerator.

Everybody says I love you but not everybody lives I love you – “When Love Is Not Enough”

Musselwhite began his career in Memphis and Chicago and has played with everyone from Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker to Tom Waits, Bonnie Raitt, Gregg Allman and Jimmie Vaughan. But collaborating with Harper may be one of his finest hours. With seven decades behind him, his passion for the blues fires out of him like liquid gold.

Harper spoke with Glide about making music with Musselwhite, what he plans to do next – following a world tour with Musselwhite – and the truth in the blues.

I get older but my troubles don’t change, Work so hard with nothing to show, And it’s much too late to change my name, I’m a take you with me when I go – “When I Go”

You’ve done a lot of collaborations in your career so far, so what makes working with Charlie so special for you?

Let me name three things that makes working with Charlie so special: One, I grew up with his records as a kid; two, blues is the most important and sacred genre of music to me; and three, Charlie is one of the pioneers of the sound. To get to join up with him and do this again for another record, I stutter in my appreciation for having the opportunity. Oh my God, there is nothing in the world like it. It’s coming from the source, it IS the source.

When did you finally get to meet him?

I met Charlie for the first time, and I didn’t know I was going to meet him, because John Lee Hooker invited me to open some shows in 1993. Now remember, I was a nobody. I’m still a nobody! But I was even more of a nobody! (laughs). So I walk in the dressing room, opening these shows at this club called the Sweetwater in Mill Valley, just north of San Francisco. I walk into the dressing room and there was Charlie and John Lee. Unbeknownst to me, Charlie was sitting in with John Lee Hooker on these shows and the two of them in the same room was about as much as I could take. And we forged a friendship starting there.

For the songs on this record, had they already started to come together before you decided to do another record with Charlie or more so after?

Charlie and I are friends first and that’s important to know, and in my mind, there was no question nor rational reason why we shouldn’t do it again. Charlie unlocked something in me in the name of songwriting that no one else would be able to do. Charlie recalibrated my perspective and completely re-enlivened my songwriting in a way that I felt like I was writing FOR Charlie. I felt like, how can I put this, the trust that Charlie has showed in me, if I didn’t honor that by writing another record for us, I would have been doing myself a huge disservice. When someone like Charlie trusts me to put pen to paper in this lifetime, you better get writing.

Especially on the title track, “No Mercy In This Land,” it’s so personal with Charlie and that makes it equally emotional for you, I assume.

You know, I am so glad you brought that up. That song pushes it right to the edge of should I or shouldn’t I be putting this out in public or not. I’ve written songs I wouldn’t dare publish they’re so personal. The fact that he was brave enough and embraced that line enough, because it was written for him. I’ve gotten to know him as, dare I say, as a peer but also as a friend and as a comrade, and how can you not be influenced by the lives and times of your comrades and your friends. I only surround myself with people who inspire and influence me positively. So when I brought that to him and he recognized it was written for him, he didn’t shy away from it at all. Matter of fact, he just went straight to it and embraced it. And that was really brave of him to do because it talks about some really hard stuff.

“When Love Is Not Enough” is also a pretty powerful song

I don’t know if I’m going to be playing that song much. That one is a bit too much. I can’t sing that every night and stay sane. But that was actually the first song for the record.

The lyrics on this record are very strong and it’s blues at it’s purest form.

Thank you for hearing that and yes, absolutely yes. First of all, you can’t fool the blues; second of all, if it passes the Charlie test, then I got it right. Working with Charlie is as special to me as it gets. These songs were constructed around Charlie. They were written for and around him and his harp.

How was it working with him in the studio?

He’s a dream, a dream to work with in the studio.

Did he give you any pointers?

He gives pointers and he takes pointers with equal confidence.

In a world like today, how important is it to have music that means something and speaks to people truthfully?

You know, everyone feels like they’re being truthful and everyone feels like their music is important, so mine, no more so than anyone else’s. Everybody has a right to stake their claim in their own time and time is the only judge of what matters and what doesn’t. Matter of fact, it’s the BEST gauge of what’s truthful and what isn’t.

You said you had songs you wouldn’t do for the public. How do you know when you’re ready to give it to us?

I gauge when a song is ready to go by how it haunts ME. When I’m working on a song or I write a song and complete a song and it just haunts me and I keep singing it and I end up singing it around, when I’m doing dishes or something, I’m like, okay, okay, you’re knocking on the door. That’s the test. And also, it’s kind of my job, to know what hits the mark and what doesn’t as a songwriter. You know because it slows your heart in a certain way or it has a way of getting your heart rate up a little bit.

To stumble onto something unique or saying something that hasn’t been said or saying something that’s been said but saying it in a different way, all of a sudden you have like this biological response. It’s something in the blood when you feel that you’ve hit it. And it’s frustrating because sometimes you may overlook some songs too because not all songs you recognize as being good until after you’ve kind of grown into them or spent some time with them; or even crafted them in the studio. Songwriters can be their own worst enemy in not recognizing their own best work but that’s also why I surround myself with incredible musicians – because I can be fearless in bringing to them ideas and songs and gauge their response. Trusting the people around you is just as important a part of songwriting as songwriting itself.

There is a lot of gospel in the soul of your songs

Gospel and blues are the exact same to me but just sung under different roofs, with a slightly different subject matter. I’ve never shied away from blurring those lines, gospel on one hand, blues on the other. They definitely feed each other.

When do you feel the most enlightened by music?

The most enlightened I feel in music is when I hear Alison Krauss sing or Charlie Musselwhite play the harmonica.

Do you feel any of your albums have been misunderstood somehow?

You know what, I’ve been fortunate enough not to have one of those. I had records that had better and worse reviews. But it’s funny, you have a record that gets great reviews but the fans don’t like it; you get a record that the fans love but the critics don’t like (laughs). So there’s kind of a dance to that. But I don’t feel like I’ve entirely missed the mark as far as being understood yet.

As a musician and a songwriter, are you already seeing your next musical directions?

I love that you asked that because I usually always AM, I’m usually one step ahead on every record I’ve ever made. By the time I’m done with the mastering, I’m already working on my next record. But this, okay, Welcome To The Cruel World was my first record. I had a record out before that, a real small acoustic thing and that was 1992. My first major release, professional release, was 1994; basically twenty-five years ago. And for twenty-five years I have known what I was doing next. This is the first time I DON’T. Let me tell you now, I can’t do any better than this record with Charlie. It figures this would be kind of the top of the mountain for me because I have no idea what would come next. I mean, NONE. And it’s so strange to me. It’s almost terrifying but I’m just going to sit with it.

But you two will be touring for a good while this year

You know, the perfect situation would be Charlie and I touring all the way through 2019 and into 2020. Can you believe 2020?

You’re a lucky man

So lucky. He’s, I think, seventy-four and he’s proof you can get better for a lifetime. He is better and better. He was already the best.

Photo by Dan Monick; live photos by Leslie Michele Derrough and Amy Harris