It is the voice that turns your head in her direction. Whether it is Jeff Beck, Joe Bonamassa or Slash playing guitar behind her, your attention immediately changes direction and in seconds flat you are enraptured by what is emanating from this woman’s throat. Whether she is belting out the heartbreaking “Sister Heroine” about her dying sister or channeling a raunchy Ray Charles on “Sinner’s Prayer,” Beth Hart has got it.
Calling in on a late Monday evening before heading over to Europe for a short tour to promote her new album Bang Bang Boom Boom, which was released stateside last week on April 2, Hart was excited to be sharing her new music with her fans. Following a heart-stopping rendition of Etta James’ “I’d Rather Go Blind” at the Kennedy Center Honors Program in December, Hart generated a comeback to her own music that culminates with the release of her new CD, as there is nothing like her words in her voice.
Hearing her sing “Sister Heroine,” from her 2010 My California album, with the lines “So forgive me for my weakness/I guess my faith is a little stoned/Angels cried on a Friday/The day that God walked you home,” pulls at the heart and then breaks it apart when she cries, “I love you, I love you, I love you.” You don’t even have to know the backstory of her terminally ill sister to feel the pain in that song. You feel it because it is so real. And this is what Beth Hart gives you.
On Bang Bang Boom Boom, Hart has the same level of consciousness but adds more playfulness and sass, letting her happiness take center court. Heading out at the end of April for a short American tour, of which many dates are already sold out, Hart has a lot on her plate.
Beth, where did you grow up and how did you discover music?
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, LA County, in Altadena/Pasadena. My mom was from Ft Worth, Texas, originally, and my father is like thirteenth generation Californian, so his family goes back far here. Around the age of four, I remember playing under the den table and this was a big day for me musically because I remember hearing the song “Moonlight Sonata” by Beethoven and it was being played on a piano commercial – they were trying to sell pianos and trying to get you to come down to their store. So I heard that song going all day long, over and over and over, and then that night in the middle of the night, I got on our piano at home and started playing a little bit of that song. And my mother and father came out and they were crying and they were just so proud and gave me all this attention. I was like, “Oh, this is good, I like this.”
But seriously, what that song meant for me at that time, and it seems like it was yesterday when it happened, but I remember my family, we were such a close family, we loved each other so much, we still do but there was the beginnings of a divorce going on between my mom and dad and there was so much pain involved in that for my father, for my mother, and of course for all the kids. And when I heard that song, and still to this day it still gives me chills, it’s like he had so much despair and disappointment but the music made him feel like he had his family or his beloved with him. And that’s to me what it felt like when I was playing the piano. It felt like my family and all the love and dreams that you could ever have in the world is just right here when the playing begins. So I really just fell in love with it and I think even then I knew that was something that I had to chase down for as long as I could breathe was to do music.
What sparked you to start writing songs?
I actually started writing right away. I did my first recital when I was four and one of the songs was one my piano teacher, who my parents got right away, taught me and one was mine. There were no vocals or lyrics or anything. It was just music. And I kept doing that all through my childhood. Then I started taking cello in the fourth grade and that would be my next second greatest love was the cello and I played all the time. Then I asked my mom for guitar lessons when I got to be around thirteen, twelve, something like that, and she got me guitar lessons. I’ve had unbelievable support from my mom and from my dad for my music, thank God.
But with the singing, I really wanted to do opera so I got an opera coach and I was doing that and studying that when I was like twelve and thirteen, around the same time as the guitar. But the opera coach, Rhonda Dillon was her name and she was a wonderful singer. I’d go watch her down at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion doing classical music and opera and she was incredible. But one day she said, “You know, Beth, I love you so much and I believe in you but I don’t think classical music is for you.” And it was very heartbreaking to hear that because classical music, from the cello to the piano to the vocals, that was my greatest passion, that music. And she said, “You tend to want to do your own thing too much.” So that’s when I said, Ok, I’m just going to go back to the writing more and see where that will take me.
I didn’t know how to write lyrics, you know. I love to sing but I didn’t know how to write just the lyrics. So one day I stumbled across my sister Susan’s poems. They were downstairs in the garage and I started putting music to her words and she was so proud and she just loved it. She was in my corner right from the get-go. But one year it was her birthday, and I had already started performing now in Hollywood by that time. I was around fifteen/sixteen and doing shows down in Hollywood, trying to get my thing going, you know, and it’s her birthday and I’m at her birthday party and a couple hours into the birthday, I was like, “Susan, I got to go, I got a show,” and she was like, “No,” – she was a little drunk – and she was like, “No, you will not leave. This is my birthday, this is about me tonight. You will stay.” And I said, “Susan, I have to go. It’s booked, I’ve got to go.” And she said, “Well, if you leave, I’m taking back all my lyrics.” And that was the turning point for me to become a lyricist. I remember thinking at that moment, I never again will be put into a position where someone will take away a word from my music.
I think part of the reason why I didn’t start writing lyrics also was that my mother always made such an importance about a lyric. She listened to a lot of like Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald, Dinah Washington, and all this music, early Americana music of that time that was all about the lyrics, phenomenal lyrics and done beautifully. And often you’d have a different group of lyricists who’d work with musicians to do the music. So it was like a full-time job just being a lyricist and the bar was so high. So I think that’s why I stayed away from even attempting to go down that road. But once that threat happened it was like the nicest thing my sister could have done, because it forced me to challenge myself into learning how to get my feelings across, not just in the music but in words, in a story. And that was the beginning of that.
You seem to write your songs from your soul and that can be good or bad. Because your lyrics are so blatantly honest and naked, how do you go out and perform those words in front of thousands of people?
I guess the only thing I can say is that it’s easier for me to try and just divulge really how I feel about something than trying to articulate it in a way that maybe I think would save my ass if someone was to take my honesty and turn it on me, you know. And growing up, I’ve always been kind of a wild kid and dealt with a lot of like mental imbalances so I’ve never been appropriate anyway; like, not trying to be an asshole but just having difficulty with socialization. So I think that with music it’s also that inability to really know how to just say maybe the right thing that maybe could be entertaining but is still careful. And I don’t know how to do that. So I think that it’s worked to my advantage in the long run. It’s just the way I am to be kind of really open about my perceptions on things, knowing that I very well may make some people upset or have people go, “You shouldn’t be saying that. You should keep that to yourself. That’s private.” Blah-blah-blah. And I’ve always kind of taken shit for that anyway, so musically it’s not going to change. So I think that’s kind of why I’m like that maybe.
Sister Heroine” is such a powerful song. Did you write that one in a burst or was it one you had to sit down and kind of think out?
I lost my sister Sharon many years ago, she had AIDS and she got it when she was twenty-three and I was thirteen and she passed by the time she was thirty-three. I remember the first time I wrote for her was a song called “God Bless You” that was on an album I did called Immortal. The second one I’d written for her was a song called “Skin” and that was on Screamin’ For My Supper. When it came time to do the My California album several albums later, I had just gotten out of what is hopefully going to be my last hospital that I had to go in and get my head rearranged, but it was a really bad time before I went in. When I got out I was so thankful to have my wits about me and then to be able to work, when I started writing the album My California I was still very raw, which was from kind of losing touch with reality and then coming back into reality and being so grateful to be back in it. So some of the things that were coming up in my mind, instead of feeling sad that I’d lost my sister, the song was meant to be about the heroism of her and when she was alive and how hard she fought to stay alive and deal with her own demons, as well as the heroes of my family, being able to love someone who is so sick and has got a lot of addictions going on and all that stuff that is pulling them down and how you rally around them without making them worse and trying to love them unconditionally. So those are some of the things I was thinking about.
I happened to write that song with a great songwriter named Rune Westberg, who I wrote a lot of that record with. And he also had his stuff to deal with in his life, like we all have, and he was so willing to be open and for us to kind of really take that song to hopefully a place that showed our compassion and our love for my family and for Sharon. And I’m really proud of it. I think that we did a good job in delivering that message. But, you know, it only took about a day and it was done. But it seems like the songs that really hit home and get to that true state seem to write themselves fast. I think it’s cause the angels happen to walk through the room and say, “Hey, we want to whisper a little song in your ear. This is what you should do today.” And then it comes quick.
Your new CD is still confessional but I hear some playfulness on some of the songs and they almost have a burlesque feel.
Yes, you’re nailing it (laughs). After My California, which is a pretty heavy lyrical record, I really felt spent. I felt like we gave it all, we did it, now where the hell am I going to go? I don’t have anything left to say. And I was thinking about just kind of quitting for a little while cause I don’t want to write just to make a record so I can go out and tour it. I love to tour and I love making records but it’s not worth just trying to write to just do that. If I’m going to write it’s got to be something that I feel very strongly about doing or have a commitment to doing cause I need to get it out. And I didn’t feel like I had anything left like that. So I was saying to my manager, “Hey man, no records for a while.”
And then Joe Bonamassa came into my life. Joe Bonamassa is a fantastic guitarist and he asked me if I’d make a soul cover record with him and it was so much fun. He said, “Just think of all your favorite songs that to you are soulful and I’ll think of mine and we’ll come together and we’ll work it out.” I thought about Janis Joplin and Otis Redding and Etta James and Ray Charles and Billie Holiday, the people that I considered so soulful and amazing and gave me love growing up listening to that stuff. So I wrote out a bunch of songs and he wrote out a bunch of songs and we got together and we made the record and I noticed something shifted inside of me during the making of the record. I was so happy, so happy to be singing these amazing songs. And suddenly I thought, this is going to affect the way I write. I think I’m going to try and delve into this stuff. I don’t know what I’m doing, I don’t know these kinds of changes, but why not give it a shot. I’ve got nothing to lose. I only have something to gain. And if I suck at doing it at least I know I’ve tried cause I feel real passionate about going down this road.
So I got to work and I started thinking about like Joe Turner and some of these records I listened to a lot as a teenager, never ever intending to write anything like that. I just love to listen to it. I listened to a lot of Amy Winehouse, I listened to a lot of artists that to me represented that great time of Jazz and blues and early Americana classic songwriting and soul songs. And then it was like the next thing I knew, I was going, Hey, these stories, some of them are really fun and playful and are about God and about cheekiness and love. I’ve never written like this and I’m going to go with it.
And also some of the great co-writers I got to work with on this, like James House who is a major part of “Caught Out In The Rain.” That song would not have happened without him. Didn’t you love that song? Well, that is James House. I did a little bit of writing on that but man that song is all about him and he is a wonderful singer and a musician. He has been around forever. But what a fantastic singer. We had such a great time writing that song.
The mood really captures you
Yeah, that’s Kevin Shirley, the producer. He is a great, great producer. He knows how to make you feel lit up, like you’re on a stage and getting ready to play live. He just gives you that feeling and it helps you cause you know live you can’t bullshit anybody. If you’re right there in everybody’s face, what goes down goes down and everybody sees if it’s real or if it’s not real. And that’s one of the greatest things about working with Kevin Shirley as a producer: he knows how to capture that. He is amazing at his arrangements and getting great sounds but he makes you do everything live to the mic. So if it’s a song I’ve got to play piano on, I’m sitting down playing and singing. And all the band is going at the same time: drums, bass, guitars, organ, everything. And it all goes down simultaneously. We get to take it through three or four or five times and then we move on to the next song. And I think because of that urgency, it’s like a live show. You don’t get a chance to overthink yourself or even doubt yourself, even if you do have doubts, it’s going down now, motherfricker, so you better fricking do it (laughs). Like it’s a live show and I love that so much.
You know, we made that record very fast. We made that record in six days and then after we did that, he did the mixing and he put some horns and some strings on it. All the basic tracks were all done in six days and it was just so great. It was so much fun.
“Better Man” is a great song and I don’t know who is playing guitar on it but he does a wonderful job.
Yeah, it is awesome. Randy Flowers did all the guitar playing on that record and he is a great guitarist. I’d never met him before that session but the guy I wrote it with is Monty Byrom. He has been around a long time and another great singer, great guitar player, and we had a ball. We got that song done in one day and it was a lot of fun. It makes you want to get up and shake your little shimmy, doesn’t it.
So what are your plans for this year?
I’m going to Crossroads with Jeff Beck over in New York on the 13th of April. I’ve just done a song with Vintage Trouble. I just love those guys, so fantastic, and we’re going to do a little video I think out in Vegas. Then we’ll be releasing my record in the States and we’ll be going on tour for that. And that is really special for me because I haven’t, other than spot dates here and there, I haven’t done a real tour of the United States on my own for like ten years. This is my country, this is where I come from, all my favorite artists that I grew up on in terms of all the soul stuff and Jazz stuff and blues stuff, all come from here. So to be able to come out and tour here again is I know going to be challenging but it’s going to be so amazing and I’m so thankful to God.
And you recorded something new with Joe Bonamassa as well, correct?
I just finished a record with him. We did another record together. We just did our Don’t Explain II. It’s all covers, just like Don’t Explain, and this time we’re doing some stuff from Nina Simone, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin, and that kind of stuff again, but now we’re doing like a Tina Turner song, which is really great. It was really a blast. Good stuff.
