You had some good company playing with you on this record, as well. Ben Harper plays slide and sings on the track you just mentioned, “If I Had My Way.”
That was the great thing about Ben Harper. We’ve been friends for a long time, and we always wanted to work together. It just so happens that this time, we were working at a studio about a mile from his house in California. We finally had our guitars, and we were writing songs. T-Bone played that “If I Had My Way” jam and Ben Harper’s eyes lit up like a kid in a candy store. He said, “Man, I always wanted to do something with this song!” He ran into the vocal booth, and it just turned out to be this great event of a day. (laughter) It ended up turning into about 5 in the morning by the time we got out of there, and we started at about noon. We had done so much other stuff, and this and that, it just turned into a great feeling. Even today when I see Ben Harper, he says, “Man, I just love that song.” (laughs)
How about your version of John Lennon’s “I Don’t Wanna Be a Soldier Mama,” which features Doyle Bramhall II.
On “Soldier,” yeah—that’s such a great song. Doyle just happened to be in there that day when we were doing that song. We said, “Hey, why don’t just come on, and put some vocals around you, and have you do this, and play on it with us.” We cut it live with Jim Keltner [on drums], which is a great thing.
Then, when you talk about “Shot of Love”—that’s actually Keltner’s second time recording that song. He recorded the original version, and he didn’t even know it until we finished the song, and started to mix it. He said, “Man, that’s actually me playing the drums on that original.” (laughter) It was great for him to be a part of that. [Author’s Note: “Shot of Love” is the title track of Bob Dylan’s third Christian album, which was released in August 1981, and featured Keltner, among many others.]
Thinking back at our discussion about some of the American historical material makes me think of the European dates you played with the Family Band in August. How do the European audiences relate to the more American-based lyrical content? Do the songs bypass that issue by offering a universal appeal at this point?
Well, you know what? It’s universal now. Don’t forget—when I talk to guys like Clapton, they were listening to Chess Records music and all of that stuff years ago. That was the biggest thing to them. The way he actually explained it—actually, T-Bone explained it the same way. T-Bone said, “Listen, I remember when I was listening to Bo Diddley and, in those days, in the South, you couldn’t listen to that kind of music. Your parents didn’t want to catch you listening to that music.” So, it went to Europe first and guys like Clapton and the Stones got that music before those records were known here in the States. When we’re traveling abroad, the blues artists, the older music, and the American music, especially the older, more authentic stuff,—the [European audiences] really take pride in that stuff; that was their first library to a lot of that stuff.
Jimi Hendrix was an American whose career took off once he moved to England, and, now, it’s come full circle with your slot on the Experience Hendrix tour.
Oh, yeah, man. The Experience Hendrix is such a great tour for anybody that loves Hendrix or loves guitar. You get a chance to see (laughs) everybody jammin’ out for 20 minutes, 30 minutes at a time on all your favorite Hendrix songs. It just goes to show that Hendrix made all this music in such little time and left this legacy behind that, here we are, 40 years later, and we’re singing the same songs, and you still can’t compare it. The sounds of Hendrix and the way he played—he’s probably the most influential guy of all time in music. When you talk about his songwriting and the way that he played, it changed the guitar forever. It’s really mind-blowing. It’s great for us to be a part of that tour. All the guitar players get together and we get to appreciate his legacy. Every night, we all go out there, and we play, and then we go back and sit on the bus and listen to old Hendrix stuff: “Man, that’s nuts how he got these sounds, and how he played this stuff.”
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