The Wiz: Festival special #3 - Ben Harper (H.o.r.d.e Festival 1998)
Song of the week, overseas concerts 🌎 and festivals 🎪 special, part three.
This time: Ben Harper - "Burn One Down", HORDE Festival, New Jersey, 1998. The album version:
To mark the overseas concert and festival season that will not be happening this year, I decided to spend the next few weeks revisiting songs I was lucky enough to hear live 🎙️.
Across his long career, Ben Harper has combined folk, blues, gospel, rock, funk, reggae and more. A breathtaking slide guitarist 🎸, often playing with the instrument across his lap, he delivers a relatively quiet bomb here. From his second album, "Fight for Your Mind" (1995), it uses acoustic guitar and djembe to create one of the great songs about the herb ☘️.
The festival 🎪
If Muhammad will not go to the mountain, the mountain, or festival, comes to Muhammad. Last week I wrote about the pleasure of preparing for a festival. This time, there was no preparation. It arrived as a complete surprise 😱.
My father and I had just arrived in New York on vacation ✈️. Outside our hotel, a wall was covered in Ben Harper posters. I can still picture the khaki and black design. Before the luggage was even out of the taxi 🚕, I had run across the street. A few days later, I heard "Burn One Down" at what became my first overseas music festival, HORDE 1998 🤘!
I could not find footage of that show, but here is a performance from the same year. The title track of "Fight for Your Mind" reveals another side of Harper, surrounded by a fabulous band. Watch bass master Juan Nelson:
A little more about Harper 🎙️
At the time of writing, his achievements include 14 albums, seven Grammy nominations and three wins 🏅.
His many collaborations 🤝 range from contemporaries Eddie Vedder and Jack Johnson
to blues 🎷 and soul greats Mavis Staples and Charlie Musselwhite. His recent album with Musselwhite includes this track, which won Song of the Year at the previous year's Blues Music Awards:
Harper has also made use of the pandemic months 😷. Here is his latest single, released about a month ago and very much in the spirit of the times:
A few extra details 🌶️
His father was African American with Native American ancestry. His mother is Jewish 🔯, making him one of ours 😉.
His maternal family runs a folk-music shop and museum 🎶 specializing in instruments from around the world, including building and repairing them. Harper worked there when he was young, and his children have spent summers there too, continuing a family tradition across generations.
Here is a lovely short documentary, including the shop, released around the album he made with his mother Ellen, herself a folk singer, guitarist and music teacher 👩🏫:
Harper is an enthusiastic skateboarder 🏂 and even has his own skateboard line. A few examples:
At the time of writing, he is married for the third time. His second wife was actress Laura Dern. They share two children 👦👧, among Harper's five.
As his family's museum promotes musical education, Harper also supports Little Kids Rock, an organization bringing music teaching 🥁🎼 to schools in disadvantaged communities.
Enjoy!
O.Miz🎧
In the image 🖼️: center, the HORDE Festival 1998 poster; below, my photograph of Harper performing.
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