Building a Bigger Box: The Irreverent Wisdom of James Hunter

Estimated read time 9 min read

image
In the past decade or so, old school R&B has seen a resurgence in popular culture that seems to have started in the U.K. but has bounced over the pond to America in that timeless game of musical ping pong the two countries play. But James Hunter has been playing R&B for 30 plus years and by his own admission even he was 20 years late to the game, by no fault of his own of course. Hunter, however, is pushing the boundaries of R&B by upending the genre’s normal tropes and motifs while still somehow operating within them. Recently, Listen Up Denver! caught up with James at his home in the U.K. to talk about his new album, working with heavy hitters like Allen Toussaint and Van Morrison, his unique approach to R&B in the 21st century, and a hilarious story about the time he played Red Rocks with Buddy Guy.

James Hunter is a gregarious guy with a cheerful cockney accent. While he now lives in the seaside town of Brighton he was born in Colchester in Essex in 1962, when old school R&B was in its heyday. The music seems to have gotten into his blood and Hunter is acutely aware that he is standing on the shoulders of giants, but with a healthy irreverence. “I was always 20 years behind the other fellows who were copying it (laughs),” Hunter said. The Grammy nominated artist began his musical career when he moved to London in the early eighties and busked on the streets to supplement his pay working on the U.K. railways.

Here in The States the railroad holds a certain mythical mystique and had a heavy influence on the blues and country music, in it’s chugging rhythms and forlorn whistles blowing, especially during The Depression when the railways represented freedom for so many young men. We wondered if it was the same in the U.K. and how working on the railways influenced Hunter’s music. James answered with his usual good-natured humor and wit. “You think that would’ve influenced me wouldn’t you? (laughs). Before my time a lot of blues appealed to stockbrokers. It seems to be the right occupation for somebody in my line of work but I don’t think it ever directly influenced my music. I might have chosen the job for that reason though.” Hunter did have one experience working for the railroad that is pretty blues. “We were pushing one of those trolleys with a lot of the scrap on it that we were moving from one dump to another. I sat at the front of the trolley as we wheeled it downhill and I always gave it some harmonica accompaniment to the amusement of my colleagues. It was a bit of Woody Guthrie stuff, yeah? (laughs).” While working on the railroad may not have directly influenced his music, many of the songs from Hunter’s new album—and his whole discography for that matter—were pulled from blue-collar scenes like the one James described. But as any great musician does, Hunter flips the script on what a traditional R&B song should be.

Hold On! Is The James Hunter Six’s latest studio effort and it really cooks. Musically, Hold On! is pure R&B but as far as subject matter goes, James put his own spin on it. For instance, on the song “Free Your Mind (While You Still Got Time),” Hunter defends “deathbed atheists from preachers looking for an easy conversion.” Hunter explained how he came up with the concept for the song. “It’s my reaction to people I describe as ‘spiritual ambulance chasers’ (laughs). It’s something I’ve always resented, religious intrusion into people’s lives. That sanctimonious bullying I’ve felt on a couple of occasions.” Hunter’s perspective sets him apart from many other R&B and soul artists.

“So many original soul artists are heavily church influenced and you normally would never get a song like that in the old days. So hopefully that marks me out from being someone who is trying to copy the genre or be generic. I thought I would write a song that no one would have ever written in those days. I’m not an atheist; I believe in God it’s just that I don’t like him. He’s kind of an old git (laughs). If it were 1966 people would be chasing me all over the place like Lennon but because it’s a more enlightened time and nobody’s heard of me I can get away with it (laughs). I’m not thinking outside the box; I’m just trying to make a slightly bigger box.” James is being humble when he says no one has heard of him—as two Billboard blues #1’s and a Grammy nomination for his 2006 chart topping album People Gonna Talk will attest to—because Daptone Records and Grammy winning producer Gabe Roth (Booker T. Jones, Sharon Jones, Amy Winehouse) sought him out to produce Hold On!

James talked a bit about what it was like to work with Roth, whom he also worked with on his last album Minute By Minute. “The first time we went in the studio and heard what came out of the speakers after we recorded we knew there and then that no other producer was gonna be any good for us after him. It was the best sound we ever had and still is,” Hunter said. It was Roth’s simplistic approach and attention to detail that garnered the results that Hunter was after. “He really is a producer. He has a lot of input or maybe not a lot but sometimes crucial input into the arrangements. He takes painstaking efforts to ensure the sound quality. He takes a lot of time with mic placement and it really pays off. With other producers I might say ‘oh, the saxes aren’t high enough’ and you turn them up a fraction and they’re too loud. But with Gabe, because he knows how to mic it, everything in the mix seems to be up front. There’s nothing overriding each other. Turns out the secret is getting the frequencies out of each other’s way. So if two instruments are playing the same frequency, he’ll get one to move up or down a bit. He gets things out of each other’s way. I didn’t realize it was as simple as that but it clears the field for everything to be heard clearly.”

If you give Hold On! a listen you can hear what Hunter is talking about. The space between the different musical elements is distinct. It’s almost as if you can dance between the spaces with Hunter’s smooth soulful croon or gravely howl—depending on the song—floating or bouncing over everything. The analog format is the icing on the cake, tying everything together and giving the album that vintage sound. So yeah, James is being humble when he says no one has heard of him but that’s just the kind of guy he is. Here are few people who have certainly heard of him: Van Morrison; the late, great Allen Toussaint; and Buddy Guy.

Van Morrison is an artist who has always valued his privacy. So it’s saying something if he shows up to one of your gigs, as he did with James Hunter. “We came up to some gig in South Wales,” Hunter remembers. “The gig was run by a mutual friend, somebody who’d booked us before and somebody who was a friend of Morrison’s. He invited Morrison along. We had a cuppa tea and a chinwag and got on pretty good. Then, this friend who was promoter reached out and said I think Van wants to do some work with you and I said, ‘great!’ After that a year went by and we never heard from him, so I phoned our friend and said ‘Tell Van to get his finger out,’ (laughs), and within a couple of days he got back to me and we ended up doing some tours with him.” Hunter has worked toured with other high profile acts such as Aretha Franklin, Etta James, and Willie Nelson, but out of all those people he was most star struck by a man who has probably written songs that the aforementioned artists have performed: The incomparable Allen Toussaint. It was Toussaint who Hunter really wanted to talk about.

“The funny thing with Allen was that he was the only one I’ve been completely in awe of and yet completely comfortable with,” Hunter remembered. “It’s a lot to do with his demeanor. He was very dignified, very elegant, and a very approachable sort of chap even though he doesn’t talk much. He can be eloquent with the minimum number of words, or notes. We miss him terribly.” Indeed we do. To close out our conversation, we asked James about his favorite Colorado experience, to which he replied, “Where’s that Red Rocks, is that in Colorado?” We both had a good laugh before James recalled the time he played at the famed venue with Buddy Guy.

“We did Red Rocks with Buddy Guy and it was a lovely gig, but our manager noticed the difference between the way Buddy related to the audience and the way we did. Buddy was all niceties and I said something like ‘it’s lovely to be here, except for those enormous rocks. I think somebody should knock em’ down.’ It went over better than it deserved (laughs),” Hunter said. And that story perfectly describes James Hunter. He’s a good-natured cat with a great sense of humor and sharp wit, but also a healthy irreverence that forces people to think in different ways, which is always good. As James might say, don’t think outside the box, just build a bigger box.

Whether you’re an old school R&B fan or just a lover of music in general, you definitely want to boogie down to The Soiled Dove on Wednesday night to catch The James Hunter Six. You’ll be glad you did. See below for more information.

 

THE JAMES HUNTER SIX

Wednesday, May 18
The Soiled Dove
Tickets: $20 Adv. $25 DoS
Purchase Here

Nate Todd

Nate Todd was born on the central plains of Nebraska, but grew up on the high plains of the Texas panhandle. With not much to do in either place, music was his constant companion. His parents dubbed the first two albums he ever owned onto a tape for him. Side A was Bert and Ernie’s Sing Along. Side B was Sgt. Peppers. His lifelong love affair with music started early as he practically grew up in a Rock & Roll band, with his father and uncle often taking him out on the road or into the studio with them. Nate began performing live at sixteen and hasn’t looked back, having played in numerous bands from L.A. to Austin. At the age of twenty he was bitten by the writing bug, and upon moving to Denver decided to pursue a degree from Metropolitan State University where he recently graduated with a B.A. in English and a minor in Cinema Studies.

More From Author

+ There are no comments

Add yours