Benjamin Chase Harper was born on October 28, 1969 in Pomona. He grew up in Claremont, Inland Empire, California, a town located 30 miles east of Los Angeles.

Ben Harper : "My dad's side of the family is from South Central. I grew up East of Los Angeles, between Claremont and Pomona in the Inland Empire region."

"My paternal grandmother was half Indian Cherokee - half Black. Since my family scattered and nobody talks about it, I know nothing about the tribes from wich I descended, it's really a pity."
Photo © Nicolas Hidiroglou

"My grandmother didn't speak, she never said anything! She had three brothers but two of them are dead and the other one is very old. It's difficult to retrace her history. And my father maintained a very distant relationship with her. I asked a few people to do research on her but the tracks are so blurred that it isn't possible. My parents divorced early (I was five years old)... All that goes back so far, in the end I don't know my dad's side of the family very well."

"My maternal great-grandmother was Jewish, Russian, she comes from Lithuania. Her name was Bessie Udin. I don't know any more about her, my family didn't keep track either. I felt very close to her. I dedicated the album Welcome To The Cruel World to her; she holds such a place in my heart that it seemed necessary for me to do it."

Ben Harper : "I also have voodoo roots. My paternal grandmother lived in Prospects, those damned Watts ghetto projects. She had fallen into the Black Arts. One day, a neighbor knocked off his wife who was one of her friends. He had proceeded so skillfully that nobody could prove anything against him. The guy came out from the police station at six o'clock, free as a bird. My grandmother immediately gave him a mortal voodoo mojo. Bam! The next day the neighbors found the murderer dead in his bed, entirely blue, disfigured by the terror.
My grandmother would often look after us in the afternoon, my brother and I. We were kids, we played "hide and go seek" in the apartment. One afternoon I went to hide in her bedroom closet, where it was pitch-dark. It's there that I heard the Voices, my Voices. Since that time, I knew that I should play slide-guitar. For nothing if it was necessary."

"I was privileged. I grew up in a family of musicians, an ideal living environment for a kid like me. I got my first guitar when I was about seven. It seems I played on my mother's (Ellen) guitar when I was three years old. She showed me a few chords. My mom is an incredible singer and acoustic guitar player. My father (Leonard), a luthier, played percussion. My grandmother sang, played guitar and lap-dulcimer. My mother's sister and my brothers also play music..."

Photo © claremontmckenna.edu | Ben Harper and his mother Ellen at the Bridges Auditorium of Claremont - April 6, 2001.

"I've been going to see Taj Mahal since the time I was six years old. We used to go when there'd be all-ages shows at the Santa Barbara Bowl and stuff like that. It's clear that it influenced my relation with music because I had a very natural approach to it."

His maternal grandparents — Dorothy and Charles Chase — transmitted to him their passion for wooden instruments. They are the owners of the Folk Music Center, a musical instruments shop, founded in 1958 and an American national museum since 1982. It is intimately tied to Ben Harper's destiny.

Ben Harper : "I lived five minutes away, I was there all the time. It was my second house. They had all sorts of stringed instruments. Every day, I was near instruments, I had an almost carnal relationship with them, as if they had become my friends."

Photo © Guitar Player - December 1999 | Ben Harper with his Asher guitar in the back of Folk Music Center.

Patrick Brayer : "He worked in the back room of his grandparents folk music store repairing zithers, and would in my memory emerge occasionally with his hair full of sawdust. He would repair my swap meet instruments and refuse my money every time, sometimes even pulling a guitar off the wall (don't tell his grandparents!) and giving it to me just because I was admiring the psychedelic pick guard."

Charles Chase : "He worked here five years. He became an expert guitar repair person. He got so good at it that professionals brought in their instruments for repair. When he finished repairing them, he had to try them out to be sure they were playing well. Pretty soon the trying out time got longer and the repairing time shorter. Then one day he was off and gone." Excerpt from original article by Raechel Fittante | read more

Photo © unknown | Charles Chase and Ben Harper at the Folk Music Center

Ben Harper : "In the back store of the Folk Center, there were all the tools to build guitars but I made very few - three - the only really successful one is on display in the shop, the other two are too experimental. I worked mainly in instrument restoration. There's a luthier in Glendale who worked for Gibson in the 40's named Jack Willock, with whom I apprenticed for guitar repair and restoration for five years. Jack Willock is a magic man - he knew Lloyd Loar and worked in the factory before going off to war, and what he taught me about life and guitar repair is more important than I could ever say."

"I do still get inside of some instruments from time to time, and anytime I have off, I work in my parents' shop and help run the store. I work on setting up the instruments on the wall, making sure that when customers come in the action is set well and playable, and things like that. I liked that. I miss guitar repair and construction. But it's been too long since I did that kind of work..."

JP Plunier (manager/producer) met Ben Harper and his family by frequenting the Folk Music Center. He evokes the place : "It's a shop of traditional world instruments, it's fantastic, it's a little treasure house. I liked music and I always had instruments from all the countries where I had gone, notably a Breton bagpipe that I gave to them as a gift; the shop is also a museum (...) they needed one bagpipe, I gave mine to represent Bésévatch!"

Photo © Eric Mulet - Les Inrockuptibles n°58, Summer 1994 | Ben Harper and JP Plunier.

Ben Harper : "He's a slide guitarist who plays all kinds of instruments; fiddle, banjo, mandolin... anything with strings. He played Weissenborn before everybody else." Photo © Latvin

"My parents he and his wife were friends before I was born - it goes back that far. Growing up, I was privileged - his daughter (Rosanne) and I are friends, and we grew up together very, very close, like a brother and sister, really. We used to travel around with him, go to shows and see him play and stuff like that. At a very young age I would focus on his playing intensely, unconsciously and not knowing why. Being exposed to his music at a young age has played a large role in the music that I make."

"He used to come in Folk Music Center all the time. We'd hang out and have laughs - he's just the funniest guy."


"David Lindley and guys like Taj Mahal have huge influence on me, immeasurable. And the fact that these guys are still alive makes life much more exciting and livable for me. David knows Pete Seeger, he knows Bess Hawes, he knows Jean Ritchie, the dulcimer player. David knew Okie Adams, an old-school banjo maker. Flatt and Scruggs. He knew all those guys. Taj knew Mississippi John Hurt, Fred McDowell, Lonnie Johnson, Brownie McGhee... So for me, they're a direct link to that school."

"David used to play with this amazing percussionist, 'Baboo' (George Pierre), who had a profound effect on me. I really wonder what happened to him. He was the first percussionist in El Rayo-X and he just brought the show to life in an amazing way."

David Lindley : "I've known Ben since he was five or six because I knew his mother and went to school with his father. His grandfather and grandmother, Charles and Dorothy Chase are two of the musical cornerstones of the Claremont folk music scene. I've known Charles and Dorothy forever, since I first started playing 5-string banjo which was in the sixties.

It was amazing to see how quickly Ben developed into a great slide player, basically on his own and just from watching other people play. As far as I know he never took any lessons although I'm sure he woodshedded and studied hard, learning the traditional Hawaiian music and blues that can be heard in what he does.
And one of the great things about his playing is that he studied the originals, the Hawaiian artists like Sol Hoopii and Gabby, going first to the source for technique and inspiration. Then he put his own twist on it. He did that first, which is the best way to do it, paying the dues then putting it to good use.
Even though I can see some of the sources of his music in his playing and singing he is a true original, the real deal. So he's not some sort of "corporate invention".

Ben's talent seemed to appear all at once, intact, and developed to a stage that was truly scary. One day I was sitting in the Folk Music Center playing a rather complex tune on the Hawaiian guitar and the next day I came back and he was playing in the same style but a variation that was better. This was after watching me play it once. It was amazing.

I actually had only a minor influence on him because he took his inspiration from many of the same sources I took mine from, Mike McClellan being the first and foremost. Mike is the original multi-instrumentalist, a real scary player and singer who paved the way for most of the rest of us. He learned to speak Hawaiian in order to get closer to the music, which is quite a feat and the way it should be done.

Then there's Taj Mahal who you can also hear in Ben's music, also a real and genuine article, like Mike, someone who went first to the traditions themselves and learned as much as he could then put it to use.

So, I would say that Ben learned the learning method rather than "borrowing" bit's of someone else's music from here and there. There is quite a difference, learning the substance rather than the style. It's not easy and takes a lot of work, an aspect of anyone's playing that is easy to
see.

But then there is "Factor X" which Ben has more of than any of his musical ancestors and who knows where that comes from, he was born with that.

You should also remember that most all musicians have anything and everything they've ever heard seen still there in their heads and it will come out at any time in any form, original or modified. Imagine every song you've ever heard filed away there in the subconscious ready to go at any time and without warning. It's all in the files... and it's out there."

read more about | David Lindley

Chris Darrow wrote "Whipping Boy", a song performed by Ben Harper on "Pleasure And Pain - Cardas records" and "Welcome To The Cruel World".

Photo © Steve Cahill

Chris Darrow : "I grew up in Claremont California and started playing music quite young. I played ukulele as a 5-year-old and finally took up the guitar at the age of 13. My first guitar came from the Folk Music Center owned by Charles and Dot Chase. The Chase's daughter, Ellen was in school with me and as you know, she is Ben's mother. We have known each other since high school and her parents became a fixture in my life. I spent many an hour at the Folk Music Center playing instruments and listening to records.

I started playing music, primarily folk and bluegrass, and eventually got into popular music and started a recording career with the Kaleidoscope in 1966. I later joined the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, worked with Linda Ronstadt, Hoyt Axton and James Taylor. Soon I was doing recording sessions for people, from Gene Vincent to Helen Reddy, which eventually led to a solo artist recording deal.

My second solo album, Chris Darrow, was recorded in England at Trident studios. I used many English musicians and had a great time doing it. Whipping boy was originally recorded in 1972 and the band was Caleb Quaye, Roger Pope and Clive Chaman. My pal Steve Cahill played mandolin and I sang and played electric lap slide. The members of the rhythm section had worked on both Elton John and Jeff Beck records.
The song was written about a strained marriage and I needed to vent my feelings. The term whipping boy comes from the Middle Ages when the rich could pay someone to take their punishment for them, hence, Whipping Boy. The Catholics had something similar in that you could pay someone to eat your sins instead of getting the karma attached. They were called sin eaters.

Ben, as a teenager, began working for his grandparents, which led to him working as an instrument repairman. He also started playing music with his pal Tom Freund. Ben was hanging out with a flamenco guitar pal of mine, Ian Beardsley. He and Ben began coming by regularly to hang out and listen to records, etc...
As time went, on Ben began to come by on his own and we would talk about many things. He was torn between repair work and playing music. I encouraged him to pursue his career as a musician and suggested he try to record an album. I told him I thought that I had a song that might be perfect for him, it was Whipping Boy. Soon after he and Tom recorded their album and included Whipping Boy on it.

A friend of mine, JP Plunier, loved the song and asked me to introduce him to Ben. JP was looking for a video to film and thought Ben would be perfect subject. JP was looking for work in the video industry and had a champion at Virgin Records. The introductions were made and the rest is history. The original video was the introduction of Ben to the recording industry. There was a bidding war, with Virgin winning the prize. Whipping Boy became the first release from his first album. The song was remixed by the Dust Brothers and became a dance hit in Europe via an album called Subterranean Abstract Blues/Rebirth of Cool, which featured Portis Head, Massive Attack, Beastie Boys, Bomb The Bass and Paul Weller."

read more about | Chris Darrow

JP Plunier : "At first, you have universities and a radio station, KSPC, that existed since the birth of American university radio stations. It was a radio with a huge influence in the 60's. It was the first radio to broadcast Pop-Rock in the USA, to broadcast Hip-Hop, even before all the commercial radio stations, before New-York. I can tell you that in this small town, there were also these two guys who went to school together, John King and Mike Simpson — The Dust Brothers. It's a really small place but when you look around a little, there's stuff happening. In the 70's, there was a big Country-Rock movement. In magazines they always say that it's The Byrds and Gram Parsons who started it, but in fact it began in this small town there. The first guys who played World Music, they're also from there, in particular David Lindley and Chris Darrow, they're two of the biggest slide guitar players. And it was Darrow who taught Duane Allman a whole bunch of little licks."

"The roots of the slide-guitar, besides the Delta, for me, are in Claremont. You have Chris Darrow, David Lindley and Ben Harper who are three of the best slide-guitarists in the world today. All these guys have been to Ben's grandparents' shop; Ry Cooder, who came to get his instruments repaired, the guys from the Flying Burritos Brothers and even Punk bands like Christian Death. It's a seminal thing."

Photo © Eric Mulet - Les Inrockuptibles n°58, Summer 1994 | Ben Harper and Jim "The Mayor" Smith, a local character.

Ben Harper : "The system won't allow you to step out of line, to stand out. Creativity and spirituality are nipped in the bud, crushed, reduced to dust. The only thing left to oneself is the body and regrettably, the body often has recourse to violence. You just have to take a look at what's happening in this area to understand that the educational system is profoundly tainted."

"It's thanks to my parents that I've escaped these vices. When I would come home, they would say to me — Don't worry, you'll find your own way, without the teachers' help. Be cool, do what pleases you, express yourself like you want to. So I'd play guitar for hours. I made mistakes, lots of mistakes, but I was free to progress in my own space."

Photo © Eric Mulet - Les Inrockuptibles n°58, Summer 1994.

"I could care less about the rest of it; my grades at school, the competition, because I had found my way; music! I didn't fight to become a company boss or a scientist. I just wanted to play and my parents gave me plenty of room. When I would draw, my father wouldn't watch over me. I could paint the sun blue and grass purple, nobody would tell me that it was wrong. My parents were cool, not lax, just cool... I was rather good at athletics. Broad jump, triple jump, sprint; I always won lots of medals but when I lost, it wasn't important. Another boy had been stronger than me, so what? Life goes on. I was happy, surrounded by free, tolerant and independent persons. My parents were full of love. My brothers, my cousins, my grandparents, all these people have so much love in them, and I was immersed in it from birth. Materially, life wasn't always easy, but spiritually, it was perfect."

"I wasn't at war with school but I didn't want to become its accomplice either. So I let it slide, hung back a bit. I was friends with everybody, the good students and the dunces. I participated only very rarely because it was obvious that I wasn't going to learn anything at school. I often sat in the back of the class. During the first days of the school year, teachers choose their favorite students, who sit in the first rows. Blacks and Mexicans rarely appear on that list. So we look out for each other in the back rows. That's where the gang gets started, in the back of the room. The system oppresses us, so by necessity we get together. When you're young and naive, you try to act tough. Teachers didn't speak to us about ourselves, all they thought about was teaching us generalities. Teachers are so obsessed by multiplications that they forget to teach you unification. Multiply, divide, fraction... what's the point when you aren't able to unite several races in a single nation?"

"I always knew that I would get my education outside of school, through reading and music. Not one minute of the school day was set aside for music. I just had to go to home to play my guitar but the other kids didn't have that opportunity. There's nothing to do in Claremont. Without the musical education that my family gave me, I would have gone crazy or a delinquent."

Photo © Eric Mulet - Les Inrockuptibles n°58, Summer 1994.

"When I was ten years old, I wanted to express myself, to move. It's the age when you have a lot of feelings to express. I began skateboarding but after five years, I stopped being interested in the sport, I prefered music. Many of my friends continued, some became professionals."

"If you drive for ten minutes in Claremont or Pomona, you're sure to meet gangsters. Down the street, in the next block, there's sure to be nasty characters who call their wives 'bitch' and take out a gun for the slightest misunderstanding."

"Gangs are everywhere. I have friends in gangs, not only rappers and not only Blacks. The plague touches everybody because nobody is protected from the evil and vice. Here, if you're a little weak and needy, you can easily be lured into the trap. You hang out with doubtful characters and without knowing it, from one day to next, you've gone over to the other side, the side of gangs and violence. Do you hear helicopters? They're cops who watch the ghettos. It appears to be a peaceful evening but in fact stuff is happening everywhere. There's always something going on here but you can very easily walk right by without realizing it. When I was a child, I didn't notice anynothing."

"Some of my school friends became engineers at Apple, others ended in jail and for this problem, music can do nothing. I could dedicate all my songs to condemning hatred, gangs, male chauvinism, violence; it would change nothing. So I sing about love. "Like A King", my song about Rodney King, is a love song, with sweet, non-violent vocals. It isn't a call to hatred."

Page translated in English by Angus Martin