At about the age of sixteen, Ben Harper played his first gig - a set of acoustic Blues - at the Patrick Brayer' Starvation Cafe in Fontana, California.

Patrick Brayer : "I met Ben when he was about 15 years of age. He was a magic kid as I knew them. He once ran up to me, his eyes really big, and gave me a gift of a photo of just Robert Johnson's hands. From that i knew that he knew where the poetry was. As a thank-you gift I once gave him a series of 78 rpm records of Leadbelly playing the Cajun accordion. It was godhead, but within my circle of friends, there were only a few people that would ever understand that, except Ben."

Photo © Walt Weis - published in the August 12, 1994, edition of the Daily Bulletin of Claremont, California | Patrick Brayer (left) and John York (right).

"It took him a while to even tell me he played the guitar, and then he asked me if I'd listen to him. His playing immediately had great sense of a keen observation of the blues masters, like Johnson, John Hurt, and Peetie Wheatstraw."

"I was producing a nomadic concert series at the time called The Starvation Cafe (1982-1994) in Fontana, California and suggested that we document his playing with a concert and a live recording. I think that might be one of his first adventures into the elevated stage light, as rickety as it might have been. He was already pretty well realized, and that is what I look for, not someone I can shape, but someone I can help just by naturally being."

"He worked for me under three different ensembles, first was Thirsty Dog (a blues based group), second The Benouds of Mighty Ivory (a middle eastern slide guitar group), and lastly under his own name, in which he was already performing his own compositions like Pleasure and pain".

More about | Patrick Brayer

Photo : The Benouds of Mighty Ivory - Photo © Robert Graham / Cardas Audio, Ltd - Cardas/Graham Collection | see

While still a delivery boy for a fruit and vegetable merchant, he plays a few free concerts at Scripps College - 1030 Columbia avenue, Claremont, CA 91711 (909) 621 8088 - a private girls-only college in Claremont.

Ben Harper : "I spent one year at college but I was absentminded. Every evening, I would run home and get my guitar. I was so afraid to lose the melodies I had in my mind that I refused to speak to my friends. I would wave them away... At the end of the year, I stopped going to school. I refused all diversions; I wanted to write songs."

"I played in the coffee-houses of Claremont and Pomona, in small clubs in the area [He plays notably at Nick's cafe]. I played in all coffee-shops with a hat in front of me. I earned 20 dollars an evening and some glasses of liquor. Most of all I earned a lot of happiness; the pleasure of playing in public, of communicating with people."

"I sang traditional Blues tunes, old stuff by Skip James, Blind Willie Johnson, Robert Johnson, Taj Mahal. I had written some pretty good songs but I didn't dare yet to play them in public. I was afraid of not being good enough."

From the age of sixteen to twenty, Ben Harper played with a bottleneck, copying Robert Johnson.

Ben Harper : "I realized that everything had been already been done, there was little room left for a free expression. The bottleneck-slide sounded too much like Delta Blues, and I don't come from there. I didn't want to play that Blues, I already had my own Blues. It's thanks to a friend I discovered lap-guitar. So I started to play with a slide-bar, with the guitar on my lap. I could paly fast Blues chords on this guitar and obtain a totally different and unique sound. I thought it xas really cool to be able to play Soul music that was based in the Blues but in an original way."

"So it was with the Weissenborn that I discovered my true way, my own means of expression. It as in my family and had been there for a long time, it was there waiting for me..."

On March 15, 1992 Ben Harper and Tom Freund recorded an album entitled Pleasure And Pain, a vinyl produced by Cardas Records (1,500 copies).

Photo : Tom Freund and Ben Harper at the Folk Music Center © Robert Graham - Cardas/Graham collection | photos

Producer: George Cardas - Co-producer: Mary Cardas - Engineering: George Cardas - Tape editing: Bruce Bishop - Chief technical assistant: Jim Hadley - Mastered by Doug Sax at The Mastering Lab, Hollywood, CA (photo) - Cover design: Robert Graham | full size cover

The entirely acoustic album is impregnated with the Blues. A Blues transported from the Mississippi Delta to the Inland Empire. A Blues re-rendered through the sound of a lap-guitar, influenced by Chris Darrow and David Lindley — both slide guitarists and natives of Claremont. The influence of Chris Darrow appears in the first song; a cover of "Whipping boy", a song wrote in 1972. The following song is a traditional Blues entitled "Jesus one the main line". Then, Ben Harper and Tom Freund play covers of "Pay the man" co-written by David Lindley and George 'Baboo' Pierre and the sublime "Quarter of a man" written by Robert 'Frizz' Fuller. These two songs were already included in an album by David Lindley, released in 1980, entitled El Rayo-X. "Mama's got a girlfriend now" written by Ben Harper and "Angel from Montgomery" by John Prine, bring a country touch to the album. The album evolves into a more Rock 'n Roll sound with two songs by Tom Freund; "Click yo' heels" and an incredible "You should have come to me". As the king of the Delta Blues, Robert Johnson, couldn't be left out; ardently performed versions of his "Dust my broom" and "Sweet home Chicago" precede an already very accomplished version of "Pleasure and pain".

Ben Harper : "There is a little bit of my parents in my first record. I remember a day at the shop, I had just written my first true song; "Pleasure and pain". All the family gathered around me in the workshop and I sang. There was a very sweet atmosphere in the back shop; a profound joy, a feeling of plenitude. After that our neighbors used to come to our house and listen to my songs. My grandparents and my mother wrote poems which I put in music. Everybody on the block was singing."

Tom Freund : "I'm living in L.A. now, I have been in New-York or Austin, Texas the rest of the time. Pleasure and Pain was an intense time. Ben and I really connected on a lot of levels. Sound and healing, tapping into the sounds around us. We had a cool duo and band (which consisted of Rosanne Lindley (David's daughter) and John McKnight who played on Ben's first record). We met in the college town of Claremont, CA. A mutual friend introduced us, Alleghaney Meadows - a ceramic artist, said we must meet eachother and play together. We had a powerful jam the first night at The Folk Music Center that Ben's grandparents owned and Ben worked selling and fixing guitars. Cool as shit store with all sorts of world instruments on the walls and 'spirits' in the air."

Read more about | Tom Freund

George Cardas : "I recorded Ben on March 15, 1992 - I was setup to record another performer (Johnny Kallas) who I had been working with for the previous month Johnny called and said he had a sore throat and couldn't make it so we we getting ready to go home for the night when the phone rang it was Ben he said that a friend of his was over at his house, things were really working and he wanted to come over. I don't think at the time he was planning on a recording session about 15 min later Ben and Tom came by. They were quite excited about how well things were going so I sat them down in front of a pair of microphones and they began to play."

"We went directly from a pair of custom built microphones into a Studer A-80 there was nothing in the signal path but the two microphones 6 feet of Cardas cable and the Studer not even a preamp other than the single stage in the microphones themselves. This was about as direct a setup as I have ever seen the recording setup was omni's on 8 inch center placed in front and above Tom and Ben abut 3 feet from Ben's chest. Ben and Tom began to play sort of deciding what to play and going for it, all takes were one time only. It took just over 45 minutes to record the album it is to this day one of the most magical musical moments, the kind you dream will happen but never do. I was obvious that this was the "real deal" so I made a record almost immediately we did one run the albums they were awsome so I told Ben to take on to LA and go shopping — he did and the rest is history. I hope some day Ben decides to release the original acoustic sessions."

Tom Freund : "Taj Mahal was playing on the college campus in Claremont. The college Department selected me to play for his reception after the show. So I asked Ben and our drummer friend Mark to join me. We played our set and then Taj Mahal came up and played with us. He grabbed my upright bass and sang while Ben and I played guitar and lap steel. The place got very hot. Ben and I were obviously "tripping out" to be playing with one of our heroes."

"The next day we hung out at the music store and played a little more and Taj asked Ben to play lap steel on his upcoming Hawaiin tour. The rest is history. C'est la vie."

Ben Harper joins Taj's band and leaves on tour from fall of 1992 to the beginning of 1993. He's already playing his three Weissenborns and his Dobro.

Ben Harper : "That was a very beautiful experience, a move apward for me. Taj is one of the biggest bluesman of our time. It was an honor for me. The importance of this trip still reverbates in me."

This experience, harper admits, jump-strated his songwriting. In 1992, Ben Harper had already written "Mama's got a girlfriend now", "Pleasure and pain", "Like a king", "Walk away", "How many miles must we march" and "Forever". In 1993, he writes "Don't take that attitude to your grave", "Waiting on an angel", "Welcome to the cruel world", "I'll rise" and a first version of "Breakin' down".

On January 26, 1993, Taj Mahal is the guest of the legendary TV show "Austin City Limits". He plays at the 6th floor of the Communications Building B, University of Texas (Austin) with his band and Ben Harper, always surrounded by his guitars.

They perfomed "Mailbox Blues", "Queen Bee" (John Lee Hooker), "Blues with a feelin" (Little Walter), "Fishin' Blues" (H. Thomas) and "Freight train" (Elisabeth Cotten) on wich he plays a solo on his Teardrop Weissenborn. "Queen Bee" is included in the compilation "Big Blues Extravaganza!: The Best Of Austin City Limits" (1998).

Ben Harper : "I've never played on stage with Brownie McGhee but I would often go to see him in Oakland, and we became friends. We played in his living- room, in his garage. We roasted chicken on the barbecue in front of his garage. All the neighborhood kids would come around on their bicycles and he would give them candy. We would drink a few beers on the porch and he would sigh: "My man, today, I'm beat. Let's talk about anything except music." And ten minutes later, he would be telling me his far-out stories about touring with the Stones or when he performed as Harry Belafonte's supporting act in Vegas."

Ben Harper : "If a French guy named JP Plunier hadn't discovered me, I would probably still be playing for three drunks in one of the coffee-shops in the desert south of Los Angeles. Plunier listened to me and he decreed:
The whole world must hear this!

There's a coffee-house near where I live. That's where I met him the first time. We were in line buying candies. He asked me:
- Your parents are the people from the music shop, right?
- Yeah.
- I go to the university, I met your father.
I was a kid, he was eighteen or nineteen years old, I was eight or nine. I had nothing to say to guy his age. He often went to the shop and I was often there. We liked the same music. A few years after that, he was interested in the music that I had written, he wanted to work with me and I with him; he was the only person who understood the musical direction that I wanted to take. It was a spiritual connection. That's the way it had to be."

JP Plunier : "... I was studying at a Polytechnical Institute in California. Later I obtained another diploma in the town where Ben lived, I went to Pomona College. I met his family there and their shop (...). I knew him since he was a kid but I lost sight him, he grew up, and so did. He did his thing and I did mine. At first it wasn't the plan that I would manage him, I made videos, stuff like that. He gave me a copy of his very first album "Pleasure And Pain" (...) There were three complete songs which he had written and the rest were covers. I offered to take some pictures, and then he saw what I did. I directed a little video of "Whipping boy", without synchronization, without anything, everything was done by hand. It was really, very, very basic. There were some other guys who were interested in him but they didn't get it. They'd say to him: "You have to take singing lessons, you have to change this or that...". I didn't have at all the same vision. I talked with Ben, he played his songs, I made some suggestions and he agreed with me. That's how we started to work together."

Ben Harper : "I never really decided to live on my music. I'm happy to go with the flow but I don't control anything. Notions about; money, success... seem totally impalpable to me, I've never thought about it. I've never thought that I could earn a lot of money with my songs. Our society doesn't encourage its children to dream: from school, they put in your mind that you can never earn your living by doing what you want. They say that nothing is easy, that the life is a test, you have to work hard, you have to slave away. In our educational system, talent isn't recognized, it's stifled because it scares people. Talent and creative gifts are disturbing because there's not based on merit, they don't come from the sweat of your brow. In our materialist world, where there's no place for fantasy, talented people are looked upon with suspicion while the greedy idiots who fight to become bosses, even if it means hurting others, are considered as men of real ability, men with ambition. I am very lucky; thanks to my songs, I can eat three times a day, buy shirts, support my band. In the times we're living, that's quite something. But here's the thing: I believed in it. I had this incredible force inside me, this light which guided me towards music. I didn't give a damn what they told me at school. I didn't give a damn what I read in the papers. I didn't perceive the color of my skin as a disadvantage, as so many of my brothers do. I didn't doubt. I knew that music was my way."

On December 4, 1993, Ben Harper played in France at the 15th Transmusicales of Rennes, France. It is his first concert outside the United-States. Photo © R. Deluze for Stills

Ben Harper : "People really go into it, it was incredible. It's really a memory which stays in my mind, in an indelible way. Something really special."

At the beginning of 1994, Ben Harper opened for John Lee Hooker.

Ben Harper : "It was the very first time I opened for an artist, as a professional, and it was for Mister Hooker... It was just me and my acoustic guitar. That took place in San Francisco. For me, it was like a kid's dream becoming reality. It was really a great privilege being his opening act. It's a feeling you realize only some weeks later. At the time, you live the intensity of the moment."

Photo © JP Plunier - Artwork by Emmanuel Rivet.

John Lee Hooker : "Funky, the kid was funky. I sat there, in the dark, at a table in the back and I watched Ben. I do that sometimes, go to a small club, enter by the back door and see what's going on. On that day I realized that this boy could play Blues."

Ben Harper : "The most memorable thing about our first meeting was the handshake; a gesture that goes straight to the heart and whose internal sensation can't be explained rationally. When you shake John Lee Hooker's hand you feel a whole century touching you. The flavor of the past emanates from the simple fact of his presence. I had never met a man of such stature. He's the Bouddha of the Blues. The most powerful living spirit on this music. His first words were: "If you really want to become a great guitarist, take all the notes that you know and uses only half of them... From there, you can begin to do something." All I know about guitar riffs, tones and vocal inflections I owe to him. He taught me how to sing a song, how to modulate it. He's the grand master of the E key. His style constitutes a very strong incarnation of the Delta Blues. It's the blood of the Mississippi. What the most impressed me are his acoustic records. They have someting special, a vibration wich touches the very dephts of you. The emotion is as important as the sound."

"Welcome To The Cruel World" - the first Virgin album - is released on February 8, 1994.

Ben Harper : " My parents were very proud of me. Through me, they lived a little of their own dream. Most importantly, I became the physical proof that the liberal education that they had given me was good. Overnight, people in the music-business were interested in me, the kid from Claremont."

"JP (Plunier) moved heaven and earth, he called everyone in showbiz. He wasn't afraid of nything! He chatted them up, went off on tangents, contacted all the records companies. A bluesman who plays sitting down, what a concept!
To get some peace, a girl from Virgin finally said: Okay, okay, give me a tape tomorrow at noon. The next day we went there, my band and I, guitar-cases under arm, proud as gypsies. We set up in front of her desk, took out our gear and played her four songs. Virgin signed us straightaway. All started like that, with an audacious act."

"Virgin had given us some money to record demos. We wanted to produce the music ourselves, JP and I. In three days, we had produced and mixed six songs and they are all in the first album."

"The record companies professionals didn't think that young people would like my music. They thought it was music for an older audience because young people today just don't care about the lyrics. They'd say : We've got to sell it to old Bob Dylan fans.
And I would disagree: If they like it, that's great, but my music is for young people. Then we had to prove it : in the U.S., we had to open for the Fugees, Luscious Jackson, PJ Harvey, Dave Matthews, Pearl Jam, Pharcyde, The Roots..."

"In France, they got it immediatly, I have to recognize them that merit. In the U.S. things are evolving slowly, we managed to sell some records. In a country where you meet Whites who listen to Hip-Hop and Blacks who listen to Beethoven, you can consider that the field is wide open. For me, the very fact of having been able to make records is a success in itself. Then, if the record company believes in it and does everything to sell them, if there are people who buy them, that's good but to be honest I don't really care about that. Naturally, I would like to be recognized here also, but it's not my daily obsession. I just try to always emain confident in the future."


JP Plunier : "When I introduced Ben to the records companies, all they saw in him was a young Black or seemingly Black man. Because in the United-States, the concept of interbreeding doesn't exist. If you have a single drop of Black blood, you are Black. Even though the concept was established by Whites, Blacks adopted it too. Ben is part Indian but the Black intellectual community would want him to be Black. I even heard people saying that if he declared himself to be bi-racial, it would be as if he had declared himself to be White. It's ridiculous! American people are everywhere and even those that say they are German or Scottish or Irish have other blood in them. America is the big racial melting-pot and yet one of its paradoxes is not wanting to admit it.
So, when we went to see the records companies, which all have Blues or Funk sub-labels, the directors insisted on putting him in one of these categories. I fought to have another place. Even after the contract with Virgin, Ben's music was still intended for the J-J Cale and Ry Cooder audience, which has never interested us.
Ben was 21-22 years old and the kids around him responded to his music as well as the adults who were long-time fans of slide-guitar. We were eventually accepted by bands like Pharcyde, the Fugees, Pearl Jam etc.... We were able to prove to the professionals that Ben's music could reach both the kids of the ghettos of Washington DC and Pearl Jam's White skateboarder fans, as well as people who like Blues and Gospel. It was rather difficult to prove that we had a base of young fans because when the music industry guys came to see concerts in L.A. or New-York, half of the room was made up of professionals leaning against the bar with free drinks. To prove to them that in cities like Nashville, Seattle, Detroit and Chicago there were twelve year-old kids in the first rows, I had to take panoramic photos where you would see Ben, the band and the audience. Just to show them that they were making a mistake in not going beyond their Blues idea to a more universal expansion. Because the Blues, as it is today, is worn-out, and Ben can do better; he can write much better songs. Especially if he learns to read music."

On May 22, 1994 - John York was one of the featured performers at the Claremont Folk Festival. He was joined on the final two songs ("She Never Spoke Spanish to Me" and "Money Like Rain") by Ben Harper.

Claremont Folk Festival, Claremont, California - May 22, 1994
Set list : My Back Pages - Wasn't That You - Lily of the West - Chimes of Freedom - Paint it Black - She Never Spoke Spanish to Me - Money Like Rain.

John York : "Ben is one of my favorite friends. I remember the concert for the Folk Music Center. And of course I was delighted when Ben sat in on the last 2 songs. I remember that I wrote "Money Like Rain" with Ben in mind. It is on my solo CD, "Claremont Dragon" [Original release date : August 1999 - Taxim tx 2038].

John York | official site

Ben Harper : "We began to play regularly at the Mint (a small Blues bar) in Los Angeles. We played in front of ten, fifteen or twenty people. That's where everything started."

Photo © Ben Harper at the Mint - 6010, West Pico Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90035

Photo © The Mint schedule, September 1993 - Every monday : Ben Harper - Source : Jeff Gottlieb

Ben Harper and The Innocent Criminals begin their first American tour on March 3, 1994 at Northern Illinois University's Diversions Lounge.

Ben Harper : "I met dozens of people with whom I never could have communicated without my music. Since I came back, I received letters. They wrote me words of unimaginable kindness. They encouraged me, they told me that they loved me. I just received a letter from the schoolteacher who taught me to read. She told me that she was proud of me, that I had managed to do something beautiful. I didn't even know she was still alive, this nice lady. I remember that one day, she washed my mouth with soap, to punish me. I must have been bullshitting, yet again (laughter)... And today, this woman is congratulating me. How could I stay in my town, in my dark corner, when so many people believe in me?"

Original ticket - Nick's Caffé Trevi (Claremont, Californie - in the village, 109 Yale between 1st & 2nd streets back alley entrance, North of arrow highway) / Harper - Subversive lyrics - Revolutionnary slide / Saturday, April 30, 1994 - 8.30 pm - $8.00 - Source © Jeff Gottlieb

Page translated in English by Angus Martin