ROBERT RANDOLPH Taking the Pedal Steel Guitar on a Journey Into the Past by Chris Neal
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JUNE 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Danny Clinch ROBERT RANDOLPH Taking the pedal steel guitar on a journey into the past By Chris Neal AS A KID, ROBERT RANDOLPH’S LIFE REVOLVED AROUND immerse himself in the last hundred years of African-American music. the House of God church in Orange, N.J. And as a member of a He listened to countless songs, with producer T Bone Burnett as his strongly religious family, he was forbidden to listen to secular music. guide through the past. “Just talking to him opened up my musical “The thing is, I did listen to secular music,” he says with a chuckle. dream to a whole other universe,” Randolph says. “I grew up in church, but we lived in the inner city. We’d play our The result is Randolph’s third studio album with the Family church music, but we would sneak and listen to R&B and hip-hop Band, We Walk This Road. The songs encompass sources ranging music in those days.” from Blind Willie Johnson to John Lennon and Prince, all fi ltered Still, Randolph’s musical education was mostly limited to gospel through Randolph’s own distinctive blend of rock, gospel, blues music. Even as he emerged from the church’s “sacred steel” tradition and R&B. Burnett and Randolph sought advice from friends like in the early 2000s (see sidebar) and established himself as a musical Robbie Robertson and former Warner Bros. Records president force in the outside world, he was conscious that his experience with Lenny Waronker (the latter suggested that Randolph take on the popular music extended no farther back than the1970s. A couple of little-known Prince gem “Walk Don’t Walk”), and brought in guests years ago he undertook to correct that oversight once and for all. like Ben Harper, Leon Russell and master drummer Jim Keltner. “I’m He and his Family Band—bass player Danyel Morgan and drummer glad I got the opportunity to talk to these guys,” he says, “because Marcus Randolph, both Randolph’s cousins—were ready for a break most people don’t.” We got the opportunity to talk to Robert Randolph after seven years on the road, and Randolph took the opportunity to during a break from tour rehearsals in New Jersey. ‘The goal is to keep recording, keep making music.’ 626262 M mag 4.indd 62 6/15/10 11:40:01 PM JUNE 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM What did T Bone bring to the record? How did Leon Russell come to be on WHATWHAT IS SACRED STEEL?STEEL? T Bone is such a musical historian. He the record? listens to the old, original stuff. He would Leon had a meeting with T Bone the morning be listening to what Jimi Hendrix listened that we were fi nishing up the song “Back to Robert Randolph emerged from the “sacred to—Blind Willie Johnson, Howlin’ Wolf, the Wall.” T Bone mentioned he was working steel” scene, centered around the House all those dudes. In the South you had this with me in the studio and Leon said, “Really? of God branch of the Pentecostal church.church. blues stuff happening, and at the same time I want to come down and meet him.” So he Although Randolph’s stardom has only now these guys came out of the church. They came down and sat in the session while cast a national spotlight on the tradition, the were just on the darker side. My grandma we were recording. We moved on to the pedal steel guitar has been the centerpiece had stories about growing up listening next tune, and I said, “Hey, if you ain’t doing of this discipline’s music-dominated churcchurchh to that. nothing you might as well come on and play services for decades. So how did an this tune with us.” He was like, “Yeah!” It instrument associated in the public mind Is there a fi ne line between gospel turned out to be this beautiful song. with old-school country music come to defi ne and blues? the sound of an African-AmericanAfrican-American gospel Early on, it was really all the same. Gospel How did you fi nd the Prince song? subgenre? is the good word, blues is feeling down Lenny Waronker and Mo Ostin ran Warner Sacred steel has its roots in the early and out—but it was all the same chord Bros. when Prince and Ry Cooder and all 20th-century popularity of Hawaiian music, in patterns. These guys rebelled against those guys were around. Lenny had been whichwhich thethe steelsteel guitar is a staple.staple. PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia gospel, went to the juke joints and played out of the music for a while, but he and brothers Troman and Willie Eason learned blues and talked about the down things. T Bone are buddies. T Bone said, “Hey, steel guitar during the 1930s, and brought the “I’m feeling down, I’m feeling blue.” It’s the why don’t you come hang and help me work total opposite of what the Southern Gospel on this Robert Randolph record?” Lenny churches were doing in those days. But if and I talked about all these songs—songs you listen to the chords, they’re the same. I’d written, songs he had. He said, “You That’s where Ray Charles got his stuff. It’s know, there’s this one old Prince song funny, Ray Charles took many songs from that fi ts you and the Family Band. A lot of gospel—it’s literally the same song, he just people don’t even know it. Most people changed the words. I grew up in church probably couldn’t record it—but you guys, playing those songs. this is what you stand for. The message is there, the vibe is there. It could be really How did Ben Harper get involved? electrifying.” I listened to it and said, “Let’s We had played the Blind Willie Johnson try and do it.” version of “If I Had My Way,” and that turned into a long jam that we kept trying to write How about John Lennon’s “I Don’t to. I was texting Ben the whole time, saying, Wanna Be a Soldier Mama”? “Hey, man, we’re right down the street At the time when we were making the album, from your house! Are you in town?” One we would sit and watch the presidential day he came down about 10:30 at night debates and listen to the news about what and we started jamming on this instrumental was happening with Wall Street. All the lyrics thing. In the middle of a break he said, on the album had something to do with what “Let me hear some other stuff that you was going on—we wanted to uplift people. might not have fi nished.” We played the T Bone came across that Lennon tune and Blind Willie Johnson thing, and Ben’s I said, “Let’s record it.” We went ahead and eyes lit up. He immediately went into the did it because it spoke to what’s going on vocal booth and did those choruses in about in the world today. Even though Lennon’s 10 minutes. We sat down with T Bone version was probably meant to be anti-, we and [songwriter] Tonio K. and wrote all the didn’t want our version to be anti-, even verses to it, and we fi nally had this thing. though we’re singing the same lyrics. It was Danny Clinch It’s a song we’ll be singing for the next more like, everybody’s tired of all this stuff. 20 years. I’ve got three cousins over there in the Air Force right now. When you speak to them, instrument to House of God services. WillieWillie Do you always write through it’s like, “We’re fi ghting, we want to win, but Eason went on to popularize the instrument jamming? at the same time we want to come home.” in the gospel scene through tours and street- It’s either-or for me. Sometimes if we’re So it is what it is. corner ministries. His nephew,nephew, Henry Nelson, at a soundcheck, somebody will do adopted the instrument and developed many something and a melody or a chorus will come What instruments did you play? aspects of the style that continue to this day.day. to me and we’ll build off that. Sometimes I wound up using a Weissenborn on the TheThe church adopted the pedal steel in the I’ll just play and record myself. I may have song “Don’t Change,” as well as a 1956 1970s,1970s, though not exclusively—one of the a melody in mind, but I don’t ever write lyrics Fender lap steel. There were four different foremostforemost modern practitionerspractitioners ofof “sacred until I’m either on a plane or in a car. It’s pedal steels that I used. There was a lot steel,”steel,” Aubrey Ghent (another nephew ofof the weirdest thing. going on. Willie Eason), plays lap steel. 63 M mag 4.indd 63 6/15/10 11:40:22 PM JUNE 2010 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM MUSICIAN Jeff Kravitz Randolph with Dave Matthews at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival, Manchester, Tenn., June 2005 ‘I may have a melody in mind, but THE WORD IS GOOD I don’t ever write lyrics until I’m In 2001, Robert Randolph teamed with either on a plane or in a car.’ keyboardist John Medeski and members of the North Mississippi All-Stars as the Word.