Corey Harris and Rasta Blues Experience play Saturday at Blues & Jazz Fest

BY DAVE RICHARDS, Erie Times-News  - Staff writer
PUBLISHED: AUGUST 1, 2013 12:01 AM EST
UPDATED: JULY 31, 2013 7:43 PM EST

Blues fans know Corey Harris as the genius who melds his steadfast love of pure Delta blues with an insatiable thirst for indigenous music from around the world.

Though he forged his reputation with acoustic blues via 1995's Handy Award-winning "Between Midnight and Day," Harris soon began working West African, reggae, jazz, Cajun and country and other styles into his roots-blues vision.

In 2007, the MacArthur Foundation labeled Harris a genius, too, bestowing him with one of its annual "genius" grants worth $500,000. That news came out of the blue to this blues man.

"It really did. I didn't have any advance notice and I never did find out how I got it," Harris said.

The grants come with no strings; they're awarded to encourage further artistic exploration. Freed from financial pressure, Harris dove headlong into several projects.

"It gave me the time to write the book I just finished on Ali Farka Toure," he said. "It enabled me to travel to Mali and do research. And it enabled me to produce my own recordings without having to go to a record company for an advance or a budget."

That book on one of his heroes, world-music giant Toure -- whom Harris collaborated with on 2002's "Mississippi to Mali" -- has yet to be published. In January, Harris released "Fulton Blues," while "True Blues" -- a live project with Taj Mahal, Shemekia Copeland, Guy Davis and others -- was issued on CD and DVD in May.

"Basically (with 'True Blues') we were showing the roots and the traditions of the forefathers," Harris said. "The foundation of the blues is still happening today; people are still practicing that. It's not all wailing on electric guitar all the time."

"Fulton Blues" -- inspired by the story of his Virginia neighborhood -- mostly marks a return to his acoustic-blues roots.

"(Fulton) was a historically black neighborhood, and around the late '60s and mid-1970s and into the 1980s the land was appropriated by the city for industrial use," Harris said. "The historical structures and the whole community were leveled.

"A lot of people still exist and are still around who came from that community. I heard about the story, and even though I'm not originally from there, it inspired me to write the tunes. It's basically a blues record, a roots-blues record, but it's not completely acoustic."

Read more: http://www.goerie.com/article/20130801/ENTERTAINMENT0301/308019982/Corey-Harris-and-Rasta-Blues-Experience-play-Saturday-at-Blues-&-Jazz-Fest

Corey’s Blues

Generally, Corey Harris is regarded as a bluesman. In that the 40-year-old singer/guitarist/songwriter has released a wealth of blues and blues-inflected music in his 14-year recording career, that’s an understandable assumption. But Harris has long spiced his eclectic brand of blues with musical flavors from Africa, Latin America, the Caribbean, New Orleans and elsewhere. His 1999 release Greens From the Garden ranged across a variety of styles and even dabbled in hip-hop, while 2007’s Zion Crossroads was richly suffused with a reggae vibe. Now comes the Colorado native’s ninth release overall and second for the Telarc label, Blu.Black, a collection of 13 blues- and reggae-flavored originals complemented by one Burning Spear cover.

“I always deal with Africa and the blues and roots on my records,” Harris says. “Those have been my primary themes throughout most of my career. On this record, I wanted to express my love for great black music, and demonstrate that love in original song form. It’s the same goal I’ve been pursuing for some time - to make original music and try to educate people in the process.”

All of the songs on Blu.Black, Harris says, add up to a cogent whole. “The story I want to tell is that we who have had the experience of coming from parents who came from the south, whose parents were poor and the children of slaves - we can take this music and make something new with it. The story isn’t finished. There are still places where it can move forward. There are still things that can be accomplished.”
http://www.jazziz.com/news/2009/10/08/coreys-blues/