Main Blues

Harper’s music could easily be called “World Blues,” and it just might be the most interesting amalgam you’ll see and hear at this weekend’s Bayfront Blues Festival.
Eschewing vintage-this, retro-that, and avoiding just regurgitating the same old tried-and-true blues tunes and licks, Peter Harper has come up with something new. It combines his unique Australian heritage, a lyrical vision that revolves around standing up and taking responsibility, and a soulful overall feel to the music.
His brand-new Blind Pig release is called “Stand Together” and on it, backed by his Michigan-based touring band Midwest Kind, Harper has crafted a document that falls outside the mainstream blues field. In fact, to any blues purist, this isn’t a blues record at all.
As I listened, it was abundantly clear that Harper — he goes by just his surname — has a fierce sense of who he is and what he wants to say both musically and within the content of his message. There are absolutely no standard 12-bar blues progressions anywhere on this project. There are no shuffles, no slow blues tunes, and no push-beat rhythms. There are none of the typical vehicles used by almost all blues artists.
Similarly, there are no lewd double-entendres, no dopey lyrical inanities, and no “Hey, hey the blues is alright!” That kind of gratuitous fluff seems all too prevalent on too many blues discs, and at too many sets at too many blues festivals.
He was born in the United Kingdom but was transported with his family at age 10 to Perth, Australia, and into its cultural isolation. He found solace in the recordings of the blues greats and learned his lessons well. Make no mistake, I know firsthand that Harper can uncork hellacious versions of blues classics by Sonny Boy, Little Walter, Muddy and others; but he has his own vision just as they had theirs.
Harper also brings the traditional Australian didgeridoo into the mix, both on this release and during his live sets. If you’ve never seen one, it is a huge instrument that adds a simmering drone to his music’s bottom end, counterbalancing the upper-register trills of his Hohner harmonica. You can hear the outback as well as the alley in Harper’s art.
He’s a crack instrumentalist, a soulful singer, an artist with a vision who is going after that vision even if it doesn’t fit neatly into any pre-existing category. He just might be the most interesting act at this year’s bluesfest.
John Ziegler has worked in the music industry for 36 years as radio host, interviewer, record producer and professional musician.