Blues on menu as Eric Bibb returns with new album

Eric Bibb, one of the finest practitioners of American roots music, returns to the Róisín Dubh on Saturday, May 29 having built up a loyal fan base here thanks to the sheer joy he takes in performing. Bibb turned to one of his heroes as the inspiration for his latest release, Booker White. The album is named after the legendary blues musician who was championed by the American folk movement in the 1960s.

Eric Bibb had been listening to White’s music since he was a child, and decades later he was given a chance to connect with the iconic bluesman.

“I had a wonderful experience a few years ago when a fan came up to me and offered me the opportunity to see and play Booker White’s guitar,” Eric recalls. “He met me at my hotel and brought forth this instrument that BB King called ‘the Holy Relic.’ BB King is Booker White’s younger cousin, so he was familiar with this instrument. And there it was, in the north of England, right before me.”

Playing White’s guitar stoked a fire in Eric that he had to make a record of.

“I had a chance to spend some time playing it,” he says. “It was just an amazing link to a whole other era which I really admired. It inspired a song and sometime later I sent the lyrics to the man who owns the guitar and he said ‘well, I’ll put them in the guitar case so the guitar can get to know them’.

“That in turn inspired the idea to make a whole album of – mostly original – songs describing the era and my heroes from an earlier time.”

What is it about White’s music that Eric finds so inspiring?

“He was a very robust slide player with a lot of passion in his playing,” he says. “I just always felt he was somebody who really had a heartfelt expression. A couple of his songs really knocked me out. There’s one called When Can I Change My Clothes?, a song about some time he spent on a prison farm. Like another singer before him, Leadbelly, he was able to use his skills to get released.”

Many blues musicians make their living reprising the work of the greats. Does Eric find it difficult to write original work in a genre that is so steeped in history?

“It’s probably more challenging to place yourself in the first person in another era,” he says. “But having listened to so much music from that era and loving it as I do, I basically just surrendered and waited for some inspiration. I didn’t force it all but I will say that writing an older blues type of song is, in some ways, more challenging than writing another kind.

“Once I got started and found the key – and Booker’s guitar really was the key – I felt very connected,” he continues. “Through the experience of playing his guitar, of seeing his set list taped on the side – this is something that really absorbed a lot of this man’s Mojo.”

An Eric Bibb concert is a truly memorable experience. Although blues aficionados will love it, this is a show for everyone. Eric’s exuberance is contagious; it’s a rare thing to leave a venue feeling this happy.For more, read this week's Connacht Tribune.