An Interview with Phil Cook: All for one. One for all.

The most joyful night of music I have ever experienced was Phil Cook and the Guitarheels at their Newport aftershow in 2016. People Are My Drug, Phil’s latest record, came out in June, and I have worn its grooves out. This is all to say that I am very excited for Phil’s show at The Sinclair next week and I think you should be there. It doesn’t matter if you are a fan already. Come. It’ll be joyful. Phil has been pretty busy as of late, so we didn’t get to talk for this preview, but he was kind enough to write an email with some thoughts about his new record, about justice, and what he’s learned about empathy and kindness from his earliest days.

RLR: I’m so interested in “Tide of Life,” because you step into the background (vocally) on the album’s second song–how did that arrangement come about?

PC: “Tide Of Life” uses a vocal approach that I call “foreground vocals”.  This is an intentional choice on my part to do away with the way background vocals are typically used by rock musicians these days, but more on that later. If you’ve read any interview I’ve given, you know about my passion for black gospel music, especially the quartet style. Quartet style doesn’t mean “four people” as you’d normally assume. It simply indicates a way of approaching the arrangement of vocal harmonies. A good example of this is The Dixie Hummingbirds recording of “In The Morning,” where all the vocals are to the front, both lead and background. “Background” in quartet doesn’t mean quieter in the mix, it means you sing your ass off when it’s time to sing and the parts fall rhythmically around the lead but not behind it. That’s the crucial difference.    

You can find any recording of The Staple Singers and it doesn’t matter if Mavis or Pops are singing lead, the blend of all the family members is equally up front. Sure, there were star leads like Mavis, Sam Cooke, and Ira Tucker who commanded the deserved attention of the public, but by and large when you saw these groups perform, all the singers formed a line across the front of the stage. All for one. One for all.

It bothers me when I see harmony singers delegated to the back of the stage on a dimly lit platform, almost like they’re not supposed to be seen, just heard. It further bothers me when a white artist is singing at the front of that stage, basking in a spot light while a row of black singers is standing on that dimly lit platform in back. To me that seems eerily reminiscent of Jim Crow and it’s all too common still. On my stage, we stand together at the front, just like the greats of the past. If it was good enough for The Jackson Southernaires, it’s good enough for me. In “Tide Of Life” I had the opportunity to work with three incredible singers: Tamisha Waden, Chastity Brown, and Amelia Meath.  All three of these women have dynamic voices with character and range and power. I’m still learning about my own voice and its dynamics and range, but I love the process and I’m steadily getting better. The harmony part I sing isn’t the lead melody, it’s just the baritone. Chastity actually sings the melody line and Tamisha is on the second alto above her. Therefore, it wouldn’t make sense to mix my part louder at all because the balance of the chord would be off. I just made sure the blend was securely up front and even like in quartet music. I joke with my friends that I will inevitably be a choir director in a later chapter of my life, because I love thinking about harmony more than just about anything.

RLR: The gospel chorus ending of “Another Mother’s Son” leaves me tearful every damn time. I saw some pictures of the rehearsals coming together on instagram–could you just talk about the recording process for that song, and how it felt hearing it performed for the first time?

PC: Writing “Another Mother’s Son” with Kane Smego was a way for me to use whatever artistic platform I have to speak out about the systemic injustices that affect our communities of color.  We wanted to invoke empathy and invite more action and involvement from the silent sympathetic white majority, whom Dr. King felt were the largest obstacle to achieving meaningful racial equity, above the white supremacists he and his peers consistently faced in the marches.  I attempted to arrange the song so that the listener was taken on a journey from the comfort of their small familiar corner to another place that was unfamiliar but contained elements they could still connect with, like family and parenthood. This was done lyrically, verse by verse, panning out to a wider place where different stories are happening concurrently with the listener’s own.

 

Musically, the arrangement starts in more of a folk style with fingerpicking and mandolin and by the end it is in an entirely different stylistic world, although the fingerpicking and mandolin are still right there in the center. At the end, a big choir enters with a multitude of voices. The choir is unified and pleading the words “Everybody!” and “No More Bodies!” which are, in one sense, grammatical opposites. Conceptually, they are much heavier in the context of this story. I was scared while writing the words “No More Bodies” on paper. My hands were shaking and I had a lump in my throat, but that’s why I knew they had to be in the song. Sometimes our own biological reaction tells us the answer we seek.

In gospel music, the mass choir is an assembly of up to a hundred voices or more, capable of wielding a power that is at once both inviting and devastating. The mass choir can feel like everybody in the whole world singing at once, like a tidal wave, and we surrender.  We have no choice. That was my intention with the choir, to deliver an undeniable truth straight to the heart of the listener, like tidal wave.

The actual recording of the choir was one of my favorite moments of the whole record. I had tried to make some plans through a friend to work with a big gospel choir from Greensboro, North Carolina, but the scheduling was too difficult for the album’s timeline. So I called on Tamisha Waden, who is well connected and respected within several circles in Durham.  She pulled together four of her friends to come meet me and my engineer at The Hayti Heritage Center near downtown.  Hayti (pronounced HAY-tie) used to be a St. Joseph’s AME Zion Baptist Church in the heart of Durham’s historically black Hayti neighborhood. During the civil rights movement, important community meetings, teach-ins and speeches happened within its walls.  In the 70’s, Durham’s white city officials placed a large highway going through the center of the Hayti neighborhood and culturally destroyed it. The church is one of last remnants still standing from the old neighborhood and has since turned into a cultural center whose mission is to educate about African American issues, art and performance. It feels like a small Ryman Auditorium. On Monday January 15th, which was also Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, we assembled on the stage. We placed mics all over the sanctuary. It was late in the evening when we arrived and we only had two hours to set up, rehearse and capture the take. There was Joel Holloway, Ashley Brown, Sherry Ballentine, Liz Jackson, Tamisha and myself. Six voices are not a mass choir by any definition, but the singers gave it their full hearts and they sounded enormous. I will carry that memory with me for the rest of my days.  

RLR: This record really feels like an homage and you released a playlist of music that was “on the path” to People Are My Drug. In some ways, it feels like you’re leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for your fans. Do you remember that first experience you had with that chasing down artists because their song was on someone else record? To what extent is that part of your hope for this record–that people will dig into Allen Toussaint or Lloyd Woodward?

PC: When we dive deep into our curiosities and spend lots of time seeking out connections and details, patterns will start to emerge. Patterns are crucial to widening our understanding, but should not be mistaken for essence. The essence of a bird is not its feathers. The essence of math is not the numbers. The essence of carpentry is not the inches. The essence of Muddy Waters is not a flat third. Essence is harder to comprehend. It can be elusive. We can get lost in the patterns, trying to find the essence and I’m guilty as hell.  

 

Sometimes stepping back and allowing space and time is helpful. Do something else. My friend Frazey, who is a sage, quits music as a practice every few years and does something else for a while.  She says it’s necessary for her mental health. The last big endeavor was beekeeping. I admire that. I quit piano after 20 years of study when I finished college. I didn’t sail as far away as Frazey. I just bought a banjo. But that banjo was a stranger to me and I had to make if familiar somehow. I did it again few years after that with guitar. Each time, trying to turn the strange into familiar. It is clear now that this process has helped me understand that it is my own essence I was seeking, not the essence of the piano or the banjo. We need to keep seeking the strange in order to grow, it seems.

I have a philosophy to always remain transparent about who influences me and where I learn things. (I’m not a mysterious person. If I look confused, you bet your ass I am confused.) This practice is rooted in my career choice to dialogue with traditions that are not inherently my own.  I want to pass that inspiration on to someone else who can use it. I want to share that understanding with someone who needs it. My music has been molded and transformed by a long, long list of mostly black women and black men whose songs have helped me to sort out who I am. That is invaluable, as a human being experiencing and witnessing a life on earth. It matters to me these artists get credit, because the music industry has long exploited the genius of black artists in particular, but also artists in general. This is not news. This is a tireless pattern.  

Here’s an experiment. Try and quantify the impact of Aretha Franklin’s music on the lives of people here and everywhere around the world. For now, don’t think about the scope of her musical influence on other musical artists. Just, people. Do you have a song that’s been there with you when you were so low? Do you have a song that brings you tears of happiness, tears of feeling understood and seen? I hope you do. Music has always been there for me. Always. I think about how we need music to help us get through this life. I think about how much Aretha gave of herself.

Let’s continue the experiment a little further. Instead of the worldwide televised funeral that celebrated her life, what if you learned that Aretha had died alone and in poverty, malnourished and broken? It’s terrible to imagine and reeks of unfairness. Unfortunately, this is exactly how the lives of many pioneering jazz, soul, gospel and hip hop musicians end to this day.   Uncredited and unpaid. It’s not too late to give back some of that influence we’ve been given. There are programs, like Music Maker Relief Fund that give support and dignity to these aging innovators. There are still opportunities to see some of these treasures perform. Buy their tickets. Bring your friends and family. Shake their hand. Thank them.

RLR: Each time I have seen you live, you have talked explicitly about the obligation of the white community to have conversations about racial injustice in this country. But you do so in a way that some people working in anti-racism would deem “calling people in” to the work, as opposed to “calling people out” for being ignorant of how racism operates today. What were some powerful learning moments for you as an artist about how to use your platform?

PC: My parents were both crucial in the development of my empathy as a child. They believed in people and saw the best in them. This is also how all my grandparents were as well. My dad coached Special Olympics and worked as a geriatric nurse. He brought me around elderly people who were sick. He brought me around people with mental and physical disabilities. I’ve seen many people too afraid to get close to these populations, as if they’re going to catch “dying” or “retardation”. Not my dad. He showed me how not to be afraid. He went all in. He was funny. He made them laugh and feel seen. He saw the person beneath the condition. I remember once biking through the park as a family. Out of nowhere a boy from his Special Olympics team, who had Down Syndrome, ran so hard to hug my dad that he knocked him off his bike, tackled him to the ground, and kissed him on the cheek repeatedly. My dad, unfazed, laughed with him the whole time.  I think about that moment a lot.

My mom is a retired social worker who, for forty years, helped families with children born with special healthcare needs. Families that were thrown into a desperate way. She helped them to navigate mounds of medical bills, social security and adapting their homes and lives to their severely dependent child. I went with my mom to people’s homes. I held babies born with half a brain. I went with my mom to kids’ funerals. She brought me along to cancer relays and United Way fundraisers. I regularly overheard her council her friends and family members on the phone and home. I remember a grocery store trip where a mother who had been a previous client of my mom’s ran up and tearily hugged her so tightly, thanking her over and over, like thanking a superhero in the movies. She went in to people’s lives in a deep way. She wasn’t afraid.

I share all of this to say I am doing the minimum by using the microphone that stands before me each night to speak out about injustice and encourage empathy. There are people out there doing truly difficult work each and everyday to heal this broken system. I’m fortunate to have been offered glimpses of truth by the people who raised me. Truths about trusting the good in people and not being afraid of them. The strongest muscle in our bodies is our heart, they’ve been showing me that my whole life.

Phil Cook and The Guitarheels will be at The Sinclair on October 24 and you can get tickets here. Be there.