That old-style religon

By GRAHAM REID

Frankly I don't know how people do conference calls - all those faceless voices talking down the same wire. Sorry, now which one of you said that?

It's difficult enough talking to just Ben Harper and Jimmy Carter, one of the Blind Boys of Alabama, as they sit in a record company office in Los Angeles and we try to alternate and let each have his fair say about the album they have recorded together, There Will Be a Light.

It's an uplifting gospel-soul collection - and more musically muscular in places than some of Harper's recent outings - and that's what they want to talk about. So trying to get Harper to talk about his involvement in the Vote For Change concert series, which he is playing now in the United States, is impossible. It's back to the album, back to the album.

Fair enough, and at least on this conference call - it was originally a nightmare scenario with all three Blind Boys and Harper - I can tell the voices of the young guy from the old guy. Carter, at 72, sounds like sandpaper at the bottom of an old oak barrel and Harper is typically chipper, earnest and focused: "Today we are all super-excited to be talking about the record we just finished. It's been good."

Two voices, one common project.

Harper and the septuagenarian Blind Boys - all of whom are blind and have performed with everybody from the Houston Symphony to Tom Waits and Lou Reed - have worked together in the past. The Blind Boys recorded Harper's Give A Man A Home on their Spirit of the Century album and the following year Harper joined them for their Higher Ground album, both Grammy winners.

The Blind Boys make gospel hot and alive as much as deep and meaningful. Harper loves working with them, but this new album - his own songs, except for Bob Dylan's Well Well Well - was originally going to be just a couple of songs recorded in a few hours, "then we just steamrolled right on through", laughs Harper.

Carter: "Ben wrote most of the songs and what we like about his songs is he touches everybody, he's got the young people, the elderly people, all generations. What people don't understand is that Ben's roots are gospel, and so he knows what we like and what we can do, and he wrote exactly what he knew he could perform."

Harper: "They were songs I just had in my archive waiting for the right time and never has there been more of a right time than now with the Blind Boys. It's like having reggae music written that you could collaborate with Bob Marley on, it's at that exact same level. It's gospel music with Blind Boys and giving it the royal treatment.

"I knew just the ones that would fit and work and wouldn't get questioned at all. What's been great is there has been no ego and no fuss, I do it my way and the Blind Boys do it their way, and we meet in the middle. If they got a suggestion for me, cool. If I got one for them, cool."

"Oh yes," laughs Carter in a voice rattling huskily, which belies the purity of his singing style, "If we've got an input he lets us put it in, he's not hot-headed and is easy to get along with. We are a family."

And very much a musical family singing the same song: Harper's band the Innocent Criminals are on top form mixing and matching styles within the testifying music. The opener Take My Hand is a funky gospel workout with choppy wah-wah guitar. Elsewhere there's some Southern funk (Wicked Man), Sam Cooke-style soul (Where Could I Go), bayou swamp-blues with organ (Church House Steps) and the Band-like Picture of Jesus alongside a reworking of the gospel-blues classic Satisfied Mind.

This is spiritually uplifting music and, given the political climate in which we live, it sounds both timeless and timely. You cannot help wonder - given Harper's political persuasion - if this might be deliberate.

"Not at all, there was not even enough time in this process to think of anything other than the music," he says. "It's fantastic that it's a by-product of what we've got but we had eight days and it was all about the songs and the music, we didn't have time to think."

But gospel is timeless music anyway? "Amen to that."

And this music has sustained Carter and the Blind Boys - now down from five original members to three - all his long life. He laughs when referred to as elderly - "But I ain't old!" - and knows who to thank for his longevity.

"I trust God. God gives me my energy, God gives me my everything. I was brought up in a Christian home and my parents taught me about God and how Jesus died for us and that's why we will never do anything that is not gospel. Ben knows that, that's why he wrote all this gospel stuff. And God has been good to me, I can still move around and jump up, so I'm blessed."

Do you get out skateboarding with Ben then?

"I might," he laughs.

"Oh, come on," says a po-faced Harper perceiving a slight disrespect. But when Carter cackles away he joins in, "Believe me, if any of the felluhs could it would be Jimmy."

"You have to think positive," says Carter, and you will be around here a while. My health is good. I'm a diabetic now but I'm in good shape."

While there are no plans for a Harper/Blind Boys tour down this way you can expect Harper - who responds right back to a "kia ora" - to be back at any time.

"Without a doubt, it's my home away from home. I come down when I'm not playing. I spend more time there than you know. One of these days when you haven't heard of me for about five years just go down to Piha, that's where I will be. Do me a favour, when you are on the beach grab a handful of sand and throw it in the sea for me."

Done Ben. And the Vote for Change concert series with people such as Bruce Springsteen, the Dave Matthews Band, Pearl Jam, REM and many others? It seems to be gathering momentum in the final weeks before the November election.

"Yes, I believe it is. It's crucial time and crucial place and gives my voice a chance to be heard, and hopefully there will be a change for the better."

As the song says, a change is going to come? "Amen to that."