That hope infuses songs like “Whiskey for Everything” and “Wet a Line”, which celebrate being alive, while there are love songs to independent women such as “Bring Your Love On Home To Me,” and protest songs like “E Pluribus Unum” and “The Reckoning”. This is hard-won, looked into the abyss, came back wanting to play more music kind of hope.” Long answer-I bring to this album the appreciation for being alive, and the desire to share thoughts and songs and experiences with people with more experience, energy and hope than I have had in years. “Short answer-mortality, joy, and the path forward through the wreckage. So is love for this life, come what may,” he observes. (His Dad died in December 2020 on the 60th anniversary of his marriage to Lockett’s mother). The title cut is a goodbye letter to his mother who has end-stage Alzheimer’s. So it all gets stirred and simmered in the same gumbo pot.”Īt The Station focuses on a microcosm of Lockett’s world, the mortality of his parents. I bring home local instruments and sometimes rhythms and melodies, too. “I’ve worked on 5 continents thus far, and try to find local musicians to play with while I’m abroad. Lockett is an award-winning cinematographer, photographer and director whose day job requires a lot of travel. All have passed on now, but they were men of the Robert Johnson era of Mississippi Delta blues.” I was fortunate in my past career as a journalist and photojournalist to have spent some time with Honeyboy Edwards, Johnny Shines, and Robert Junior Lockwood. But something just clicks with blues harp for me. I can play that too, and enjoy a good lonesome cowboy harmonica warble. They played mostly straight harp Irish, British Isles, and Southern folk tunes. “My grandmother and step-grandfather taught me how to play when I was a kid. “Even though I only play harmonica on two tracks on this album, it’s far and away my strongest instrument,” he states. I even have a track on this album called ‘Blues for DeFord Bailey’”. “Elder Roma Wilson, Snooky Pryor, Sonny Terry, Jason Ricci, Adam Gussow, and DeFord Bailey-all very different players from each other. teacher.” Known for playing a variety of instruments that most people would not expect Kalimba, jaw harp, Appalachian dulcimer and blues harp, he cites several Harmonica players who have also influenced him. I’ve been listening to Emmylou, literally, my entire life. “No one who hears me would ever think that Nanci Griffith or Kate Wolf or Emmylou Harris are influences, but they are. With a low baritone voice that has some grit and gravel to it, Kris Kristofferson, Warren Zevon, and Tom Waits might first spring to mind as influences. The finished songs are definitely more listenable and drive pretty hard.” Drums, bass, re-record acoustic guitars, then vocals and other instruments. His whole process starts with having me sing and play a scratch track of vocals and guitar live to a click track, like I was playing a solo show. “Fernando is really good at working with singer-songwriters. In other words, Christopher Lockett has a gift for telling stories.Īt The Station is a 12-song story that pairs Lockett with producer Fernando Perdomo and mastering engineer Zach Ziskin for a second time. These songs have been described as “country for intellectuals…(written) in the style of classic artists like Steve Earle and Townes Van Zandt” (LA Music Critic), and noted as having “…insightful lyrics from a journalistic minded writer” (Turnstyled Junkpiled Magazine) and “…great lines in just about every song (No Depression), while he himself has been esteemed as a “substantial and soulful songwriter” (American Songwriter). “You only get that if you get to know me. “No one looks at me and says, “Yeah, that man…clearly a reader,” he jokes. Physically, Christopher Lockett is a fairly big guy who used to work as a bouncer, played sports in his youth, and can be imposing if he wants to.
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