Alvin Youngblood Hart
Barry Middleton (BM) Interview with Alvin Youngblood Hart (Alvin) - July 2010
BM: What was the first gig that you played?
Alvin: That was a high school drama club cast party (I was not in the drama club) I was 16. It was 1979, height of the disco era. We played the couple of Thin Lizzy songs we knew. They hated us..
BM: What were your first experiences of the Blues?
Alvin: Well, I guess what you need to realize is that it wasn't something foreign to us as kids . There's no real defining moment. It was something our parents listened to ,their parents ,etc.
My family history in what has become the State of Mississippi goes back to before the Spaniards landed there, so it's in our blood....
BM: Who were the influences on your musical career?
Alvin: Everyone from James Brown to the James Gang
Henry Townsend to Humble Pie, Phil Lynott, Jimmy Page, Howlin’ Wolf...all the greats
BM: Does singing the Blues come from experience?
Alvin: I suppose doing ANYTHING well, comes from experience....practice
BM: You are known as a non conformist to the blues, but you have been carving a career in this genre of music for well over 15 years what do you put this down to?
Alvin: No, I have been carving a career in MUSIC for the last 15+ years. I put THAT down to determination. That genre nonsense is just something assigned by the music business and the segregationist society from which I come from
BM: What other styles of music have you drawn inspiration from?
Alvin: Are you serious .....?
BM: You spend a lot of your time now playing with jazz musicians; do the same jazz musicians ever want to play the blues in your bands?
Alvin: It's all about musicians makin’ music, not about jazz, blues, klezmer or nothin’ !
BM: You obviously believe that Blues needs to evolve to stay relevant, is this the advice you would pass on to up & coming blues artists?
Alvin: Me, I couldn’t care less about "the blues" and all that . People are way too concerned about perceived genres and not about makin' good music
BM: Aims for the future and what do you hope to achieve within the Blues?
Alvin: I just play music, the way it comes out of me ,blues or no blues and will likely continue to do so
BM: Why do you feel that young people are not as attracted to the Blues as other Genres?
Alvin: When I was a kid , Freddie King was something waaay out there for a kid of my generation. I suppose it had an outlaw/cool appeal. Blues societies and such have made it way too academic, scared the kids off....
BM: How would you like to see music industry change over the next 10 years?
Alvin: Me personally, I could use a raise
BM: If you wasn’t a musician (in a band) what would you be doing?
Alvin: Before I was a musician I was a great athlete, Baseball & (American) Football. But I'd be retired from that now. Rodeo Cowboy, too old for that too. I probably would've retired from the US Coast Guard, where I served 7 years as an electronics technician. Probably be fixing Marshalls more often than I do now
BM: You are a singer/songwriter. What drives your song-writing?
Alvin: As a kid, I wanted to be a guitar player, but when you grow up ,to participate in the music business, you have to become a songwriter. I enjoy it when it flows
BM: If you had the opportunity to play with any artist dead or alive live on stage who would it be?
Alvin: STEVE MARRIOTT
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