On occasion I look back, considering my own life and times. I recently stumbled upon the following interview my dear friend Jon Trott did with me in 2001- the year GKB (Glenn Kaiser Band) released our first project "Winter Sun". At the very end (labled "GK Comments- in December, 2024") is my thinking on key elements of my views then and now. NOTE: this is a long one, we covered a LOT of ground regarding the Blues, Scripture, Worship and reality in the world as most people see it, well, my view in any case. And as always, thanks for stopping by! -Glenn
Glenn Kaiser and The Blues
by Jon Trott
Glenn Kaiser is my pastor, my friend, my "geek buddy" regarding Linux, and the guy who lives three doors down the hall. He also happens to be one of Christian rock's elder statesmen, a musician whose talents wrap around folk, R & B, rock, and the blues with equal intensity. Glenn has rarely talked in-depth about his roots in the blues, so with the release of his raw, blues-rock influenced Winter Sun, it seemed like a good time to ask him.
Less than a day after completing the interview, in which Glenn tells a story about helping a drunken man on the street who'd fallen down, I too had that opportunity; who knows if it was the same man or not. It certainly was reality.
Let's talk about your newest, Winter Sun. Listening to it forcefully reminded me of where your musical roots lie: the blues.
GK- You're right. And those roots are very much African American on a lot of levels. I first paid attention to music, I suppose, because of Elvis Presley. My older brother and sister had his albums and 45s. I was around six years old. I got a guitar when I was twelve. The very first band I was involved with did soul music, the R & B stuff: "Knock On Wood" and "Shotgun"
by Junior Walker and the Allstars, "When a Man Loves a Woman" by Percy Sledge, all that kind of stuff. It was a rockier approach to those songs; if we could have had a horn section, we woulda done it. We covered early Rolling Stones stuff, and again their whole approach came out of that blues/black music tradition.
If you're a musician who wants to get into the essence of a particular style or sub-genre, you just keep on digging and digging. My nature goes for "Let's deal with the dirt and the reality; let's blow off the pretension."
And the people you really like, "Where did they get that from?" The Stones, even bands like the Kinks, took me away from the pure melodic end to a more rhythmic thing.
All of the roots, as we started digging through Jeff Beck and all these people, what were they listening to? They were listening to Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters and B. B. King, and . . . well, all three of the Kings: B. B. and Albert and Freddy King. You keep going and you end up with people like Son House and Tampa Red and, finally, Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson and Robert Johnson of course. You start hearing elements of gospel in the lyrics. But that sort of guttural earthy lyrical commentary, and every little scratch and scrape on the strings, every little pop on the wood of the guitar: all of that was attractive, even what might be considered "mistakes." There's an element of reality and integrity about that music.
JT- In Winter Sun you deal a lot with your childhood in Wisconsin.
GK- From the ages of five to nine, I remember living in an abandoned cheese
factory that we converted to a house. A nice farmer and his wife who owned the property let us live there. Later, we moved to a farmhouse near Fox Lake, which was nice because there was hunting and fishing and picking berries, bartering and trading a certain amount of work for food. Between that and welfare, that's how we lived.
In the winter, I oftentimes went to bed with all my clothes on, two pair of socks, long underwear and jeans, and two or even three quilts. We'd buy quilts at St. Vincent DePaul, or my mom would put more stuffing in the ones we had.
I'd sit on the couch in the morning. My folks would stoke up the little pot-bellied stove, and I'd stand by that for a while. They'd give us hot cocoa made from this USDA stuff; I'd sit there and look out the window. It was beautiful. There were huge snow drifts and icicles hanging down. The sun came in on my face and warmed me. It was freezing cold outside, but finally, I'd be warm.
And that's the imagery of the song "Winter Sun," being separated from God, feeling like ice literally ran through my veins. I could get so cold in the wintertime. And the symbolism there is that the Holy Spirit warms my soul, warms my heart, warms my life. Life didn't make a lot of sense until I met Jesus. It really didn't. When Hendrix said, "There ain't no life nowhere," I mean, those were the truest words I heard until I heard Jesus' words about things.
JT- Hendrix. There's a blues influence. How influential was he for you?
GK- You remember the old TV show One Step Beyond? There were five of us in an R & B band called Five Steps Beyond. (And by the end of that band we were all five steps beyond from doing so much dope.) But the drummer in that band was a good friend of mine who lived a couple blocks away. He said, "I found this album, and you won't believe it."
The album was Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced? (their first album). He dropped the needle on the first cut and kept playing it. He finished the side, and all I said was, "Turn it over." That's all I said for the next two hours. It was that astonishing to me, as a singer but especially as a guitarist and songwriter, to hear sonically what Hendrix did with blues and rhythm & blues and soul and rock.
Between the ages of sixteen and eighteen, I was in a half-dozen bands, but always, always, the fundamental thing was the blues. What we were doing was heavy metal or hard rock or psychedelic "acid" rock, but everybody did at least one or two blues tunes during their set. That really drew me. Then I discovered a guy named Rory Gallagher. Rory died several years back now; he was a white Irishman who a lot of people compared to Johnny Winter. I'd gotten real into Johnny Winter. Rory had this melodic thing, but he had this real fast, intense guitar style, loved the blues. You almost always had three-piece bands. After a while I started a three piece and began playing around with slide guitar a little bit.
Then, I became a Christian. Between all the dope and three excruciating nightmare trips and trying to kill myself da da da da da . . . I was by myself in the house one night. I hadn't been doing dope for a while; I was trying really hard to get straight and get my life together.
But I was completely down, totally bummed out. God made it really clear that night that He was speaking to me. It was really freaky; I couldn't control it. I let go finally and said, "Who are you?" "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son . . ." (John 3:16). After all those years. Some sweet little Lutheran ladies had taken me to vacation Bible school. I'd been maybe six when I memorized that verse, so here I was just about eighteen. And I broke down and asked Jesus into my life on the spot. I started changing the lyrics to my songs, finally quit the band, and started doing folk singing. Somebody turned me on to Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Willie Johnson-here were people that were putting gospel lyrics straight across this real raunchy, earthy acoustic blues vibe. Those were all elements that affected me as a kid, as a listener, as a player, even as a singer.
JT- The blues seem to be a lot about suffering and loss, things like that. There's a triumphant note in the gospel that quite a lot of Christian music tends to focus on. How do you perceive the blues as related to the gospel?
GK- There is a triumphant note in the gospel because in the end we win; Jesus won, we win in light of His winning. But there's something in the blues that is extremely real; there's a lot of integrity in blues lyricism that comes down to "This is the way it IS," capital "I" capital "S". That completely dovetails with the gospel of Jesus. It's not so much about perception as it is about honest-to-goodness reality, the real deal. To me there's a complete connection there. The other side: There's something about the blues that is completely relaxed, take off your shoes, and (unfortunately) belly up to the bar-there's something very familial about the blues. There's a sense of neighborhood, "We're together in this thing." We understand that things go haywire, sometimes the baby does leave me, we have these problems. People get sick and people get the boot put on their car. It's not trying to escape.
Now there's an extreme triumphalism in certain gospel teaching and preaching that denies hardship and struggle and pain. The biggest category of lyrics in the Book of Psalms is psalms of lament, 57 out of 150. So the lyrics of the Bible, from David and the sons of Asaph and the other psalmists, are real and honest and earthy. The Scriptures give serious credence to the integrity factor of struggle and suffering and the pain in life. To me, there's a connection between the writing in the Book of Psalms and a lot of secular blues, in the sense that "this is the way things are." The stories that blues tunes tell are honest stories. People admit their urge and their desire and their pain and their struggle; they talk about injustice.
Blues originated, as you know, from the music and the songs of the slaves in the field, wanting deliverance from the "bonds of Egypt." To this day in the African American church, if there's a central focus that's going to come up again and again from the pulpit, it's Exodus. It's the deliverance of an oppressed people from Egypt by God's hand through Moses. And so there's that desire; we're saved but this whole thing has not yet played out. We are not yet in literal heaven, in the literal presence of the Father. Jesus is our Savior and our Deliverer, and the promised Messiah. He's our only hope. That tension is a great reality, and I'm afraid that sometimes this triumphalism can be taken to the extreme, where people don't talk honestly about their pain, their struggle, their need. God doesn't always say "yes" to your prayers. He doesn't always do things according to your timetable. He doesn't always jump through your hoops. You don't just leverage God and throw a bunch of verses up in His face and demand He does what you want Him to do. God is God is God.
In the blues, there is an honesty and integrity that needs to show up in our hymns and choruses. Often that reality is lacking. Where are the new worship choruses that talk about the struggle and the pain of life? Most modern choruses don't. Yet that is a huge part of oppressed peoples' experience, including African American, Native American, and other minority peoples. You hear more about that struggle in the blues than you'll ever hear about it in Christian praise and worship choruses.
That integrity factor to me is real, real central, and when it is lacking in gospel music . . . and of course the light of Jesus is lacking in secular blues lyricism . . . can't we bring these two together? I think we can, and I pray by God's grace that's what my music reflects.
JT- I once was with a BBC reporter interviewing the blues and gospel legend Thomas Dorsey over on Chicago's South Side. Dorsey was talking about how the blues were frowned on by the holiness folks, how he'd felt uneasy playing blues after he got saved. It raises an interesting issue in light of what you were just talking about. You're trying to harmonize holiness and grittiness, if I can put it that way, or holiness and reality. And for some reason, a lot of the church sees a mutual contradiction there. God is so perfect-not sterile-how do you use human words to talk about this?
GK- He's perfect, sinless, pure, faultless, spotless-Jesus' face shines like the sun! Holiness Christians, if they're really biblical, are centering on the nature of God.
What the holiness Christians thought about the blues was simple: the blues is about sex, lost love and really lost lust, bump and grind. You read the histories, Leroi Jones and all the rest, and there's tons of people who tried to maintain a career by going into both the storefront churches and the sawdust trail (Pentecostal tents) and ministering those sorts of songs lyrically, but at the same time doing secular blues gigs. A number of artists released recordings under two different names. The one was Brother So-and-so, aimed at the gospel side of the black church. The other was out there for the people in the clubs, doing blues. But the essence of what I think made sense was Rev. Gary Davis and Blind Willie Johnson. Though I'm sure these guys weren't faultless or sinless, either.
The sound of the music, apart from the lyrics, to me is simply not a biblical issue. There's no way on earth that you'll find music historians backing the idea that all the music of the Jews in the Old Testament was in "major" scales and keys. There's no way around those "minor" chords: the fall, pain, the veil of tears we live in. So in my mind if you're going for integrity you sooner or later default to a few things. One of those things for me is the blues. It's not just a matter of liking the sound of it, liking the feel of it, liking to sing and play it or write in that style.
But all roads lead to integrity if you're a person of integrity and that is what you're seeking.
I understand why holiness people didn't want anything to do with the blues, but to me it makes complete sense that more and more people would be dealing with minor chords and blues idioms. Some of the most powerful stuff I've heard in the past thirty to forty years has to do with what I'm talking about now. It's not all "up with people" antiseptic, everybody's ship is coming in, everybody gets a split level in the suburbs and lives happily ever after with a Mercedes, a parakeet, an afghan, and three kids who are squeaky clean. That's not reality and we all know it isn't. I'm saying let's write and do music and lyrics that speak to the real world.
John the Baptist and Jesus, in my opinion, had either of them been musicians, would have certainly struck on the blues, some pretty edgy blues, if they'd lived in the good ol' US of A. I think sooner or later you would have heard that coming out of them. I really believe it. See, I don't think you can separate being an authentic Christian from being a biblical Christian. In fact, the truth is, the more authentic you are in Christ as a believer, the more biblical you're going to be.
JT- Your tune "On My Dyin' Bed" strikes me as possibly the most authentic total blues song you've ever written. It sounds like something Blind Willie could have done. What inspired it?
GK- Classic blues, delta blues, acoustic blues will talk about death. The end. The inevitability. One, of course, is dying. You may be able to cheat the IRS but you can't cheat death. Naturally, if you're dealing with gospel blues, Blind Willie Johnson, Rev. Gary Davis, Rev. Dan Smith, everybody does songs that talk about death. In reality, it's only a matter of time for all of us, and the only question is: Are you ready, or are you not? That song is about as far as I've been able to project it.
One thing that's frightening to people is the element of the unknown; What happens? I heard again, on a talk show the other night, a lot of discussion on "near death experiences." I fully expect that everything we've read and believed and lived with in regard to the Scriptures, it's all going to come to pass. We'll see the Lord's face and give an account for our lives.
Because of what Jesus has done, and a faith given me as a gift, I'm at peace. "On My Dyin' Bed" is a prayer and an affirmation of how things are going to be for those who love Jesus.
JT- And there is something very classic delta blues about it.
How do you think your experience of living in community, the intentional community of JPUSA you're involved in, affects your understanding of suffering and even of the blues?
GK- We live in an inner-city area for one thing. It's geographics. I walked out the front door yesterday, and a guy had fallen. He was out of it, drunk, hadn't shaved in a few days. A mess. And I helped pick him up and get him back on his feet. He didn't say more than a couple words; I don't know if he was sober enough to make sense anyway. And he had false teeth, which were out-that's probably part of the reason he wasn't saying much. Finally there was nothing else to do but offer to help him sit down again, lest he fall down again and really hurt himself. There were some cops a couple yards away talking to someone else, and they even offered to drive him to detox, where he could dry out a little and get off the street. He didn't want to go. I gave him a few suggestions. And I told him, "You don't have to live this way. I know you've heard the gospel before. But Jesus really does love you, He's real." All we could do was try to show him kindness and love and pray for him.
So that's where we live geographically. But also there's the issue of community, Jesus People USA. I live with three hundred or so adults and a couple hundred kids. Along with that are the seniors we care for and the youth groups coming in from all over the U.S. and Canada, plus the folks who count us their church home on Sundays. I love people, and I'm inundated with real human interest stories. Part of the reason we exist is to take in bitter, hurt, messed-up people, and the bottom-line is that these fringe people-some younger, some older, and some married couples-live here with us full time. You want to talk about the pain and struggle and dark-side horror stories of life, the reality of the human condition, many of us have been there and still struggle with the consequences.
I think living in community for me, well, it's God's calling on my life, but another plus is I'm more affirmed than I could be anywhere else in what I do and how I go about it. I get a lot of iron sharpening iron from my brothers and sisters in Christ. As a person, as a pastor, as a musician, as a lyricist, as a speaker, I get lots of feedback. And it isn't all positive. But it's feedback I need to hear. I also get to see how my lyrics or my words, my life and my actions, really affect others. And I see it up close and personal, and I see it just about every day. Living like this, and for me it's been about three decades, I'm being schooled big-time in humanity and the reality of the world. And in some cases, the down side of life.
We see a lot of success stories; people get healed and really changed, and truly become spiritual and productive people. They're not just focused on themselves and their pain. They really are able to reach out and help others because they were helped. That's exactly what happened to me. "God sets the solitary in families." But there also have been JPUSA members who ultimately experience us as only the start of their story. As these folks leave JPUSA, our prayer and expectation is that they will continue to grow in Christ to their full potential. We're obviously no be-all, end-all answer for every person.
I said before that the blues has a familial feeling, a neighborhood vibe. Yet there's one thing lacking, a koinonia element you don't hear in secular blues. I feel it's in my life, and hopefully in my blues, because of living in community. The reality of intimacy yet purity in human relationships is humongous for me because of the people I serve with and live with. We a,re both messed-up and stubborn folks as well as teachable and humble people.
There are countless ways I have to eat my lyrics. So what? But living where I do and as I do with the people I do seriously influences my understanding of the blues. Again, the authenticity for me probably comes from growing up the way I did. But that could have been left far behind. I could have found a way to bury my childhood hurts and pain. Instead, I'm in a situation here that forces me-forces me-to deal with my own poverty and my own lack. Sounds like blues to me.
--
"This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness . . . they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die." - Soren Kierkegaard
--
Jon Trott
GK Comments- Dec.- 2024
As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I often re-check my words spoken or written, old interviews, live shows and rarely my recordings to re-think and critique them years later. Most of the time I still think the same but of course things change over the years and this piece is as I write is 23 years past.
Some of the changes are in my personal opinion, that CCM seems to many, often myself as well, as a rather stagnant pool with occasional worship groups and bands actually writing with an edge, more grit and honesty in the lyrics and less hype for radio play, massive record sales and a watered-down musical approach that often due to many factors effectively "circles the wagons" and does little to bring those outside the faith to Jesus. Some are willing to work in minority status in order to actually reach people and not merely entertain believers. Some worship songs -though extremely few genuine blues as such, do speak to hurts, pains and disillusionment. In the current world we truly need more.
The political climate has become so intensely partisan, full of rage and trash-talk it's no wonder the justice element in both God's Word and among Christian worship writers and groups much less other professing Christ-following musicians is only a very little bit more noted than it was over 20 years ago. But it's a sad statement about spiritual maturity, about boots-on-ground spirituality among the churches for me to write what I just did here!
The sun has never constantly shone nor rain forever fallen but we still live in imperfect worlds- both Christian and non -while on this earth. Is that reflected in the lyrics of our songs brothers and sisters? It is most certainly stated loud and clear from Genesis to Revelation!
Blues is an experienced-based therapeutic music form -and I know several certified therapists who will affirm it as such. Some older bluesmen and women have said it's pretty amazing but reality that blues is often -not- sad, rather it often brings quite a bit of joy and release into happiness.
Jesus was and I'd say is "a man of sorrows, well acquainted with grief" and at the same time "because you (Jesus) loved righteousness and hated lawlessness therefore God your God has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your comrades." That very balance is in Him and one can often find it in blues lyrics and music itself.
Lastly, musicians who are adept at the genre may well relate to the biblical command to "weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice".
My wife and I live with appx. 150 every-day serving people in Chicago at Jesus People as we've done for many decades. People have come and gone, many move on and some have returned after a number of years. Nothing new under the sun but we continue to reach out inl relationships to one another here but also in the street and via our many ministries, largely via Cornerstone Community Outreach, one of the largest Chicago homeless shelters.
Myself and a number of musicians continue to record and do shows that give us opportunity to hopefully reflect a legit, viable witness to those "with ears to hear"- but sadly, not all will...
With so many struggles people deal with in this fallen world I am more convinced than ever that shared knowing, understanding and experiences are fertile ground for relationships of grace with others -and also between ourselves and God. If anyone understands blues, it's my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!
This over a century old music style keeps coming back around again as generations discover how they (sometimes with surprise) relate to it.
Truly: EVERYBODY understands the blues!
As always, thanks for stopping by. -Glenn
Comments