BatesNow | 3/4/2008 | Roots musician Corey Harris '91 in residence: photos and video

"I like to meet people where they're at," says roots musician Corey Harris '91.

At the moment, it's late on the afternoon of Feb. 29, a few hours before his performance in the Olin Concert Hall, and Harris is talking about how he will teach his master class the next day.

But the quote also does a good job describing how Harris' week as a Bates learning associate played out. He met students and faculty, their ideas and disciplines, with nuanced expertise.

On Tuesday afternoon, for example, Harris joined the discussion in Professor of History Margaret Creighton's course "Regions and American Culture."

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There, he used his mastery of Delta blues to give insight into one part of Southern identity.

Actually, he let his guitar do the talking. "He showed us how blues technique varied across parts of the South, even demonstrating nuances between places only a hundred miles or so apart," says Creighton.

Praised as a blues revivalist in the '90s, Harris was already moving forward on an intellectual/musical excursion. "What I play is roots music," he said in 1997. "I'm grounded very heavily in blues but I let everything influence me from what I hear today to what I'm gonna hear to what I have heard. I try to be as open as I can."

Harris' noteworthy 2007 saw him receive an honorary Doctor of Music degree from Bates and a five-year, $500,000 "genius grant" from the MacArthur Foundation, which describes the artist as someone who "forges an adventurous path marked by deliberate eclecticism." Indeed, a glimpse at his touring schedule says it all: a banjo-based, roots-blues group performance at London's Barbican arts venue in late April followed by a reggae-tinged gig at the Lake Eden Arts Festival in North Carolina a few days later.

Harris calls his music "diaspora rock," and it's a passport of sorts. "I can travel with it," he says. Travel, but still feel at home. During his Bates residency, he spoke to students in an introductory course on the Francophone world. He shared ideas about how music offers a common worldwide language and common rhythms that, says Assistant Professor of French Alex Dauge-Roth, belies any notion of "foreign languages."

At Bates, Harris also made appearances in courses devoted to music, African American studies and anthropology. He participated in an Amandla! forum on "Why We Celebrate Black History Month" held in Frank's Lounge in the new student residence and attended an Africana Club reception and meeting in the Multicultural Center.

The ease with which Harris navigated classes, performances and discussions reflected more than just familiarity with campus walkways, however snowy. He knows the Bates mindset. "I had professors who were international in their outlook," he says. "That had an impact on me. As a student, I met different people from different parts of the world. It was nice to be in that mix."

Corey Harris, seen here with family and friends at his Commencement in 1991, graduated with high honors in anthropology. He received an honorary Doctor of Music in 2007 and returned to campus as a learning associate in late February 2008. Photograph by David Wilkinson.

In all, a dozen faculty members directly participated in his residency, which was proposed and organized by Associate Professor of Anthropology Elizabeth Eames, who in 1990-91 advised Harris' honors thesis examining pidgin and creole languages in Cameroon.

Coupled with the post-graduate Thomas J. Watson Fellowship that enabled Harris to travel and study in Cameroon in 1991–92, he has now won two of the country's most celebrated intellectual honors, each representing a complementary leg of his journey.

"The Watson represented an opportunity for me to educate myself about certain topics in Africa, like language and culture," he says. "I think the MacArthur is a recognition of my perseverance. It's gratifying."

In its seven years, the Bates learning associates program has brought to campus dozens of award-winning scholars, artists and experts in the humanities and social sciences to give students "real-world context for ideas and learning." Program funding has come from The Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation and the Andrew A. Mellon Foundation.