{"id":66925,"date":"2013-07-19T13:42:39","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T17:42:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=66925"},"modified":"2020-08-06T14:17:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-06T18:17:59","slug":"concerts-on-the-quad-corey-harris-blues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/2013\/07\/19\/concerts-on-the-quad-corey-harris-blues\/","title":{"rendered":"Felt like coming home as Corey Harris &#8217;91 offers blues gold on the Quad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Blues in the night is no fun. But blues in the evening can be a very good time indeed, as proven July 18 by musician Corey Harris &#8217;91.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/70643238\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Harris visited Bates to kick off the college&#8217;s brand-new Concerts on the Quad summer music series, dedicated to the blues in all its myriad forms.<\/p>\n<p>The setting was the front porch of Coram Library, where the public presentations usually involve academic regalia, sunshine and some degree of heat.<\/p>\n<p>Spotlighted by the last rays of the setting sun, Harris skipped the cap and gown but generated plenty of musical heat with an 80-minute set given largely to country blues.<\/p>\n<p>Bates President Clayton Spencer introduced Harris. A casual Spencer, obviously pleased to be presenting the musician, had some fun with her introduction. Describing Harris as &#8220;a brilliant musician and Bates alumnus,&#8221; she added, &#8220;I love having those two things in the same sentence.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_66937\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0246.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66937\" class=\"size-large wp-image-66937\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0246-600x400.jpg\" alt=\"What makes the country blues aesthetic so cool, writes Doug Hubley, &quot;is how big, complex and captivating a sound one player can wring from one guitar.&quot; Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0246-600x400.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0246-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0246.jpg 1080w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-66937\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">What makes the country blues aesthetic so cool, writes Doug Hubley, &#8220;is how big, complex and captivating a sound one player can wring from one guitar.&#8221; Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>She also offered a helpful amendment to his career bio, indicating that the &#8220;old Quad&#8221; should be added to his impressive list of career venues. Speaking of which, Harris came to Bates fresh from a short Maine tour that brought him to the highly regarded Stone Mountain Arts Center, Brownfield, and Rockland&#8217;s North Atlantic Blues Festival.<\/p>\n<p>As Harris recently told a <em>Portland Press Herald<\/em> reporter, &#8220;I think roots music is a good name for what I do, because I play the whole tree, you know?&#8221; His Bates show did reflect his wide interests within music of the African diaspora, sparkling with sounds of the Caribbean, West Africa and Memphis R&amp;B.<\/p>\n<p>But blues, and really the acoustic country blues of the Deep South, was the heart of the show &#8212; perhaps necessarily, since additional musicians are often integral to Harris&#8217; ventures into other genres. In fact, the country blues aesthetic rests in part on the notion of solo performance: What makes it so cool is how big, complex and captivating a sound one player can wring from one guitar.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Crackling energy and fresh invention into the old Delta playbook.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Harris showed complete command in that realm. Switching between fretted acoustic guitar and a wooden resonator instrument played with a slide, he dazzled his audience with moves that infused crackling energy and fresh invention into the old Delta playbook. Late in the show, he revealed different facets of his virtuosity with a few instrumentals that explored &#8220;prettier&#8221; precincts of the musical scale.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_67529\" style=\"width: 610px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-67529\" class=\"size-large wp-image-67529\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005-600x375.jpg\" alt=\"Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005\" width=\"600\" height=\"375\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005-600x375.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005-300x187.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/Slider_130718_Corey_Harris_Sound_Check_0005.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 600px) 100vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-67529\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">As Corey Harris recently told a Portland Press Herald reporter, &#8220;I think roots music is a good name for what I do, because I play the whole tree, you know?&#8221; Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">As a singer, Harris was equally fluent and rangy, moving easily from deep growl to plaintive wail and creating vocal personas to suit a shifting panoply of characters and points of view.<\/p>\n<p>The singer drew heavily on his latest album, this year&#8217;s <em>Fulton Blues<\/em>, whose overall theme is the destruction of Fulton, a middle-class, historically black neighborhood that fell victim to &#8220;urban renewal&#8221; planning in the 1970s in Richmond, Va. Selections included the title number and &#8220;Lynch Blues,&#8221; which was especially compelling.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Blues is about laughing just to keep from crying, right?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>But Harris ranged all over his catalog. He looked all the way back to his 1995 debut, <em>Between Midnight and Day<\/em>, for &#8220;Pony Blues&#8221; and &#8220;61 Highway,&#8221; and touched down in the 2000s for the spirituals &#8220;Daily Bread&#8221; and &#8220;Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning.&#8221; There was humor, too (blues is about laughing just to keep from crying, right?), in songs like the rag &#8220;That Will Never Happen No More&#8221; and the classic double entendre &#8220;Diddy Wah Diddy,&#8221; which puts the blue in blues.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_67027\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-67027\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-67027\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048-200x300.jpg\" alt=\"web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048-400x600.jpg 400w, https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/files\/2013\/07\/web_130718_Corey_Harris_Concert_0048.jpg 720w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-67027\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Coram Library made a nice concert stage. Photograph by Phyllis Graber Jensen\/Bates College.<\/p><\/div>\n<p>For this writer, there were two particular standouts in an overall strong performance: the reggae-flavored &#8220;Watching You,&#8221; a Harris composition about technology and surveillance that got even edgier with the recent news about National Security Agency activities; and an excellent cover of Skip James&#8217; haunting &#8220;Devil Got My Woman.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Quad audience, numbering about 100, blended young families &#8212; &#8220;there&#8217;s my opening act,&#8221; Harris said as two little girls raced back and forth in front of him &#8212; and folks who&#8217;d been around for the great rediscovery of the blues in the 1960s and &#8217;70s.<\/p>\n<p>Bates staff and faculty were well-represented, among them members of the faculty in anthropology, Harris&#8217; major.<\/p>\n<p>Rain started to fall along with the night a little before 8 o&#8217;clock, and after a generous set that numbered nearly two dozen songs, Harris wrapped up the evening with a short and sweet &#8220;Pony Blues.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Held at 6:30 p.m. Thursdays, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/?p=65921\">Concerts on the Quad<\/a> continue Aug. 1 with Portland artist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/samuel-james-concerts-on-quad-blues\/\">Samuel James<\/a> and conclude Aug. 15 with Bates favorite <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/concerts-on-quad-blues-francine-reed\/\">Francine Reed<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Blues in the night is no fun. But blues in the evening can be a very good time indeed, as proven by musician Corey Harris &#8217;91.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":105,"featured_media":66937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"categories":[7,11010,133,11009],"tags":[10769,9947,2594,6135,6889,11041,9087],"class_list":["post-66925","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-arts","category-creativity","category-the-college","tag-anthropology","tag-concerts-on-the-quad","tag-corey-harris","tag-music-tag","tag-performing-and-visual-arts","tag-summer-at-bates","tag-visual-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66925","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/105"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66925"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134956,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66925\/revisions\/134956"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66925"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66925"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}