By David DeRocco

To make authentic music, a blues player must have lived through some pain, experienced some angst, made some mistakes, felt the cold sting of loss, loneliness and rejection, and perhaps, found redemption. There had to be some of that somewhere along  the way for Canada’s COLIN JAMES, a revered blues player who despite having recorded multiple blues albums, never made a Canadian blues chart until album #15 – 2016’s 13-song collection of classic blues covers called Blue Highways. More recently, Colin released the follow up to that collection, 2018’s Miles To Go, which finds him paying homage to his blues heroes with songs from Muddy Waters (Still A Fool), Arthur Crudup (Dig Myself A Hole), Blind Lemon Jefferson (See that My Grave Is Kept Clean), Charles Brown (Black Night) and Blind Willie Johnson (Soul of a Man). Along with two new James-penned originals, Miles To Go finds the Vancouver blues/rocker reaching for the mantel to once again establish his place as one of – if not the very best – blues players in Canada. (**The Album was awarded best blues album at the Junos March 17th). 

With his tour heading into Hamilton April 5^th, Colin took the time to chat with GoBeWeekly.com about his intense performance schedule, why some blues songs don’t work, and the very narrow programming tastes of radio.

GoBe: From St. Patrick’s Day March 17^th in Victoria until almost April 20^th in Halifax, you’re playing almost every night this tour – 24 shows in 31 nights. What do you do to mentally prepare for that kind of schedule.

COLIN: (laughing) Oh my god, when you say it like that! We try to space it out, three or four shows in a row, then maybe a day off, maybe two days. You do your best to try to foresee how that will be. I find when you’re out there, you just have enough time to grab a little sleep, then wake up and do it all over again.

GoBe: Are there any “must have” things for you while you’re touring like that

COLIN: I fly a fair amount, so I don’t really tour on the bus as much as the other guys. I tend to fly in so that tends to allow you to have a bit more of a sleep in, so that can work in your favour. Other than that, you try to stay in shape any way you can on the road. I’ve become a complete insomniac. What happens to me on the road, night is day and day is night. So it’s a little disconcerting. I don’t normally sleep until 7 or 8 in the morning. And I don’t wake up until 3 or 4 in the afternoon.

GoBe: That might explain the grey hair Colin.

COLIN: It’s like the only way to do it. When you’re leaving the venue after a show, you’re jumping on a bus 1 or 2 in them morning. You didn’t get there until 5 or 6. Either you sleep on the bus or you kind of half sleep when you get there. It’s a long story.

GoBe: The new release MILES TO GO is an apt analogy of the artistic journey you take every time you decide to put out an album. After all the effort of writing and recording, you still have the arduous task of touring to promote it. At this stage of your career, which do you enjoy most, and what seems most like work; the writing, recording, or the touring.

COLIN: It’s all work and it’s just different work. The getting ready for a record, whether it’s writing or just compiling, or just keeping lists. I’m a real list keeper. At any given time I’ll have a list of songs for another Little Big Band record, or a list of songs for another traditional blues record or a list of original song titles. It’s all work. Live is a special thing though because you get to do what you love to do. I’ve always played live but it’s rare when you can string as many shows in a row to where you can build up that strength in your hands again.

GoBe: The western leg of the leg began in March, I’ve seen you play in minus 40 at Ottawa’s Winterlude and minus 20 New Year’s Eve in the Falls. Are you playing any similar frost-fests outside this tour.

COLIN: No! (laughs). It’s right out of the cab, into the bus, into the hotel. We’re a little later than usual on this tour. Usually we’ve started the tour already and we’re in the worst of weather. I think hopefully we’ll be on the better side of that. One month can make all the difference. I’m hoping by the time we finish on the east coast it will be mild.

GoBe: You cover a lot of your favourite artists on MILES TO GO: Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters, Blind Willie Johnson, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, James Cotton, Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup. When you’re mining vaults with such rich veins, what are you looking for. Why did these songs resonate and make it to the album.

COLIN: There’s all kinds of songs you like, then there’s all kinds of songs that will either sound good if you try to do them or they don’t. You may love them to death, but they’re just not good in your hands. With these records, we try to over-record, so there’s a fair amount of material there. Then you can go, I’m not doing this song any favours, this isn’t good for my voice or whatever. You just pick the ones you love. Having said that, I’ve done three Little Big Band records, the National Steel acoustic blues record, two traditional blues records now. There’s only so much material out there, a finite amount of material to mine. So a lot of these songs…for example, on this record I finally do “Black Night Is Falling.” I’ve been doing “Black Night” going back to when I was 18 years old off and on. I just never had it show up on a record. A lot of these songs I just had in my data bank.

GoBe: There’s also a couple great originals on the album, “I Will Remain” and “40 Light Years.” I listened to “I Will Remain” and thought ‘that makes me think of Robert Cray.’ Then I listened a few more times and I felt I was doing you a disservice, because I thought ‘actually, it sounds like Colin James.’ You’ve certainly got a blues sound of your own.

COLIN: A lot of these formats are pretty traditional formats. “I Will Remain” is kind of in that minor Albert King BB King “As The Years Go Passing” kind of groove. I know what you mean about Robert Cray though, it kind of occurred to me while singing it. I think it’s in the second verse. At the end of the day, I was just trying to write a good song. It took forever to get the wording for the second verse right. It just bugged me. I’d be sitting there having breakfast with my wife, trying to rhyme different words. It’s just amazing how a little word in the wrong place can ruin a song or, conversely, make a song. Sometimes on sticky words you just have to let three months go by.

GoBe: There was a time in rock radio when you could hear Colin James, David Gogo, Stevie Ray Vaughn and other rockin’ blues artists along with the Beatles, Stones and Zeppelin. People keep saying rock is dead. Do you think a lot of that sentiment is because rock music has strayed so far from its blues roots.

COLIN: I think that, and also people got very compartmentalized. People got into their camps. Radio really broke off into camps. This is a country camp, this is a rock camp. I think it was a much more wild west before where you could hear two very different things on the same radio station, and that was good. Unfortunately, when everyones listening to one thing they’re not listening at all to the other and it puts everyone in different worlds.

GoBe: Here in St. Catharines, there’s very little life rock, but every Saturday there’s three Saturday afternoon blues programs that keep jamming people in and the audiences are diverse. Do find you’re there’s a broader diversity of ages in your audience these days.

COLIN: I think you always get an element of that as you age in the business, because when you started out people were your age, 20 something. As time goes by, they grow up with you, then they have the kids. Those kids, they drag them to your show. When those kids are 18 they come up to you and say ‘I saw you for the first time when I was 12.’ That’s cool, it’s nice.

GoBe: Well, you’re certainly used to seeing a broad age demo in your audience, given the fact you’ve played for Queen Elizabeth.

COLIN: I couldn’t believe it either. It was the big centennial of Saskatchewan, in Saskatoon. They picked a song to play with the Regina Symphony, a beautiful symphony arrangement. But the song itself was a very dark song of mine called “Misplaced Heart,” just the oddest song to be singing for the Queen. I remember looking across the room and there she is, in the chair with Phillip. She seemed to enjoy it. She shook my hand and came up on the stage.

GoBe: It’s been 31 years since the release of your self-titled debut. You’ve had so many experience, released so many albums, won all kinds of awards. When you look back over that period, what jumps out most as something that makes you go, ‘wow, I can’t believe that happened.’

COLIN: I couldn’t single one out. The first time I got to sit down and have drinks with Mavis Staples, which lead on to her performing with me on the Rita McNeil show and on my song “Freedom.” I listened to her when I was 3 or 4 years old. To get to know Mavis throughout her life know and call her a friend is fantastic. I was lucky enough to meet a love of my heroes, like Albert Collings and Stevie Ray, Pops Staples, Buddy Guy. It’s funny, I’m playing a show with Buddy in July. We’ve been doing shows off and on now for 30 years. The first time was on a double bill in the late 80’s, here we are playing a double bill at a jazz festival in Montreal.

GoBe: I was surprised to learn that Blue Highways, the album previous to Miles To Go, what your first album to reach Canadian blues charts. How is that even possible.

COLIN: Well, I used to wonder why I wasn’t even considered for the blues charts. I think it was because right off the bat there was this kind of rock thing as well as the Little Big Band. There were two other albums that were more pop rock. I think for some reason in my case it kind of negated anyone taking the blues side of it seriously. That included all the Little Big Band albums that never made any of the blues charts, which seems insane now considering they sold 300,000 plus copies in Canada and more internationally.

GoBe: You hit Hamilton mid-tour. What’s in store for Colin James fans when you hit the Hammer.

COLIN: Exactly what you see is what you get. The whole band is what’s on both records to a tee. Steve Marriner from MonkeyJunk is going to be playing at every show. We have my core band with a big Hamilton influence, with Jesse O’Brien from Hamilton on keys, Steve Pelletier on bass from Hamilton. There’s a real eastern contingent. We’re also carrying a horn player.

GoBe: Last question: what’s the best part of being Colin James right now.

COLIN: You know, I had two kids. They’re 20 and 23 now. Nice to see them happy and doing well. That’s it man. Making records and doing what I love, playing with this band. I love the group I’ve got right now.