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Ball gets a kick out of the blues
BY L. KENT WOLGAMOTT
Thursday, Jul 29, 2004 - 06:26:45 pm CDT
Keep an eye on Marcia Ball's right foot when she sits down at the piano on the July Jamm stage Saturday night.
Folding her 6-foot-tall, thin frame onto the piano bench, Ball will cross her right leg over her left. Then she'll start kicking her foot to the music when the set begins, and it will serve as a built-in metronome for the rest of her dynamic set.
"Idon't remember when I started doing that," Ball said. "It just happened to come along so I could set the tempo, keep the beat and so I could have some motion up there rather than sitting still at the piano. I wear these dresses, so I'm not going to sit spraddle-legged like Jerry Lee Lewis and Fats Domino."
Arguably the best female live performer in blues/roots music, Ball is a great singer, seamlessly slipping from roaring roadhouse rock to heart-rending balladry. Plus she can really play.
Her references to The Killer and The Fat Man are appropriate. Ball fits right into that lineage of raucous, soul pianists, playing the New Orleans-style rhythms and stride piano with the best of them.
"I liked it from the minute I was aware of it," Ball said of the pumping piano sound. "I grew up in Louisiana, so there was always some of it - Fats Domino and Little Richard. But I was singing rock 'n' roll, country and blues before I got deeper into the New Orleans guys. I'd always liked Dr. John, and then there was Professor Longhair."
Ball got to see Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair, the father of the rolling, jumping New Orleans style, only one time. But his influence can be heard all over her music. He isn't the only source of inspiration for her spirited playing, however.
"It wasn't hard to figure out when I heard it what a wealth of musical information is in there,"she said in a telephone interview. "I continue to work it. You go backward and forward. You go back and discover Toots Washington, you go forward and guys like HarryConnick are playing it. All that has provided a full plate for me. It's a lot to learn and to keep alive."
Raised in a family whose female members all played piano, Ball grew up in the small town of Vinton, La., just across the border from Texas. She started taking piano lessons at age 5 and discovered the blues at 13.
But by the time she got to college at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1966, she was playing in a rock band called Gum.
Four years later, she graduated and headed west, aiming for San Francisco but winding up in Austin when her car broke down and she fell in love with the city.
There she became a key member of the city's progressive country movement, singing in Frida and the Fire Dogs before releasing a solo country record in 1978. By the early '80s, Ball had discovered 'Fess Longhair and the boys and was on her way to creating her gumbo of stride piano, Texas blues, GulfCoast balladry, Louisiana R&B and a little rock 'n' roll.
In the '80s and '90s, she released a half-dozen superb albums on Rounder Records, including the Grammy-nominated "Sing It!" in 1998, before signing with Chicago's Alligator Records in 2001. Her first AlligatorRelease, "Presumed Innocent," took home the W.C. Handy Award for Blues Album of the Year.
Her latest, the superb "So Many Rivers," won the Contemporary Blues Album of the Year award at the 2004 W.C. Handy Awards, and she was named Contemporary Blues Female Artist of the Year.
"With me, going from Rounder to Alligator has been a great professional move," Ball said. "I'm not faulting Rounder at all.They've supported many kinds of roots music all these years. Alligator is just pure blues.That's helped me a lot."
Having appeared on "Austin City Limits," a 1999 PBSspecial "InPerformance at the White House" and National Public Radio programs such as "Fresh Air" and "Piano Jazz," Ball is quick to credit public radio and television for helping to keep roots music and blues visible.
She's also a big fan of community stations like Lincoln's KZUM that play roots music, and of satellite radio, which provides several roots music channels for its listeners.
That exposure and a flowering of festivals like July Jamm that feature blues and R&B have helped to make up for the closing of blues clubs around the country and have given the music a boost. But she's far from pessimistic about the future of the blues.
"Blues as a general category has its ups and downs, but it's never shown signs of going away,"Ball said. "There's always a new generation coming along, and they want to go back and figure out where the music they're listening to comes from. As a style, blues will survive. Roots music is always going to be around."
Even though she's been playing for more than 30 years, Ball doesn't see herself as a trailblazer for women in music.
"Back in the old days, a lot depended on gender,"she said. "That even included radio airplay. In Austin, the local country station wouldn't play two women in a row, like women were novelty acts. But there were a lot of women who came before me, from Bonnie Raitt back to Bessie Smith. They made it easier for women to go play and headline shows.
"I could mention every woman I've ever listened to and admired. A lot of doors were opened when I got in by the other women. After that, it's how lucky and how hard you work."
Ball's worked hard, and it's paid off. She'll be working hard again Saturday night, pounding the keys, whipping her long, dark hair around as she belts out the songs and, of course, constantly kicking that right foot.
ReachL. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@;journalstar.com.
Schedule of events
Music, food and art will collide at 12th and N streets this weekend.
July Jamm kicks off at noon today with Big Daddy & Authorized Personnel. The two-day festival runs through Saturday and will feature 11 bands, a fireworks show and enough grilled food to feed an army.
Admission is $5 per person, with children 12 and under admitted free. Free admission is available today from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Here's a look at what is available.
Today
Noon - Big Daddy & Authorized Personnel
5 p.m. - Forty Twenty
7 p.m. - Back Porch Mary
9 p.m. - Disciples of Loud
10:30 p.m. - Fireworks show presented by TierOne Bank
11 p.m. - Joe Bonamassa
Saturday
Noon - Kusi Taki
1:30 p.m. - Farmer Jason
3 p.m. - Kris Lager Band
5 p.m. - 18 Wheeler
7 p.m. - The Killdares
9 p.m. - Boss Martians
11 p.m. - Marcia Ball
In addition to the music, July Jamm will feature a variety of vendors hawking every style of food under the sun. The vendors are:
Crawdaddy's Red Pepper Grill, The Margarita Man, Made 2 Grill, Dippin Dots, Famous Dave's, Bud Light, Old Chicago, Pastabilities, M&M Frozen Fiesta Slushies, Samurai Sam's Teriyaki Grill, Pepsi Cola of Lincoln, P.O. Pears, Empyrean Ales, Valentino's and Kickin' Kabobs.
An art plaza will be open today from noon to 10 p.m. and Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a wide range of art styles from a variety of artists, including Garth Fromme, Brad and Liz Egger, John Stoeckley, Mechelle Arndt, Reid Gibson, Steven R. Fink, Glenda Dietrich Moore, Jamie Lavin, Teresa Brown, Jeane Bogel, Nate Steinbrink and Jim Mehsling.
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