I don't go lookin' for the blues. If you asked me about "Vancouver bluesmen," a couple of years ago, I would have muttered "well, there's Jim Byrnes" and looked rather embarrassed: I didn't really know anyone else! Certainly not who is playing soul-scorched, mud-spattered, callus-fingered Mississippi Delta blues here... what can I say, I only ever went to the Yale a couple of times, when James Blood Ulmer was playing there... and I was going to see him because of his connection to Ornette, not because he was touring the blues at that point... it just really wasn't my scene...
Then one day, I was soliciting stories to welcome Steve Earle to Vancouver. I put out a call on social media, and got a pointer from Tony Lee -- sometimes drummer, sometimes exuberant co-frontperson for the Asian Persuasion All-Stars, and perpetual man of style and taste: I should talk to Robert Connely Farr. The resulting story (I think of it as "Stalking Steve at Starbucks") ended up a high point of the blogpiece (though Jeanette McConnell's report of bringing Earle to play a posties' picket line, a couple of strikes ago, was pretty special, too).
By Rd Cane; with Robert Connely Farr on the right and Jimmy "Duck" Holmes in the centre
So that's how I found out about Robert Connely Farr, who has a pretty interesting backstory for a BC bluesman. To copy and paste from his upcoming Heatley show bio, he
is a songwriter from Bolton Mississippi (hometown of blues legends like Charley Patton, Sam Chatmon, Bo Carter & Walter Vinson). Since 2017, cherished elder Mississippi bluesman Jimmy “Duck” Holmes has been mentoring Farr in the Bentonia Style of the Delta Blues. He’s also learned directly from Mississippi Bluesmen RL Boyce & Terry Harmonica Bean. In 2019 Farr was nominated for New Artist of the Year & Songwriter of the Year by Canada’s prestigious Maple Blues Awards. His music has been received well critically with songs having been used on Netflix, Lifetime & SYFY on shows like Snowpiercer, Resident Alien & Reacher. Farr is a longtime resident of East Vancouver.
From the press release from his recent 2024 album, Live at Green Auto -- and don't you just love that there is an album with that title out there? -- we learn that in fact "2024 was a hard year" for Farr:
He spent the early part of the year in Mississippi tending to his father who was terminal with leukemia. After his father passed, Farr only played three shows that year, Live at Green Auto (Farr’s 12th full length album) was recorded on Dec 06 2024 in an obscure venue in the heart of East Vancouver Canada. With longtime bandmate / co-conspirator Jay Bundy Johnson (Blue Shadows/ Herald Nix /Mac Pontiac) on drums, the guitar / drum duo ripped through a blistering set of Delta & Country Blues – premiering new singles "Mississippi Mud" & "Hoot Owl Blues" alongside a slew of originals & a few covers from lesser-known Mississippi bluesmen.
I have, so far, only managed to see Farr once, the Keithmas-before-last, but he's a powerful player, making growly, soulful, slightly evil-sounding blues of a kind one is not expecting to come out of Vancouver -- not even East Vancouver! With a new album coming out soon -- JJ Hadley Sings the Blues, with a title that riffs on one of the aliases of Charley Patton -- and a show coming up on March 2, I sent Farr some email interview questions and started making plans to see him anew, this time doing his own material.
(Sorry to hear about your father, man.)
Robert Connely Farr by Allan MacInnis
RCF: The Bentonia Style centers around the playing of Henry Stuckey [who never recorded!] and a tuning that he brought back from his tours in the army. I believe it’s an Open C minor tuning (C/G/C/D*/G/C) Sometimes it’s played in an open D minor. the songs also tend to have minimal turnarounds with a droney nature, somewhat less structure than your Delta Blues & similar (I find) to Hill Country style (which is totally different tuning).
The style is amazing and me trying to explain it wouldn’t do it justice. Here’s a link to an article from Living Blues a few years back that really goes into the history - which I find incredibly interesting.
http://digital.livingblues.com/article/Henry+Stuckey/3345338/577398/article.html
AM: Will educate myself! So how did you connect with Jimmy "Duck" Holmes? Have you ever been to the Blue Front Cafe, or played here? (What's a specific piece of his music I can point people to that matters to you or influenced you?).
RCF: His juke joint the Blue Front Cafe is the only place I play when I’m home in Mississippi. Last time I was down, Jay and I got to headline the Bentonia Blues Festival sharing the stage with Jimmy & RL Boyce - it was one for the books!
RCF: His juke joint the Blue Front Cafe is the only place I play when I’m home in Mississippi. Last time I was down, Jay and I got to headline the Bentonia Blues Festival sharing the stage with Jimmy & RL Boyce - it was one for the books!
Robert and and Terry "Harmonica" Bean by Tyler McLeod
AM: If you have a favourite Jimmy "Duck" Holmes story, I'd love to know it.
RCF: I knew about Jimmy’s juke joint the Blue Front Cafe when I was growing up. In fact I stopped by every year or so for a decade (high school & college) just to photograph it. A good friend of mine at one point told me that famous old bluesmen played there but I wasn’t into the blues then and didn’t pay him any mind. But I never went in.
One day in ‘17 I’d gone home to be with my dad (whose cancer had come back) . We spent a day together - father/ son kind of thing, rode up into the delta to Clarksdale, then to Indianola then back down through Yazoo City and then back home to Edwards through Bentonia.
When we went thru Bentonia I told my dad “you've got to see this old juke joint” and when we pulled up to the Blue Front Cafe the door was open. I walked in and Jimmy was there & we talked for a bit. I asked him to play a song. He politely obliged, playing us the most haunting rendition of "Devil Got My Woman." [Editor's note: You can actually hear Jimmy do it online].
RCF: I knew about Jimmy’s juke joint the Blue Front Cafe when I was growing up. In fact I stopped by every year or so for a decade (high school & college) just to photograph it. A good friend of mine at one point told me that famous old bluesmen played there but I wasn’t into the blues then and didn’t pay him any mind. But I never went in.
One day in ‘17 I’d gone home to be with my dad (whose cancer had come back) . We spent a day together - father/ son kind of thing, rode up into the delta to Clarksdale, then to Indianola then back down through Yazoo City and then back home to Edwards through Bentonia.
When we went thru Bentonia I told my dad “you've got to see this old juke joint” and when we pulled up to the Blue Front Cafe the door was open. I walked in and Jimmy was there & we talked for a bit. I asked him to play a song. He politely obliged, playing us the most haunting rendition of "Devil Got My Woman." [Editor's note: You can actually hear Jimmy do it online].
RCF, continued: It was only the three of us in there. And that day, that moment brought my music home for me. I went back a few days later with my guitar and then later that year Jimmy came up to Vancouver and I ushered him over to the Vancouver Island Folk Fest. We got to be good friends on that trip and he’s very much a mentor and I’m indebted to what he’s taught me. I told him that one day that I felt like I owed him. He said “go give it away. Help someone learn about the Bentonia Style. Show people what I’m showing you.”
Jimmy is the embodiment of the Living Blues.
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The only known photo of Charley Patton, 1929. Nice to have a good excuse to run it!
AM: I see that the new album references JJ Hadley -- a Charley Patton in-joke, right? Is there a reason you're choosing his religious pseudonym for this project? (I don't know a lot of the songs you do but the ones I have heard don't seem to have a strong religious element). Will you be doing any Charley Patton covers at the Heatley?
RCF: There are definitely underlying religious elements in many of our songs/ albums. I also included a spiritual at the end of the Country Supper album. In "Blue Front Cafe" on the Dirty South Blues album I kill the preacher for touching me. "Hey Mr Devil" I ask the devil to intercede on my behalf. Some are way more subtle, many times I’m lamenting to the Lord ("Cypress Tree Blues," "Cadillac Problems")' we released a single, "Jesus (If Ya Want Me Come and Get Me)" that was used on the new season of Snowpiercer -- haha that was a fun one!
I didn’t know much about Patton before moving to Canada - or any of the other Bluesmen from Bolton (Bo Carter, Walter Vinson, Sam Chatmon). After I moved to Canada and it was another 10 yrs before I’d meet Jimmy - which is what brought it all home for me. Hence my dive into Patton. Who was this guy from my hometown? I find him incredibly complicated. I chuckled at his pseudonym he’s use when he was being Good Charley.
With regards that album JJ Hadley Sings the Blues - these are all songs that started pouring out after my dad died. Many of them written back home. But all of them seemed different from this Bentonia / Delta Blues wormhole we been down. But important to me nonetheless. Songs that showed a different side of me… hence the JJ Hadley reference.
We did cover "Screaming & Hollering the Blues" [Patton's version here] on our Shake It album. Not sure if we’re going to cover any Patton for the show - but now you’ve sparked my interest so don't be surprised if you hear some - which leads me to next question / answer …
Robert Connely Farr by Ian Woods: press image from the Live at Green Auto album
AM: I assume "High Water 3" is a reference to Charley Patton's "High Water Everywhere 1" and "2" -- are there musical or lyrical consistencies? By the way, was there a specific flood that Patton was writing about? What do you think of Bob Dylan's "High Water" song (it's title actually includes a parenthetical "for Charley Patton").
RCF: I don’t know if I’ve heard the Dylan song. Or if there are musical or lyrical consistencies with HW 1&2. What happened before me writing "High Water 3" was I’d been in this Patton wormhole and listening to HW 1&2. I’d also gone home to Mississippi and drove down to the Mississippi River ghost town of Rodney - only the river was flooding and you couldn’t get anywhere. That last verse in my song HW3 eludes to a verse in Patton's HW 2 about that water rising and having nowhere to go.
AM: I love Patton's growly, often incomprehensible voice almost as much as I love that there is only one photo of him, But I'm listening to "Ain't Dyin'" and I'm finding your voice is occasionally as hard to understand sometimes as Patton's! How good are you at decoding his lyrics?
RCF: I’m not good at decoding his lyrics. What I find inspiring is the emotion in the songs even though you don’t know exactly what he’s saying. I seen Jimmy do it and RL Boyce do it to… I’ve been trying to lean into that. My single "Go Cat Go" is like that - lyrics very hard to understand …
by Rd Cane
AM: May I print the lyrics to "Ain't Dyin'?" (Like, can you send me them?) What was the inspiration of that song? What does "I ain't dyin' any quicker than you" mean? What's a place you don't go no more...? For a song that seems to assert that you are going to live life on your own terms, it's pretty mournful!
RCF:
Ain’t nobody gonna tell me what’s wrong with me
Yeah I got a few ideas of my own
Gonna smoke and drink and have some fun
Until my day is done
Yeah I got places to see
And I got places I don’t go no more
Sometimes I take too much
I just can’t get enough
It’s all I ever known
Sometimes I take too much
I just can’t get enough
It’s all I ever known
Take this country boy home
Yeah I ain’t dying any quicker than you
Life just goes where it wants to
Sometimes up sometimes down
Sometimes lost & sometimes found…
This is the 3rd iteration of a song. I’m quite smitten with it haha. The 2nd iteration was on the “Country Supper” album and the first was on an EP “I Ain’t Dyin” before that. It’s a dark song, initially inspired by my Aunt who was terminal with cancer. She was at the hospital one day to get her treatments and someone sitting next to her asked her “how long did they give you” (to live) she quickly and brightly snapped back “I ain’t dying!!!”. I love it, that was her spirit. But I reminded me of all the times in my life I was at a low point but I wasn’t done fighting yet.
This rendition I find to be the most mournful but I’d written it not long after seeing my father die last year. It was quite sobering - no matter how much he wanted to live or tried to - death still prevailed.
The “I ain’t dying any quicker than you” is a reference to the last back porch chat I had with my dad - obviously about to die - but he wasn’t thinking about that - he was thinking about fixing his tractor and installing a new gate at the farm. He was still living - right up until he died - he was livin'.
This rendition I find to be the most mournful but I’d written it not long after seeing my father die last year. It was quite sobering - no matter how much he wanted to live or tried to - death still prevailed.
The “I ain’t dying any quicker than you” is a reference to the last back porch chat I had with my dad - obviously about to die - but he wasn’t thinking about that - he was thinking about fixing his tractor and installing a new gate at the farm. He was still living - right up until he died - he was livin'.
AM: Where was the cover photo taken?
RCF: Cover photo was taken about 10 miles north my family home in a town called Satartia - it’s at the southern edge where the delta hits the hills / trees.
AM: What are some songs you plan to play at the Heatley, for sure? (Stuff I can point readers to on your bandcamp?). Do any have particular stories that you want out there...? Are there any covers that you plan to play?
We’re definitely going to be playing our new Live at Green Auto & Pandora Sessions albums. We also have a bunch of obscure covers we do, Jimmy Duck, Lonzo Burkes, RL Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Leo Bud Welch… [Note: these are just random links to the people Farr is mentioning; I have no idea what songs by them he's going to do]
AM: Do you have any allies or compatriots in the Vancouver music scene? I don't know of anyone doing the blues quite like you do -- does that put pressure on you, or is it nice to have a niche to yourself...? (Or am I wrong about that?). .
That’s the one thing I love about Vancouver is I feel like I got a friend in any room I walk into. I’m also inspired by my contemporaries - even if we aren’t doing the same thing.
It does feel like we're in a kind of niche so to speak but I’m really just trying to be inspired by the music of my home and also be true to what’s coming out of me. I feel particularly inspired that I am the first songwriter to come from Bolton Mississippi since Patton, Chatmon, Carter and Vinson and I don’t take that lightly.
AM: Anything else I've missed, that you want to say about the album or the show?
RCF: Looking forward to playing this style of drum & guitar delta blues & country blues for y'all. It feels special to me, like home. I’m excited to share it.
Robert Connely Farr's webpage is here. Read more about Live at Green Auto here. Facebook event page here. Cover next week is only $10, and the food at the Heatley is good -- I had some sorta tikka wrap, last time! See you there...
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