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with a bigger label, and by then I was branching out into R & B, soul and gospel music—these
styles intertwined heavily with early blues. I sang in a soul style at a time when people were not
expecting it. I ran up against the usual naysayers—the “blues is just a curiosity” crowd. But I had
to do what I loved, despite the expectations and pressures of the “biz.” I’d say this relates to what
I said about Bob being true to his art, and how much that meant to me. The major labels wanted
me to compromise my own artistic standards to do whatever they thought would sell more
records at the time—and I knew all along that I wasn't going to do that.

BiTS: Now you say again in the notes that you chose songs that moved you, that touched you or
whatever, but there must have been
dozens that you thought about and
didn't play.

RB: Absolutely. I would have loved to

do ‘Sweetheart Like You’. I would have
loved to do ‘Stuck Inside of Mobile with
the Memphis Blues Again’ and ‘Don’t
Fall Apart On Me Tonight’. There are so
many great songs. But I had to stop at
some point. I wanted to keep going, but
as it was, it took six months to make the
record, and we had over an hour’s
worth of material—so at some point I
had to hold up, because the record
company wanted it last month, or two
months ago!

BiTS: Your recording process seems to
be very intense. I mean with overdubs
and click tracks and all that kind of
stuff. Does it take a long time to put
something together?

RB: Yes, it takes time to put all the tracks on by yourself, one “flavor,” one instrument at a time.
But as far as click tracks, pretty much everybody uses them. It's extremely difficult to put an
overdub on a track after the fact with precision and ease if you don't have a click track in your
headphones that everybody else listened to when they were recording as a band. Usually when
backup musicians go into the studio everyone's got charts, and the click track in their headphones.
If someone wants to correct a part, they really need a click track to lock in with. This also helps
greatly when adding other musicians, soloists, or additional parts.

I often start by playing a click track by hand. I surround myself with pots and pans, oatmeal boxes,
anything that makes a good percussive sound when you hit it with a wooden spoon, and bang out
the tempo. Sometimes I play the beat with my hands on the face of the guitar. I call this guitar
bongos. I think a hand played click track is funkier and more interesting than an automated one.
It gives the song a more human feel. Sometimes I layer parts in different tunings, because that’s
how the old blues duets were played. That could be why people say no matter what song or style
I do, they still hear blues.

BiTS: Well, I certainly can hear that as well. Let's talk about something specific about some of the
tracks. ‘Everything Is Broken’ is an absolutely fabulous song. There have been some great editions