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buy a van and just live in a van while I was there and travel around and do some busking, playing
on the street, doing festivals as well, played like Juke Joint festivals and some other gigs around
in the South, not just Mississippi, but Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Arizona. So it was
just the right time. Actually, it was the last time I went to the US, 2018, so I was lucky I got this
recording done which was “Live In Clarksdale”, to be more precise.

BiTS: Is the music on “Live In Clarksdale” typical of what you play in live sets these days?

LB: Yes, yes, I still play those original songs. It's still the same style that I like doing. It’s mostly
like Delta blues, a little bit of ragtime, but that album, I would say it's more Delta blues with the
slide. I use a lot of open tunes like open G and open D, which was very popular at that time, and
still among the blues players, especially if you play resonator guitar and use the slide. So the
influence on the album’s pretty much like guys like Robert Johnson, Son House. Muddy Waters

was one of my main influences on those albums. And then, as I say, the ragtime blues, guys like
Blind Boy Fuller, Blind Blake, all the blind guys, Reverend Gary Davis and yes, it was a great
experience there as well because I learned a lot from the time I was watching, seeing a lot of
great players and also I had the opportunity to jam with them, so it was good to absorb and learn
from them and also to get some influence to compose something.

BiTS: Now you've clearly learned a lot, as you say, from listening to the likes of Robert Johnson
and many other of the old blues musicians in Mississippi. Who do you listen to these days? Do
you have a contemporary artist that you enjoy listening to?

LB: You mean a contemporary blues artist that’s still active?

BiTS: Yes.

LB: There's a friend of mine, I think I learned a lot from him. He's not from the US, he's from
Denmark, actually. I don't know if you've
heard of him, Big Creek Slim? His name
is Mark. He's a really good blues player
and a blues singer as well, and he really
has the old style of blues, like the open
tunings, the vintage guitar and yes, that’s
the one that came to my mind right now,
let's say. From the American guys, let's
see, recently I like a bit of jazz as well
sometimes, so I listen to some jazz. No, I
like those guys like Tuba Skinny from
New Orleans and those guys from Mississippi as well. You mean contemporary? Also, they're

playing more sort of a Chicago blues style?

BiTS: Yes.

LB: Yes, the Chicago blues style, there's some great players, Terry ‘Harmonica’ Bean from
Mississippi. There’s a guy, I met him on the first trip I went there, Jim Holmes from Bentonia.
It's got a great sound as well.

BiTS: Are you a self-taught musician? Have you had lessons, or is it just purely by listening to
records?

LB: Yes, yes, I'm a self-taught musician. I took some lessons on the bass, but I'm mostly a
self-taught musician, especially because the blues stuff, this old blues stuff in Brazil where I'm
from, it's not easy to find some people that play this kind of blues. You find a lot of Chicago blues