Page 12 - BiTS_12_DECEMBER_2020
P. 12
BiTS: I'm not going to take up much more of your time because one of the things that I've learned
over the years of doing these interviews is that the longer I talk to people, the longer it takes me to
transcribe it all.
EH: Well anyway, the album has ‘One Fine Day’ and also ‘When I Lay My Burden Down’. Those two
songs kind of show you where I was coming from for the last couple of years where I had several
family members that passed on. ‘When I Lay My Burden Down’, I got from Mississippi John Hurt,
and I've played that song since I was young as well, but I kinda pulled it back out for a funeral and I
just thought it really fits with the times because so many people have lost someone. Then there's
‘One Fine Day’ that I wrote and that was just thinking of all that we've lost and everything, but then
I wanted to put some fun stuff on the album because I didn't want it to be completely depressing. I
like to have a balance of different types of
songs.
BiTS: Well, you've certainly achieved that.
I think it's absolutely wonderful and ‘When
I Lay My Burden Down’ will be included
before very long in my gospel slot in my big
show which I'm glad to see you discovered
on Facebook just before we went on air.
EH: Cool.
BiTS: Let's talk very quickly about a couple
of other things. You've been at this business
for a long, long time, you must have played
in dozens of interesting places. Have you
ever been anywhere where you've just said
to yourself, I just can't believe I'm here and
doing this now?
EH: [Laughing] I'm trying to think. Yes,
yes, well here's the thing, I was asked to
open for ZZ Top, and I've actually got video
of me behind the scenes kind of freaking
out. What happened was they asked us to
play at a local outdoor venue and it's not
Erin with The The Reverend Billy F. Gibbons huge this place, it's 3,000 or 4,000 people
and they said okay, we want you to open,
but you can't have anybody else on stage
with you. It has to be only you. I have to play solo. Huh, what pressure, huh. I had to go out there
on my own and face that crowd with just me and my acoustic guitar and knowing that I cannot
mess up because if I mess up there's nobody covering it, it's just me. It was so nerve-racking.
BiTS: That's one of the things about playing acoustic, if you make a mistake, everybody hears it.
EH: Oh yeah, but the other thing that I realised because at the time I'd been doing a lot of electric
blues and I hadn't been getting back to doing the acoustic stuff as much as I'd like, what I realised
is it's also freeing because I can turn on a dime, I can speed up, I can slow down. I can change the