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EW: Well, it’s interesting. There are so many Skip James songs that have become really, really
popular and done by rock bands and stuff. Everybody does ‘I’m So Glad’ and ‘Hard Times Killing
Floor’ and stuff, so I wanted to find
one that hadn’t been really covered

so much and I loved the sound of it.
I mean, I just love Skip James’ voice
and the way he plays guitar, so I
chose this one because it was
‘Special Rider Blues’, a lot of blues

musicians have a version of ‘Special
Rider Blues’, but I really liked the
West African sound of Skip James’
version.

BiTS: Tell me why it is until this
album came along, which has

gobsmacked me because I think it’s
absolutely wonderful - why it is
we’ve not heard of you in the UK
[chuckles]?

EW: [Laughing] Well, that’s the
perennial question. I’d love to come

over there and play and maybe this
album will help me do that, but I
have brought up three sons. I’ve
been a mom for much of when maybe I should have been over there playing music, but I don’t
know. That’s a good question [chuckling].

BiTS: Yes, I understand. I’m going to ask you a question which you can refuse to answer if you

wish to. Did you think that coming as you do from a Jewish background that that kind of informs
you about the kind of life that black people had to lead?

EW: Well, not exactly the kind of life but certainly an empathy for enslavement and suffering and
genocide. It certainly allows me to connect with an experience of that sort. I mean certainly, the
African American experience is culturally totally different from the Jewish experience, but I do
think that it gives you an empathy towards that.

BiTS: Yes, that’s what I meant.

EW: Yes. I think you’re right.

BiTS: Tell me something about what’s happened during COVID. Have you been stymied completely
as far as gigs are concerned and that kind of thing?

EW: Well, certainly playing live except for the summer months here in the Catskills were beautiful,
and there were a lot of opportunities to play outdoors, thank goodness, but when COVID started, it
was the dead of winter and I happen to enjoy technology and learning new things, so I dove right

into the streaming thing and I’m glad that I did because it’s still happening to a great extent,
especially now that the summer’s over and we have to go back indoors and we’re getting back to