Given Ben Harper's deep love of traditional music and sounds—an early nickname was Mr. Ukulele Man—it's not particularly surprising that he eschewed computers in favor of the more natural sound of a 1960s-era 16-track analog tape machine when he recorded his eighth studio album, Lifeline, live in the studio. With a few weeks left in his 2006 world tour, Harper and his band, The Innocent Criminals, began to use each night's soundcheck to get very familiar with several new songs, and as soon as the tour was over, they hightailed it to a Paris studio where, over the course of seven November nights, they made the mostly acoustic Lifeline while they were still in the live groove.
Harper fell hard for the blues, folk and soul music, and he got his first guitar from his grandparents' music store when he was just 7. By high school, he'd become proficient on the instrument and after graduating he busked around Europe playing old blues nuggets.
In 1992 Ben Harper signed with Virgin Records, on which he has released all of his studio recordings (including 2004's double-Grammy-winning set with The Blind Boys Of Alabama) and one double-disc live CD.
Harper's fans love him for, among other things, his regular politically charged lyrical statements and peaceful, life-affirming songs; one such number, "Better Way" from his 2006 outing Both Sides of the Gun, has been co-opted by 2008 presidential hopeful Barack Obama.
Provenance: The Los Angeles suburb of Claremont.
Latest release: Lifeline (2007)
© 2007 Nigel Music Media LLC. Used by permission.
Ben Harper
