{"id":14974,"date":"2018-08-15T05:30:23","date_gmt":"2018-08-15T09:30:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14974"},"modified":"2018-07-29T08:04:27","modified_gmt":"2018-07-29T12:04:27","slug":"johnny-tucker-everything-comes-from-my-soul-part-three","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/08\/15\/johnny-tucker-everything-comes-from-my-soul-part-three\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnny Tucker: Everything Comes from My Soul, Part Three"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Tucker made his first solo album, Why You Lookin’ at Me<\/i> in 2006. It’s cut from a wholly different cloth than Tucker & Thomas<\/i> and his latest release. Fans of modern-day blues-rock hybrids \u2013 complete with pig-squeal lead guitar and horn charts that aim for a Memphis vibe \u2013 may enjoy the disc. The songs focus less on Tucker’s individuality and more on his gift for mimicry: \u201cDo the Rufus\u201d does indeed conjure fond memories of the World’s Oldest Teenager, and \u201cBig Butt Women\u201d \u2013 a thin rewrite of any number of blues\/r&b standards \u2013 is amusing enough, but the album suffers from a somewhat faceless, bar-band quality. A decade-plus later, Tucker would make an album truer to his native musical instincts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat comes out of my mouth is what I felt when I was feeling the music,\u201d he explains. \u201cThe rhythm and everything comes from my soul, because that’s the way I felt. You know, you have to say what you feel in order for it to really work.\u201d Tucker says the most important lesson the blues has taught him is this: \u201cTake your time and think about what you feel. If you think about what you feel, you will always<\/i> know what you’re going to sing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The way he thinks of it, Tucker’s personal and unique freestyle approach isn’t at all unusual; instead it’s the most natural thing in the world. \u201cBecause it’s just a story,\u201d he says. \u201cIt’s just a story that you’re telling, and it’s got to make sense. If it don’t make sense to yourself, how is it going to make sense to you when you’re playing it?\u201d<\/p>\n

It’s fair, though, to wonder how Tucker’s stream-of-consciousness composition style lends itself to live performance. Wouldn’t it be all but impossible to re-create a made-up-on-the-spot song live onstage? Tucker good-naturedly dismisses that notion. Once you do a song, he says, \u201cit’s yours. You will never forget it once you do it, because if you ever hear it again you think, ‘Oh, that’s my song now.’ And ain’t nobody going to do it like you. Because you’re making it up.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tucker gets a good bit of his inspiration from the love of his life. \u201cI look over there at my wife, because I have her in the studio,\u201d he says. \u201cI look over there and think about something that I’m going to say to her, and that’s how I came out on the tape. Man, that’s the only<\/i> way I know how to do it. Because I sing what’s in my heart. I sing what I feel inside, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

He says that it all<\/i> comes down to feeling. \u201cIt’s about the way you move when you hear music,\u201d Tucker says. \u201cSome people tap their feet, some people nod their head, some people will walk and bounce and jump around. Everybody is not the same. <\/b>We don’t play music in the same way everybody do.\u201d He verges on waxing philosophical: \u201cWhen you hear<\/i> something that you’ve never heard before, that means you’re feeling<\/i> something that you never felt before.\u201d<\/p>\n

That feeling is showcased on Seven Day Blues<\/i>, because the players backing Johnny Tucker got the feeling too. \u201cThey didn’t know my songs,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cThey didn’t know nothing that I do. I just said, ‘Y’all just play,’ and they played. I don’t get no ‘Where you want to do that?’ No, no, no. They just played the blues. I found some cats that know<\/i> how to play the blues and play it well, no problem.\u201d The sessions for Seven Day Blues<\/i> were the quickest Tucker has ever experienced. \u201cTwo days,\u201d he says. \u201cIt took me two days to put all of them records down.\u201d<\/p>\n

In fact, Tucker says that he and his sidemen cut more than the fifteen tracks included on his album. \u201cI did four songs on Kid Ramos’ CD, too,\u201d he says. The California guitarist’s new album Old School<\/i> features Tucker singing three originals co-written with Ramos plus a reading of the traditional gospel tune \u201cJesus Come By Here.\u201d And Tucker says he did additional tracks that may show up on an album by one of the other players on Seven Day Blues<\/i>.<\/p>\n

It’s not completely off base to consider Seven Day Blues<\/i> a kind of comeback album for Johnny Tucker. Because he thought he was done making music. \u201cI had gave it up,\u201d he admits. \u201cI had gave up the whole thing. I wasn’t thinking about this no more; it was gone. But now the Lord put it back in there; he said he got a little more work for me to do. So I’m going to do some more work for him. Making people happy: that’s what I want to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Is Tucker going to make another album? He has a ready answer. \u201cI know<\/i> I am. <\/b>I’m trying to do one in a minute,\u201d he says. \u201cI’ve got some more for you coming pretty soon. I wish I could go back to the studio [now], and I might just do that, just put them on the shelf, let them sit for a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, bursting with boundless enthusiasm even now at age 72, Johnny Tucker is excited about bringing the new music on Seven Day Blues<\/i> to live audiences. But not just yet. \u201cI just had surgery on my neck,\u201d he explains. \u201cAnd so I’m in a little ‘cuperating thing. I’m getting better and better all the time, thanks to the good Lord and everybody praying for me. So I feel like I’m going to be out of here in a minute.\u201d<\/p>\n

It seems likely that Tucker’s determination will make that happen sooner rather than later. \u201cI want to take this [music] out so bad, Lord have mercy,\u201d he says. \u201cLike I was telling my manager, ‘I don’t care if I have to come in a wheelchair. I want to be there!’ Somehow, I got to be there. It is in my body and my soul. The good Lord put it back in my heart, and I got to take it from there, man, and try to do something with it,\u201d he insists. \u201cI just can’t leave it alone.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Tucker made his first solo album, Why You Lookin’ at Me in 2006. It’s cut from a wholly different cloth than Tucker & Thomas and his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14978,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,41,49],"tags":[3516],"class_list":["post-14974","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blues","category-interview","category-new-release","tag-johnny-tucker","cat-9-id","cat-41-id","cat-49-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14974","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14974"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14974\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14980,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14974\/revisions\/14980"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14978"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14974"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14974"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14974"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}