“It was my first really good blues show ... I was in high school. I went to see Garrett Mason headlining at L’Ecole Sainte-Anne in Fredericton.” — Keith Hallett, on his first encounter with Garrett Mason.
Keith Hallett was a teenager in 2006 when that first encounter with Garrett Mason took place. Nowadays, Hallett and Mason are frequent collaborators, having toured coast-to-coast together three times. Mason, now 30, was only 23 when he won a Juno for his debut album, I’m Just a Man.
Originally from Hanwell, N.B., Hallett is pretty much always on the road, criss-crossing North America in an RV with his band. When I spoke with him on the phone, Hallett pulled over to the side of the road to talk.
“I was 13 or 14 when I started playing,” began Hallett. “I didn’t like what I heard on the radio … I liked music from the ’60s: the Stones and the Animals.” Fast-forward to a couple of years ago, and Hallett was getting ready to record an album. He was inspired by Mason, a man known as a searcher — always trying to get back to the purest root of the blues. No slick uptown sound for the son of the legendary Dutch Mason.
By 2008, the younger Mason had just released a new record, Love and Sound. It had “that sound” Hallett had always heard inside his head: direct, real and uninhibited. Hallett invited Mason to produce his album. It was recorded off the floor, live-to-tape. An ongoing musical collaboration was born. The end product, Hallett’s I Just Lost My Mind, is filled with fresh hard-driving, original material.
The two Maritime musicians come at their music from the same direction. Hallett lays it out when he tells me that “a lot of what’s out there these days has lost the power and purity of real raw music … it’s been tampered by computers and image. Nothing against that, but it’s not for me.” This creed extends to Hallett and Mason’s stage show, in which the two prefer to perform without stage monitors. For most musicians, that would be the equivalent of walking a tightrope without a net.
“We like to do shows with just the sound of the room coming back,” explains Hallett. “All the sound is going out.”
Hallett cites Times Change(d) High and Lonesome Club in Winnipeg as his favourite place to play. “Cool owner, good vibe, it’s got character.” The Apollo in Thunder Bay is another choice spot.
“I work hard not to sound like anyone else,” Hallett remarked. No easy feat in a genre where legends cast wide shadows. “Being called a blues artist can be a limitation.” He says he listens to a lot of old rock, and classic country music. Conscious of being pigeonholed, Hallett is a bit reluctant to note his guitar influences: Jerry Garcia, Eddie Taylor, Jimi Hendrix, and Howlin’ Wolf’s guitarist, Hubert Sumlin.
Hallett notes that “Garrett likes to listen to Black Sabbath, old jazz, punk and Howlin’ Wolf.” He describes his work with Mason as an “ongoing thing.”
When asked about the future, Hallett replies in his laid-back way. “We don’t really have any plans. We just roll with whatever feels right.”
Related:
Garrett Mason and Keith Hallett live at the 2012 Halifax Jazz Festival
Dutch and Garrett Mason: Blues in the family