Jack Black discovers his country music DNA on father-in-law’s album

NEW YORK, Jan 2 — Jack Black may have been schooled in rock, but now he’d like to sing at the Grand Ole Opry with his wife’s family — who recently turned him on to bluegrass music.

The actor-musician energetically sings the traditional tune “Old Joe Clark” with his father-in-law Charlie Haden on Haden’s Grammy-nominated CD “Rambling Boy”.

“I wasn’t sure what to expect because I haven’t recorded or really sung any old songs like that before, bluegrass style, but it came very naturally and I cranked it out in two takes,” said Black, who grew up in the Los Angeles area.

“There was something in the music that I think struck a chord in my DNA. I think I’ve got some hillbilly in my roots. ... I’m already practising my square dancing if we play the Grand Ole Opry.”

Black, who recently starred in “Tropic Thunder” and the animated “Kung Fu Panda”, landed the last-minute supporting role when his father-in-law brought the nearly finished mix to their home so he could hear his daughter, Tanya, sing on her own and as part of the Haden Triplets, with sisters Rachel and Petra.

“Tanya’s very shy and doesn’t think she can sing, so I wanted Jack to hear, especially, how beautifully she sings ‘He’s Gone Away’, which I really had to do some talking to get her to sing,” said Charlie Haden, the eminent modern jazz bassist.

Haden brought his current family together to perform some of the old-style country songs he once sang with his parents and siblings in the popular Haden Family band in the 1930s and ‘40s.

“Old Joe Clark” was originally intended to be an instrumental, but Black felt it was “a great jam” and asked his father-in-law if there were any lyrics. Haden hastily arranged a studio session so his son-in-law could add a vocal track.

“Even though I was already married to Tanya and we had kids, when I was invited to be on the Haden family album, I finally felt like I was truly part of the family,” said Black, speaking by cell phone with his wife from their car outside a Los Angeles restaurant. “I’ve always loved Tanya’s family. The whole family has always been kind of a magical source of mystery.”

Black is a self-declared “ham” whose upcoming Judd Apatow/Harold Ramis biblical times comedy, “The Year One”, co-starring Michael Cera is slated for summer release. His wife, a cellist and visual artist, describes herself as “more of a hermit” and recently completed an animated short with music by her sister Petra for the Nick Jr children’s show “Yo Gabba Gabba!”

But on the album, Tanya and her sisters — with their tightly blended harmonies on the Carter Family’s “Single Girl, Married Girl” and other songs — really stand out among a line-up that features such vocal stars as Vince Gill, Elvis Costello, Dan Tyminski, Ricky Skaggs and Rosanne Cash.

“We’ll just start singing a song and we’ll naturally fall into certain harmonies,” said Tanya Haden. “When we were little we would spend the night at our grandparents’ house on our mom’s side, which was really fun for us because we’d share a room and sing in harmony before we went to bed.”

The triplets and brother Josh — all of whom have been involved in the indie rock scene — were largely raised by their mother, Ellen Haden, a therapist, after her parents divorced. Tanya says her mother — whose parents both played classical music in the Los Angeles Mandolin Orchestra — helped influence their musical bent along with her more well-known father.

Haden and Black first met at a private high school in Santa Monica, California, but went their separate ways. She jokes that she was “a groupie” who would show up at concerts by his comedy-rock band Tenacious D. He says he was “kind of stalking” her by turning up at Haden Triplet performances. They met up again three years ago when Tenacious D was playing at a mutual friend’s surprise birthday and got married in March 2006.

“Rambling Boy” includes an excerpt from a 1939 Haden Family radio show with 22-month-old Little Cowboy Charlie yodelling on a gospel tune. Black and Haden say the oldest of their two sons, 2-year-old Sam, is already showing he’s inherited the family musical DNA after being exposed to everything from Weezer’s danceable “Surf Wax America” to Tchaikovsky’s “Nutcracker Suite”.

“Our son is already yodelling better than my father,” said Tanya Haden. “He already has his own taste in music. He’ll hear something and do his own rendition and we’ll try to sing along with him and he’ll tell us to shut up.” — AP

Double the mojo at No Black Tie

By N. RAMA LOHAN

If you know where to look, good music can be found. Plying their blues trade are Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar, and the duo will turn it up at No Black Tie this weekend.

Times they must be changing because, apparently, the music climate isn’t as bleak as we think it is.

“I don’t think it’s as bad as it looks. There’s a lot of talent out there among the young and what’s great is there is a lot of underground stuff happening where people get to do their thing and develop a following.

“I find a lot of the musicians who’ve been playing for a long time don’t know the younger ones, so there is clearly a void between the two. But there is still appreciation for these younger musicians, they are playing at gigs, and they are getting hits on Myspace and more,” says folk singer Karen Nunis.

Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar to perform at No Black Tie on Dec 6.

Having plied her trade for a fair number of years across different parts of the world (Japan, United States, etc), Nunis is a fair judge of the status quo in her native Malaysia.

“A lot of people don’t understand blues as a musical form. People think its a slow, 12-bar thing with drunk guys participating in this interminable jam session. What’s not seen is there are so many styles – rock n’ roll, R&B – and there’s a lot of fast stuff, too. It’s all one web of music going through, really,” says Mokhtar, finding himself compelled to defend the genre he holds so dearly.

Nunis and Mokhtar will be showcasing their appreciation for the blues idiom at No Black Tie (NBT) on Saturday in a show titled Mississippi to Chicago. Both artistes will trade sets and then sit in with each other, along with Mokhtar’s band, the Soul Doctors, with guest Nan Blues on harp hauled in for good measure.

“It works on a few levels. The simple word, ‘blues’, covers a lot of ground, musically and geographically speaking, as well as over time, and the theme of the night, Mississippi to Chicago, expresses that variety,” explains Mokhtar.

“There are many different styles, from New Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi river all the way up to Chicago, from early 1920s acoustic Delta blues through to modern electric urban styles,” he adds.

“We’re not doing a museum piece performance ... where it’s just running through the blues classics. I’ll probably do a couple of acoustic style things. But it’s not going to be direct copies of anybody in particular but my take on the Delta Blues. The rest of it is going to be on electric guitar, from 50s style of Muddy Waters to Stevie Ray Vaughan, Texas-style stuff and in no chronological order. It’s going to be high energy,” Mokhtar says, disregarding any need for a history lesson during the show.

While Mokhtar and Nunis both share an innate love for the blues, there is a fine line that draws them apart.

“I think blues is what we have in common and some of the off-shoots as well. If you listen to my music, it’s not all blues. In fact, someone described my first album as blues-inflected but the second one is a bit of a departure from that,” Nunis relates.

“We hope the show conveys the whole range of the music genre we are doing ... not just geographically, as in from Mississippi to Chicago, but also through time since this took a while to develop the way it did,” explains Mokhtar.

Beyond paying homage to the blues, Mokhtar does feel that audiences should be educated about it because it is a musical form that has received a lot less exposure than it used to. “If people stop listening to the blues, I’ll be out of a job,” he quips, though fully aware of the truth behind his words.

An experience in Japan has left Mokhtar cooing over the audiences there; “Just like kabuki or something similar, the Japanese will always show respect to an ariste performing. They are quiet during the performance and clap appreciatively at the end of songs.” The bluesman is looking to face a similar audience at NBT this weekend.

Popular music has played a small hand in perhaps providing blues with a foothold among younger listeners, courtesy of a new crop of singer songwriters.

“I would say people like Amy Winehouse, Duffy and Joss Stone have done well, people who have given R&B a bit of a shot in the arm,” Nunis shares.

Should the blues evolve to suit a younger generation of listeners, then? “Well, it has always evolved, it started off with acoustic players like Robert Johnson and all and went on to Muddy Waters and later Eric Clapton and after that Robert Cray ...” Mokhtar reasons.

Mississippi to Chicago sounds like a night of rip-roaring fun ... one to savour, a tip of the hat perhaps to the legends who have given the blues so much credibility and appreciation over the years.

Whether it’s the sad wail of a harp or the metallic clangour of a resonator guitar that seeps into a listener’s soul, only No Black Tie and its denizens will know for sure on the night what this art form has always had to offer.

Karen Nunis and Julian Mokhtar perform at No Black Tie on Saturday. Showtime is 10.30pm and admission is RM30. No Black Tie is located at 17, Jalan Mesui (off Jalan Nagasari), Kuala Lumpur. Call 03-21423737 or e-mail noblacktie2003@yahoo.com.