Quick Q and A with Annie Raines
 by Cliff Garber  ·  29 September 2007

Paul Rishell and Annie Raines were drawn into the blues as teenagers and have immersed themselves in it ever since. They’ve travelled thousands of miles bringing every style of blues to all sorts of people. Not only do they have an encylopedic knowledge of blues history, artists and techniques, they’ve played with not a few of the masters. Treat yourself to a trip to their website, making sure you sample their blog and sound clips. See ’em live on MySpace.

What is it about the blues that makes people from the suburbs devote their lives to it?

That’s an interesting question. But you might well ask, what makes a Midwesterner like Moby Dick? I think people either need blues or they don’t. It’s healing, soul-raising music.

One thing I have noticed in recent years is the demographic shift that has taken those baby boomers from the college towns and urban centers, where they first heard blues, jazz and folk in the bar scene from the ’60s through the ’80s, to the suburbs, where they raised families and now can use their time and resources as “empty nesters” to bring music to art and cultural centers close to home.

The blues is clearly alive and well in the hands of folks like you and Paul, but also in the hands of performers not known to the general public as blues artists, such as John Sebastian (and even Dion has a credible blues album out). Would you say there’s some kind of blues undercurrent that could break out to the surface and could you talk about the association you have with John Sebastian?

We’ve known John since 1994, when he heard a bootleg copy of Paul’s second solo album, “Swear to Tell the Truth” and tracked us down to recruit us into his jug band. We’ve recorded on a couple of his albums, toured around the U.S. and Norway and gotten to meet some of his oldest friends. John is an amazing person. Even without his fame and musical success, he would still be one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met. The J Band essentially dissolved last year after the unfortunate death (from lung cancer) of the band’s jug/washtub player and longtime Spoonful muse Fritz Richmond.

We recorded a live show recently for a DVD and John sat in on harmonica. We even did a harmonica duet. It was taped to be used in a movie about jug band music that just came out called “Chasin’ Gus’s Ghost.” Our DVD/CD will be called “Live in Woodstock” and we’re hoping to get it out by next spring.

You’ve done a lot of traveling. What’s it like to take the blues to the people in the heartland? Do you find that newcomers are receptive to it?

Paul and I traveled 10,000 miles this summer on a cross-country tour, and we’ve played in almost all 48 contiguous states now in our 15 years of playing together. The eastern heartland, the Mississippi watershed, is part of blues history. Even white people from the suburbs of Des Moines can make a connection to it from hearing a radio show out of Chicago or Memphis when they were growing up, or seeing the riverboats on a trip to Davenport, or just their shared agricultural heritage. But our favorite gig of the whole tour was in Livingston, Montana, where we played at an Elks Lodge on a Thursday night. The audience was made up of 20 men and 20 women, most of whom who knew nothing about blues, and we all had a great time together. Farther west, it’s more sparsely populated and the cultural base just isn’t there. Blues isn’t as much a part of the language in Idaho or Nevada.

There’s still no place like home, though, and it’s hard to beat a Massachusetts coffeehouse crowd for sophistication and appreciation. We’ve gotten spoiled over the years.

What’s a good way for people to introduce themselves to the blues?

Go on Itunes or Amazon.com and listen to samples of music by Jimmy Rogers, Slim Harpo, Muddy Waters, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt, Otis Rush, Tommy Johnson, and Jimmy Reed. There are so many varied and unique artists who can appeal to different tastes. Those are just a few of the greats and they’re all different.

What do you see as the future of the blues?

The blues seems to thrive in its own dimension and only suffers when the music industry gets hold of it and tries to wring all life from it. Its popularity seems to wax and wane in 12-year cycles. Things were percolating pretty well in the prosperous ’90s. Of course when they declared 2003 the “Year of the Blues” we knew it was all over, at least for now. The music is still out there and it’s there for the taking. There’s a lot of inaccurate information out there too, such as you might hear in the soundtrack for a rib commercial. Paul and I try to pass on the real techniques and stories as well the unwritten rules of blues to the best of our abilities whenever we teach or play. But music is a two-way street whether you’re communing with the past or projecting into the future. It’s always changing with the times and the only thing that counts is whether it sounds good. As Duke Ellington said, “If it sounds good, it is good!”