Here British guitarist/singer/songwriter Michael Messer talks exclusively with All About Jazz’s Alan Jones, giving his take on the business, the brotherhood and the bylaws of his domain. Also it’s not every day that the words “Coricidian medicine bottle” come up in conversation. Read on.

AAJ: I'm glad we could do this, Michael. You've been pretty busy these days. What are you up to?

MM: Well since King Guitar was released back in March it has been non stop for me. I have been touring with my band, I have a new rhythm section: Hugo Degenhardt on the drums and Jerry Soffe on the bass. We have been working hard on both learning and updating old material and creating new stuff. I have been home now for a couple of weeks, most of which has been spent writing. I am putting together the material for my next album on Catfish Records, which we are planning to record around Christmas time...December/January. Catfish would like to see it in the stores by May 2002.

AAJ: Let's go back a bit. When did you begin playing guitar?

MM: I have always played around with musical instruments. As a child I got my hands on a banjo, a four string Beatle guitar and lots of drums and percussion. I was very into the Rolling Stones, their influence is still very evident in my music...well I think it is! In my early teens I was playing upright bass with a friend who played folk and rock and roll. It was the latter that interested me. Later I did get into the folky stuff too. Then along with my two brothers, Alan & David, I had a band that played all the guitar based pop stuff of the time...Led Zeppelin, The Who, Rory Gallagher, Deep Purple, and so on.

When I was about eighteen I got to know some people who listened to a lot of blues stuff and turned me on to both pre-war delta blues and post-war Chicago blues. At about the same time I was spending a lot of time with my good friend, Chas Jankel, who at the time was scoring hit after hit with Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Chas was very influential in the fact that he showed me a lot about the value of great production and arrangements. He also took me to see Bootsy's Rubber Band and consequently turned me on to funk. Somewhere in all this and lost in the mists of time I started playing slide guitar, bottleneck guitar...whatever you want to call it. From there I went deep into the heart of twentieth century pre-war and post war blues. Also around that time I started collecting old National steel guitars and Dobros, which also in turn became a very important part of my life. From there I guess I started collecting other music that featured slide guitar playing...I found early Hawaiian music, Indian classical & film music, country music. In my teens and early twenties I saw many great blues players who came to the UK, these people had a profound effect on my creativity and therefore my whole existence.

In the early eighties I became very involved with African music, in particular with the late S.E.Rogie, from Sierra Leone, who was the King of Palm Wine Guitar. I produced some tracks for an album of his...The New Sounds of S.E.Rogie. All this creates the style and mix which is my music. The blues has always been at the forefront of my music, but there are so many other influences.

AAJ: Had you visited the US before your professional career?

MM: Yes, I had visited the States a few times before my professional music career. My brother, Alan Messer, has lived in Nashville TN since 1977. I have seen a lot of the USA and I hope to see a lot more. Each state is so different with its own music and personality. In 1985, I spent a couple of months in Nashville (I made my first album in 87). During that time I really plugged into the bluegrass scene; I found the glittery side of Nashville a bit too much, so to hang out in the folky scene was very cool for me. I am not the world's biggest bluegrass fan, but hearing those guys playing live is an experience. During that visit I met Roy Acuff, Bashful Brother Oswald, Charlie Collins, Hank Snow, Doug Dillard and Ray Sawyer from Dr Hook. Ray and I had a plan to make a band together for some European dates, but sadly it never materialized.

AAJ: Did Duane Allman influence you in any way? Many consider him the father of modern slide guitar.

MM: Interesting question. Indirectly he had a profound influence on my playing, but directly very little. I was never a great fan of the Allman Brothers Band, although I do have a couple of their albums. However, "Mean Old World" with Eric Clapton & Duane Allman playing acoustic slide together is an absolute classic. I think I was just a bit too young at the time to appreciate the Allmans and missed them. However as I said before, indirectly I was heavily influenced by Duane's playing without realizing it at the time. Eric Clapton, as we know, was heavily influenced by Duane's playing style. So were Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Rory Gallagher, Johnny Winter and Mick Taylor. I guess by hearing their playing I was indirectly being influenced by the Duane Allman sound. That would also be true of many of the early players: I heard Fleetwood Mac playing Elmore James long before I heard Elmore James. I heard Rory Gallagher playing Blind Boy Fuller & Leadbelly songs long before I had heard their music. Interestingly, these days if I do hear Duane Allman's playing it knocks my socks off! I can appreciate it more now than when I was a teenager. I can hear the influences and melodies of the older players on Duane's style, especially the horn players…Miles Davis & John Coltrane, plus I can hear the influence he had on the young players of his time. He was certainly a major figure in the world of slide guitar. I think I had better go and get myself a couple of Allman Brothers albums, a Coricidian medicine bottle and a Gibson Les Paul!

AAJ: What does the slide give to you and your playing that standard picking can't provide?

MM: Originally, when I was in my late teens, it gave me a more immediate way of playing music. I had been playing upright bass and bass guitar for a while, I had also messed around with regular guitar, which was my real passion, but I was not finding my way. One day in a music store I was talking to the sales guy about Rory Gallagher and Johnny Winter's approach to slide and the guy showed me a lick or two in open tuning. I found I could open tune my guitar and play music with very simple technique. I could play blues and rock and roll pretty well like that. I was very into Bo Diddley, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Louisiana Red, Johnny Winter, Rory Gallagher. The pre-war 20's and 30's blues players were not really my thing at that point in time. From there I got more and more serious...and more and more obsessed! I started to get into pre-war guys...Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Willie McTell, Casey Bill Weldon, etc. Then I started to hear the Hawaiian Steel Guitar stuff, not the 40's and 50's slushy stuff, but the 20's and 30's hip stuff...guys like Sol Hoopii, Benny Nawahi, Jim & Bob, they really blew my mind. I love that style of playing, especially the bluesy/jazzy side of those guys repertoire. I guess at around that time I became involved in other slide styles that all seemed to make sense...once I had heard the blues players and the Hawaiian guys all these other styles made sense and sent me into slide ecstasy! Western Swing, Bluegrass...all sorts.

I would say that to sum up your original question....slide guitar is the instrument that comes naturally to me. I am able to express myself freely and from my heart, even at the very beginning it was natural to me. After years of playing in this style there is no gap between the musical thought in my head and the sound from the guitar. The two are in unison. I am not a particularly technical player, I do not believe that creative emotions should be analyzed too much. In slide guitar I found my natural instrument.

AAJ: The Catfish label puts most other companies to shame in terms of quality and scope. Tell me about your relationship with them.

MM: First of all I should start by saying that I agree with your comments about Catfish Records. As far as re-issuing early blues material I think they are becoming one of the great catalogues, like Yazoo, Folk Lyric, Rounder were in the past. Their sound quality is fantastic. The Charley Patton boxed set is a masterpiece, the musical content, the audio quality and the packaging...they've got it down! I got to know them a couple of years ago when I became involved compiling their Blues Slide Guitar Classics, Volumes 1 and 2, with collector Paul Swinton. He introduced me to the Catfish guys and they became interested in my music. They were amazed that none of the previous labels that I had recorded for were able to get my music across to a wider audience and asked if they could release an album of my work. From there we just went from strength to strength. My music has become known around the world and is available without having to search specialist catalogues. I have become pretty involved with them over the past year. We have released my own album, King Guitar. We have also released two Ted Hawkins albums that I was connected to. The first was The Unstoppable Ted Hawkins, which was a live recording of Ted playing in London in 1988. The second, which has just been released, Nowhere to Run, is a Ted Hawkins studio album that I produced and played on. It was never properly issued in the late eighties and lay dormant for many years...I am very happy that between Catfish Records and the Ted Hawkins estate, it is finally available worldwide.

Sometime between now and February 2002 I will be recording a new album for Catfish. This will be a blues album and at the time of this interview (October 2001) it is beginning to become a reality, the songs and arrangements are almost there. This will be a blues album, but with a twist of something different!

As far as my relationship with Catfish goes, I hope to be involved in a bunch of projects next year which will be of interest to the whole blues community. I can't really say much more than that at this time. I do believe that Catfish Records will be looked back on as one of the great record labels of this decade.

AAJ: What is your assessment of today's blues? Are there any artists that you would consider "groundbreaking"?

MM: Over the past few years a handful of artists recording blues music have interested me in the area of "groundbreaking" as you put it. I really dig a lot of the current blues players but do not consider them groundbreakers. An example from the past would be comparing Son House or Willie Brown with Robert Johnson. Son & Willie were very cool and two of the greatest blues artists of their generation, but not groundbreaking. Whereas Robert Johnson took the blues of his locality and time and lifted it up a notch or two with a new approach and attitude. That gets more difficult as time goes on, new ideas and structures get harder to find: Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Elmore James, Robert Nighthawk in Chicago in the 50s by electrifying their music, Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Eric Clapton in the 60s, etc. Currently the people who are turning blues music around and making something a little different are not all names that are part of the blues scene. G Love & the Special Sauce are an example of that. I really like their first single on Okeh/Sony a few years back called "Blues Music". It was something very special and very different. What they are doing now is not so adventurous and not so connected with the blues. Cassandra Wilson, who is a jazz singer from Mississippi, does very interesting covers of traditional blues material. Her version of Son House's song "Death Letter" is very unusual. The North Mississippi Allstars are great and very good for the blues, getting it across to a younger audience. Their music is not particularly groundbreaking, but it is damn good! They remind me of the Canned Heat of their generation...a full tilt boogie band with a leaning towards country blues. They're great. Then there is the computerized stuff...R L Burnside, Skip "Little Axe" McDonald, Moby... Some of that stuff I really dig, but only the really good cuts—it can get monotonous if it is not done well. I love the Little Axe track "The Wolf That House Built" with Howlin' Wolf & Son House samples built into the track. That was very original when it came out in 95/96. R L Burnside's album, I Wish I Was in Heaven Sitting Down, was very clever and different. Some of that album is stunning. Taj Mahal with his Indian groove on "Mumtaz Mahal" and a hip-hop groove on "Squat that Rabbit". There's a version of "Come On In My Kitchen" with the Indian slide guitarist playing the melody and Taj rockin' on the National steel...that is so cool! I love stuff like that. Taj has always been out there pushing the boundaries, his recent album with the African guys, Kulanjan, is also very cool. Ry Cooder was getting there too, but I haven't heard him push those boundaries for a while now; I guess "Get Rhythm" was the last time he was pushing in that direction. What a great cover of a Johnny Cash song, also "I Can Tell By the Way You Smell" on that album was a great twist of blues. I recently got the new John Hammond and Tom Waits album "Wicked Grin", that's a great record. I love John Hammond and to hear him perform some original material is just so great. I think what interests me more than inventing new ways of playing the blues, which is getting harder and harder, is to write about my relationship with this music and the people who created it. A few years ago I really wanted to make a computer blues record, but now...it's been done. That's why I like to bring in all those elements that I do into my music. As far as the blues scene goes at present, well, there are some incredible players out there playing some really damn good blues, but is it different, is it original? There are so many great players it would be hard to list them all. Yeah, I really dig the current blues scene, but I crave originality.

AAJ: King Guitar was an exceptional record. Our own Joe Milazzo suggests that you are a "meta-bluesman", attributing your playing to a rare level of insight, and your own tapestry of experiences as a listener. How do you respond to that tag?

MM: I am both flattered and humbled. That is an amazing compliment from such a knowledgeable person. I just do what I do to the best of my ability. When I record I always go for originality and what I call a larger-than-life sound. I believe that recording music is a different skill to performing live, and to try and create a live band effect on record is neither easy or necessarily the way to go. If you listen to most great records, whether blues, rock, country, pop...whatever, separate to the performance, which obviously has to be great, the sound is usually larger-than-life and not a reproduction of a live stage sound. That slap-back echo on Chess and Sun recordings, the mix of Howlin' Wolf or Otis Redding's voice saturation in their music, the intensity of sound from Robert Johnson recording into the corner of the room. These are all recording techniques that create a larger-than-life effect and a great recording. No one actually sounds like that until they are recorded and produced to create a desired effect. Sometimes these are by accident, most times they are calculated. There is no doubt in my mind that Robert Johnson sat facing the corner of the room to create a certain sound, to surround the microphone with as much signal as possible. I believe that the story of his being too shy to face the room while singing is just nonsense! Listen to his songs and read about his lifestyle. Was that a man who was too shy to sing in a studio??? The incredible Chess recording sound was achieved by using different lengths of drainpipes as reverb tunnels; that is why their vocals sound the way they do. Many great musicians make average records because they do not embrace the studio techniques necessary to make great sounding records. The recording approach and production of my music are as important and integral as the writing and arranging. I also always try to retain my own personality in the music and not mimic or copy other blues artists. I am not from Chicago or Mississippi, I am not even American, but I have been passionately involved in blues and other types of music for most of my life. I try to put that life experience and passion for this music into my songs and their arrangements. That is why I bring other influences into my work. Once again, as I mentioned earlier, I really do not over-analyze my playing or creativity...I try to just flow with it naturally and be myself.