Description
Ben Harper has teamed with renowned harmonica master Charlie Musselwhite to create Get Up!, a piercing song-cycle of struggle and heart. Recorded in Los Angeles and produced by Harper, Get Up! is his 12th studio album and first new recording since 2011s Give Till Its Gone (Virgin).
Charlie and I have been looking to make this record for over ten years and now that weve gotten to it, stated Harper, I cant wait to play it live.
Ben and I really locked in, personally and musically, when we recorded with John Lee Hooker, added Musselwhite. Ever since then we wanted to record together and being in the studio together is just a natural. You can hear it and feel it in the music on Get Up!
A striking mix of blues, gospel, roots and R&B, Get Up! features ten vivid musical character studies, skillfully rendered in cinematic detail, all written or co-written by Harper. The politics of personal destruction is palpable on the opening track Dont Look Twice,: Im a living nervous habit/I tremble and I twitch/Keep on pulling at me/Like Im some kind of hanging stitch. Likewise, a convict measures his prizefight with the truth as Harper growls in the title track: Dont tell me I cant break the law/Cause the law has broken me. Finally, a ghostly soldier awaits his duty but laments the mind-numbing futility of war in the haunting battle hymn I Ride At Dawn,: Give a man a hundred years/Hell want a hundred more/Give him a hundred choices/And he still chooses war/From Salem poor to Genghis Kahn/Tomorrow I ride at dawn.
Charlie Musselwhites searing point/counter-point harmonica accentuates Harpers vocals throughout Get Up!, tying its songs together into a cohesive musical whole. The band, including Jason Mozersky, guitar; Jesse Ingalls, bass; Jordan Richardson, drums; along with Ben Harper on vocals, guitar and slide guitar; plays with economical grit, lending the songs true understanding and authority.
In 1994, Ben Harper released his first record Welcome to the Cruel World, marking his arrival as singer and songwriter of substance and ambition. Two decades later, an artist in full creative command, hes delivered an inspired work of purity and depth with Get Up!.
Features:
Vinyl LP
Remastered by Gavin Lurssen
Cut by Ron McMaster at Capitol Mastering
Pressed at RTI
Musicians:
Ben Harper, vocals, guitar, slide guitar
Charlie Musselwhite, harmonica
Jason Mozersky, guitar
Jesse Ingalls, bass
Jordan Richardson, drums
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