FOOLS & CLOWNS - an interview with Mark Harrison

Mark Harrison is a unique figure in the contemporary roots music scene, blending blues, folk, and Americana with a distinct British sensibility. Known for his storytelling prowess and fingerstyle guitar playing, Harrison’s songs resonate with authenticity, drawing on the rich traditions of early 20th-century blues while bringing his own perspective to modern life.

WORDS: Colin Campbell PICS: Mike Newman

With a career that’s seen him release critically acclaimed albums and perform at major festivals, Harrison’s music is both timeless and refreshingly original. In this interview, we delve into his influences, creative process, and the stories behind his songs that continue to captivate audiences worldwide. Here we talk about his musical journey, influences and his new release, Fools & Clowns.

WHAT MADE YOU WANT TO BECOME A MUSICIAN?

Well, I had a go at it when I was young, and then I stopped because it wasn’t a good time to be doing anything I liked musically. Technology had seemed to have taken over, and I thought that was horrible and still do. I just got on with a different kind of life completely. Then I bought this, National Resonator guitar just for the hell of it. I played a bit, put it in open tunings and had my kind of Joni Mitchell revelation. I wrote some songs on that, and I went out a little bit in London and played a few blues jams, met a lot of good young musicians, a whole scene I didn’t know existed. I wasn’t trying to do anything, just do a bit of playing, and I got offered things and we made an album, and I got offered some decent gigs, and then more out of London and some festivals. So, it had its own momentum really, which is extraordinary, as most things in life are a grind and ultimately pointless; this one has gone well.

IS THIS A PURSUIT YOU ENJOY?

There are elements to it that nobody enjoys! I think if you’re a person who has taken to the whole social media thing and that means a certain generation, it’s not all young people. But that is a necessary part of what you do now. If it’s not a thing that comes naturally to you, that is a bind. The actual music part of it, of course, is great. The gigs and the audiences are fantastic. The experiences, the playing with your mates in bands and all of what happens, some experiences that you can’t have in any other field of life.

HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR MUSICAL STYLE?

I started off by revisiting my enjoyment of the early blues people and the whole history of blues music. So around about the year 2000, I started to buy things that I couldn’t have afforded when I was younger, because now you could get them all on CD. I built up a collection of early blues music that I would love to have had when I was at school. Back in those days, to be interested in blues music wasn’t unusual because all rock music came from it. The people that did rock music talked about the original blues people, you could hear it on the radio, too. I started to play a little bit, then I didn’t want to try and write anything.

My instinct is to create things, I didn’t want to write something that would be silly, that would be a pastiche, that would pretend I was from Mississippi, which I’m obviously not, I’m from Coventry. I don’t like copying; I don’t like people pretending to be something they’re not. I had this kind of revelation that you could take some element of the style and write a song about absolutely any topic and that’s what I set out doing, that’s what I still do.

YOU ARE A SINGER SONGWRITER HAVE YOU A PROCESS?

A preferred one is to have an idea for words first. I don’t like to have a tune and, some of the ones that take forever in that order. Sometimes they can end up then having 4 or 5 different sets of lyrics before they go in the bin, it doesn’t seem to work. But a title, or one line can kick you off, in my case, anyway. You can like the sound of the words; they suggest a tune that the line can have just way better and much more interesting. The idea, that a bloke on his own could do the rhythm part, the middle part, and the melody, I thought that was worth trying. So that’s what I’m doing!

ANY INFLUENCES ON YOUR MUSICAL CAREER?

I think it’s wrong to try to co-opt the music of somebody else who you have not really got anything in common with. What I liked about the original blues and through to the Chicago days; was I took joy in reading about Muddy and Wolf and how they ran their bands. These were people who could have been captains of industry, in a different society. Seriously, these were illiterate guys with incredible leadership skills and amazing ways of running their lives, and their musical lives. There’s Wolf with his band they had medical insurance. Muddy had this whole policy around sidemen that gave them liberty to form their own careers. The late, lamented John Mayall had similar bandleader skills. All these people interested me as much as the music and the kind of grown-up ness of it, and a fundamental, realistic world view. I think that’s what I got from coming from the Midlands. So, the combination of the musical skills and the general attitude appealed to me.

ANY MUSICAL ADVICE FOR THE READERS?

I probably shouldn’t say this… “don’t call yourself blues,” Mark reflected on advice he received when entering the London blues scene. He recalls wandering into a blues

jam at The Green Note, where he encountered “brilliant players” of all ages. Despite the scene’s vibrancy, he soon learned that being labelled as blues wasn’t commercially desirable, as audiences often had “a false picture of what that meant.” Promoters reinforced this notion, telling him “Blues doesn’t sell,” particularly outside traditional blues venues. Yet, Harrison’s music defies categorization, playing theatres and festivals far beyond the standard blues circuit.

WHAT DOES THE BLUES MEAN TO YOU?

I think it’s an attitude and a certain musicality because all this rock music stuff, this kind of amorphous stuff that kicks off with Allman Brothers mangling Statesboro Blues and that whole thing that was picked up on, all of that’s a very different vibe, to what I like about the original music. There wasn’t this genre division back then. Nowadays, Mississippi John Hurt would probably be regarded as a folk singer and Hooker would be blues. But, in their day, they didn’t see any difference because they thought they were doing songs. I like songs, so that’s what I’m doing! I like to write songs about any subject. A lot of these are things that other people don’t even occur to write songs about, because I think I’m dealing with the 99% of life that the rest of music isn’t about. Popular music is historically all about what might be called relationships, I don’t have anything to bring to the table on that particularly.

I always have a song or two about a blues artist, an episode in their lives, or some detail that I found in a book that seems interesting and something that I see a parallel with our lives and the modern world. So, it’s taking an individual case or a small detail and amplifying that in a way that might be interesting to us now. I’ve got the song Sunny Boys, which is about the two Sonny Boy Williamson’s, where one appropriated the name of the other, that has its kind of message, if you like, people who will swear that something that is manifestly untrue is, in fact, true! It’s not just a modern phenomenon, but it seems to me, now it’s reached epic proportions.

House Rent Party is about those parties that John Lee Hooker played at, they sounded like a lot of fun. despite the abject poverty. So, I guess the song is about how sometimes people who have nothing or next to nothing can have more fun than people who have quite a lot.

There are some songs about, the cult of management especially, Them And Us. I’ve been on BBC radio talking about that. I think people haven’t looked at me funny in the studio, but I am fooling myself. I sat with Gaby Roslin, who’s a brilliant professional, great broadcaster. She seemed to be very interested in this notion, but no one wants to comment on it in case their boss hears. So that’s a song about how badly run everything is.

For further information see website: www.markharrisonrootsmusic.com