Jeff Fetterman

By Kevin Wildman Pennsylvania native Jeff Fetterman has just released his fourth album release, Southern Man. When you talk about the Blues, Jeff is the ultimate example of the Blues. He oozes Blues. Without a doubt, the Blues is in his soul. His new album, Southern Man, is the supreme example of that. It is filled with 11 original songs that come directly from Jeff’s heart along with a great cover of Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan’s “All Along The Watchtower.”

Jeff tells us that from start to finish, this album has taken nearly two years to get it exactly the way he wanted. Fetterman is somewhat critical of his own work, and if it’s not just right, it’s not ready to go. And believe me, Southern Man is ready to go. The production is great, the songs are great, and the lyrics are inspirational. All in all, this is the type of album Blues aficionados are going to really want to hear. For the recording of this album, Jeff traveled to California to have this project recorded and produced by fellow musician and studio owner, Christoffer “Kid” Anderson of Greaseland Studios. Kid is also a guitarist in the band Rick Estrin and the Nightcats. When it comes to producing Blues acts, Kid is at the top of the game. He has produced and recorded a lot of great Blues acts. Another one of his most recent sessions was when he recorded and produced a few songs for Elvin Bishop and Charlie Musselwhite’s new album. Without a doubt, Jeff made a wise choice by going there. Besides producing and recording, Kid even performs on the album, performing occasional guitar, keyboards and percussion.

When Kid and Greaseland Studios was suggested to Jeff as a possible place to record, he was really not familiar with Kid Anderson. Jeff explains that “I was talking to a friend from Pittsburgh and he mentioned to me that there was a guy out in California by the name of Kid Anderson who was a producer, and he had quite a few BMA’s, the Blues Music Awards, for production and he also was a guitar player. So he mentioned maybe I should go out and visit him, or at least check some stuff out from him, so I did. I had not heard of the guy, so I started investigating him and found out he had a great track record. He was working with a lot of the people that I’ve already played with that I’ve already known in the music business and they all had great albums produced by him, so I checked it out and read a lot about him. I contacted him and told him what I’d like to do and he’s like, ‘Yeah, man, let’s do it. Come on out.’ So we set up a date. The date I had was February and we actually went out there and spent like… I think we were there like two… two and a half weeks. We were out

Jeff Fetterman Releases His New Album Southern Son

there recording in San Jose California As I said before, this is Jeff’s fourth with Kid Anderson at Greaseland Studios. offering, and with each project his He was a great guy to work with and he performances get better and better. Jeff was also a great producer and player. He says that his big influences in music are helped play on the album. He produced Kenny Wayne Shepherd, whom he’s the album and helped me put it all opened for numerous times, as well as together and it came out better than what I artists such as Stevie Ray Vaughan, Chris thought it would. He’s such a nice guy and Duarte, Jimi Hendrix and BB King, to one of the nicest guys I’ve ever worked name a few. Jeff has also had quite an with. I mean, here I am... I’m coming explosive career, as he has shared the there from Pennsylvania to California, and stage with many great artists of our as soon as I met him personally and after generation such as Ana Popovic, Steven we shook hands… within a half an hour, I Stills, The Rides, Jimmy Vaughan, felt like I had known the guy for my Samantha Fish, Robert Randolf, and many whole life and he felt like just an old others. As you can see, Jeff’s not new to friend. We still have that friendship now, all of this. He started out when he was a even you know, just after two and a half teenager in cover bands performing weeks of working with him. He’s just got familiar standards and Top 40 songs like that personality. He’s a great guy. He most new artists do and he continued to do played on the whole album. Yeah. He so into his 20s and 30s. Finally there played all the keyboards and B3. He did a came a time when he realized what he lot of the percussion in the whole introduction of “All Along the Watchtower.’” continued on next page November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 11

Jeff Fetterman contnued from previous page really wanted to do, and that was play the Blues and start writing originals. Now Jeff is into his 50s and has a good 15 years or so of performing the Blues under his belt. His songs get better with each album and he gets hungrier to do even more.

“I’m heavily influenced by Kenny Wayne Shepherd,” says Jeff. “He’s been a very, very big influence on me, as well as people like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Jimi Hendrix. I’m also heavily influenced by Bruce Springsteen. I’m a big Bruce Springsteen fan. I think he’s a great, great showman, an incredible showman. He’s also an incredible songwriter and lyricist. I’m also influenced by the old Motown stuff. I love Aretha Franklin. I love people like James Brown, Sam Cooke and all those guys like that. I’m also into that style of music as well.”

Now Jeff has released Southern Son, an album of great Blues songs that are bound to capture the hearts of many Blues fans out there. I had a chance to sit down with Jeff and get a little insight into the recording of the album as well as some of the songs and the stories behind them.

Jeff and his band have certainly evolved dramatically from the time he issued his first album, which was primarily a demo, to now with the release of Southern Man. “I think that we have as a because I still had that melody in my band become a lot tighter and a lot more head, I immediately went down and focused on a certain style and genre, grabbed the guitar and started working which is Blues-Rock with a little bit of that out so I wouldn’t lose it. So that’s funk thrown in. I feel that I’ve gotten how the song “I Don’t Want To” came stronger as a songwriter and as a player as about… that was actually a song in a well and I think that I’ve actually found dream.” the root of what I really need and want to be within Blues music. I want to stay in A lot of songs that Jeff writes on that Blues-Rock type style. Before I was this album stem from the Deep South. just kind of putting out stuff that I would Whether it be about a woman or an write and I thought was halfway decent, occurrence. One of those songs deals with but I think now I’m more focused on the legend of master Blues musician, putting out better quality music now. I’ve Robert Johnson. One of the rockier songs got more of a direction now of targeting on the album is “49/61” and it takes us the Blues-Rock and the Blues genre down to the famous ‘crossroads’ where audience now.” Robert Johnson allegedly sold his soul to the devil for a chance at ‘Blues Stardom Inspiration comes in many ways and and the ability to play Blues Guitar better for the first song on the album, “I Don’t than any man alive. “‘46/61" is obviously Want To,” Jeff tells us that it came to him a rocker about Robert Johnson and the in a dream. “Actually,” says Jeff, “that legend of Robert Johnson meeting the song came to me in a dream. That’s how devil at the crossroads,” explains Jeff. that actually happened. When I woke up, “I’ve always been very fascinated with the I immediately jumped up out of bed and legend of Robert Johnson and the imagery 12 Rock and Blues International • November 2020 of the Mississippi Crossroads and the old Juke joints and stuff, so I actually tried to write a song and try to portray that in the song of “49/61'”.

One of the poignant songs on the album is the slow bluesy “Blues For Charley”, which is a dedication to his father, with whom he sometimes had a tumultuous relationship with, but he still loved him deeply. It is a passionate instrumental tune that conjures up a lot of deep emotions for Jeff.

“My father’s name was Charlie,” says Jeff. “He passed away five years ago this February and my dad was my hero, but he was also my biggest enemy. We could never really connect with each other and tell each other how we felt. He was one of those old-school hard-working kind of guys. He did three tours in Vietnam. Growing up, he had a lot of issues. He was a heavy drinker. He had a lot of anger. He had a lot of bitterness. I realize a lot of

those issues were from that war (Vietnam) and he had nobody to be able to talk to about it, because nobody really wanted to hear about it. So he was kind of like a prisoner in his own body. And me growing up, I wanted to be different. He wanted me to be like him. You know you grow up, you work hard and you go to your job every day and you don’t have time for these dreams… this and that. So we didn’t have a lot of respect for each other. As we got older he started mellowing out and I started realizing where he came from and the things that he went through, and we started to learn how to respect each other a little bit more. We started working together. Then we started doing a lot of hunting and stuff together and once he stopped drinking and stuff, he became a different man. Then we actually started to understand where each of us was coming from. I understood how he felt about things and then he started understanding about how I felt about things, and the dreams that I wanted to achieve. That’s when he got sick. I mean we were never very, very close. We somewhat were. We never really were close and comfortable enough to say ‘I love you’ to each other, but we both knew that we did love each other and we both know that we had each other’s respect. So, how can I show something for him, because there was of things that I couldn’t say to him because I didn’t feel comfortable while he was alive? So I made this is an instrumental because there was actually no words. I couldn’t really speak the words, so I made it instrumental called “Blues For Charlie”. That’s just kind of my way of speaking to him to let him know that ‘my music is speaking to you and this is how I feel’ kind of thing. It was a bit of a tribute to him. So that’s the story behind “Blues For Charlie”. It’s a homage to my father.”

Not all the songs are as serious as “Blues For Charlie.” Take the song, “Memphis Sky.” This song talks about the woman he plans on meeting under the Memphis Sky. It’s not necessarily one of those dream songs, but more in the line of ‘what if’ or ‘will it happen.’ It’s not necessarily about a dream he had, but the song is more along the lines of a dream. “Memphis Sky” probably took me about a week or so to write,” explains Jeff. “I love going down in the South. I love being in Memphis. I love being in the Carolinas. I love the South and the thing about “Memphis Sky” is based on this album Southern Son. I wanted the songs to be about the South and obviously Memphis is in the South. It is basically written about a fictional girl that I see, and that I think about. I want to try to meet up with her and have her meet me under the stars of a Memphis Sky, if she’s interested in me as well. I’m thinking about her, but I don’t fighting for them to come out and I was know how she feels about me. So if she just sitting around practicing one day and does feel the same way then she can meet I came up with the riff of “Tell Me Baby” me under the stars of the Memphis sky. for the guitar part and then I just kind of Actually, in the last line is we end up wrote the words and it all just kind of fit getting together. We’re dancing under the together. So that’s how that one came stars of a Memphis sky and I hold her about. It was a fairly easy song to put tight, and she turns and fades away into together.” the night under the stars of the Memphis Sky. It was actually just a dream. I was We’ve only touched on a few of the dreaming all this so she just kind of ‘fades great songs included on this album, and away Into the night’” there’s certainly a lot of great moments on Southern Son. Other songs of particular Not all of his songs were so intricate note on this album include “Goin’ Down or as thought out. Some of them came To Nashville”, “Living With The Blues,” quite easily. Some of them just started out and the ZZ Top sounding “Ain’t Got with a simple riff that just exploded into a You.” The album also closes out with a song. Take for instance the song “Tell Me couple of dynamite instrumentals, Baby.” That was a song that just evolved “Voodoo Funk,” and “Southern Blues.” from a simple riff. Jeff told me that that Yes folks, if you’re into some great Blues one came quite easily to him. “Tell me and Blues-Rock, then this is the album for baby” was kind of written doing just some you. You need to check it out now. guitar licks and riffs on my guitar, on my Southern Son is available on Jeff’s acoustic guitar. Sometimes songs come to website at www.jefffetterman.com. Grab me very easily and other times. I’m really yourself a copy today. November 2020 • Rock and Blues International 13