Erin Harpe

The Boston-based multi-band leader, producer, indie label owner, singer-songwriter, and guitarist leads the electric blues quartet Erin Harpe & the Delta Swingers with her husband and label co-owner, bass player Jim Countryman. This outfit has released three well-received albums. The couple also founded the neo-new wave-y Afro-pop group, Lovewhip, which has released four critically-acclaimed albums. Erin has issued a pair of acoustic blues albums, and maintains an acoustic blues duo with Jim playfully nicknamed “CBD,” Country Blues Duo. In addition, Erin is also an in-demand fingerstyle blues educator who in 2016 released the DVD Women of the Country Blues Guitar through the esteemed Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. Select collective career highlights include rave press in LA Weekly, Boston’s Weekly Dig, Boston Herald, DownBeat Magazine, and Living Blues Magazine, among other outlets. She’s a Boston Music Award Winner and a five-time BMA nominee, and she is a New England Music Award winner and an International Blues Challenge Semifinalist. Erin has had songs featured on Showtime’s Shameless, MTV’s Veronica Mars, Paris Hilton’s BFF, Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations, and many other shows.  Erin has jammed with iconic acoustic blues artists Phil Wiggins (of Cephas & Wiggins), Warner Williams and Jay Summerour, Eleanor Ellis, Jontavious Willis, and James Montgomery. She’s opened for legends such as ZZ Top, T-Model Ford, Honeyboy Edwards, Roy Bookbinder, and James Cotton. Erin has played at the House of Blues, Caffe Lena, Club Passim, the International Blues Challenge, South by Southwest, the New York State Blues Festival, and many other festivals and venues around the US. Her Country Blues Duo has toured Spain and the UK twice. 

Blues is the first music Erin remembers hearing, specifically Piedmont blues, a syncopated, fingerpicked variant of the blues popularized in the East coast region by artists such as Blind Blake and Josh White, and later Rev. Gary Davis and Cephas & Wiggins. Arlo Guthrie used Piedmont guitar accompaniment for his well-known monologue-style song “Alice’s Restaurant” which was Erin’s entry into playing this style.  Erin’s father is a blues fanatic, guitar collector, and talented performer who wrote a book about the highly coveted guitar brand, Stella Guitars, The Stella Guitar Book by Neil Harpe. She recorded a duo album with her father, Delta Blues Duets. Her mother played a little guitar, was a graphic designer, and met Erin’s father in the folk music scene. Growing up, Erin experienced blues music as the soundtrack to impromptu backyard jams and barbershop hoedowns. She later sought solace in it during her teenage years when she experienced her own blues, grappling with adolescence and her mother and father’s tumultuous relationship. Read full biography at www.erinharpe.com

Interview

• I see that you play frequently on a vintage Gibson L00 and a late 30's Duolian. Can you tell our readers about them? Sure. The National was the second guitar I ever got, when I was about 18 I think. There's a picture of me balancing it on my head shortly after I got it. It is kind of unique, because it is a 14 fret like Blind Boy Fuller. I actually like that it is not a slotted head, even though it's a 1938, and it has a lovely patina – you can tell it's got some stories. Almost looks like it's been buried and dug up. The L00 I got a few years later, my dad found it. It has always been my blueprint for the perfect guitar for finger style blues. The neck is so delicate, and perfect for smaller hands. It has a great sound, and that classic sunburst.
• How do you compare the difference with a modern guitar and the vintage ones? For me, vintage guitars are like playable works of art. They have experiences in them, and it makes gives them an aura. And they're already broken in, so they don't sounds stiff! Modern guitars are less fragile, and many of them would be able to be replaced, if, say, an airline broke or lost them, which is why I gig with them. Of course they all sound different, and comparing my 1934 Gibson L00 to one of my favorite gigging guitars, my Tacoma PM28E – the Tacoma is louder because it has a deeper body, like a Nick Lucas. Recently I've been gigging with a Taylor Academy 12, which, for a small body guitar is one of the loudest acoustics I've ever heard.
• You are the daughter of Neil Harpe, who is well-known for his fascination for the prewar Stella Guitars and his book about them. Without a doubt you've seen a lot of these instruments came by. Do you have a particular guitar in mind with a special story about it? Well my dad certainly is well-known for his detailed knowledge of the old Stella's, and he even wrote a book about them! But it doesn't stop at Stella's, he is an expert on a range of vintage acoustic guitars, especially those known to have been played by country blues artists. I remember him having a particular obsession with the pre-war Gibson Nick Lucas when I was a kid, especially the ones with the rounded bout. He had one once that he was sure was the one in the picture with Robert Johnson. It was definitely a really early model, and he started to feel uncomfortable taking it to gigs, so he sold it. He likes to say he had a "catch and release" policy with guitars, and I remember all kinds of cool old guitars coming through our house when I was a kid. Some of the other brands included Oahu, Kay Kraft, and even some double-neck harp guitars.
• Our children get their daily dose of blues 78's, vinyl records etc. How was that for you in your childhood and did you appreciate it already on an early age? When I was a kid, what I mostly heard was my dad practicing every morning in the kitchen. He would be playing songs by Tommy Johnson, Blind Blake, Lonnie Johnson, Mississippi John Hurt, or any number of 1930's country blues artists. When I started playing guitar in my teens, I got interested in my dad's record collection, and he had all that stuff on LP. I was especially taken by Memphis Minnie, because she was female and played guitar!
• Your husband Jim plays the uke bass, produce your albums and you guys play a lot as a duo. If we can join you for a day at home in your personal life, how is that day going? To tell the truth, we spend a lot of time in the office. Jim does much of our booking and management, and I do most of our promotions. Besides that, we keep very busy with gigs when we're home, and we are working on touring in the States and Europe. When we have a free moment, we practice, and record in my home studio. We've been very busy this year, beginning with a tour in Jamaica, and two tours to Spain and the UK.
• In your playing style you use quite often, I call it the "Son House, Willie Brown string snapping style". Is that something that came natural to you? It's completely natural. I never realized I was doing it, but people comment on it all the time. I think I must have picked it up when I was a kid learning, trying to be heard over the adult guitar players like my dad. I like the percussiveness it adds. I call it "pickin and poppin'"
• If we talk about prewar blues icons, what is your "must have" record that our readers can ask for Christmas? Anything by Memphis Minnie, Mississippi John Hurt, or Blind Boy Fuller. Seriously, you can't go wrong! Since you brought up Christmas, I should point out that I made a holiday album a few years ago, called "The Christmas Swing", it was inspired by a mixtape my dad's friend made, featuring vintage blues Christmas songs. It includes some classics, and some originals. You can listen to it on all streaming platforms, or get the CD/LP/digital album at our website ErinHarpe.com.
• Your album "Blues Roots" from 2002 is my personal favorite, but which album that you've made is the most special to you and why? Thank you! That's a great one. After that album, for my next blues recording I went into the studio for one day with my dad. The album we made is called Delta Blue Duets. I think you can hear how much fun we have when we play and sing together on it.
• Besides your music you also made an instructional video for Stefan Grossman. Is teaching a part of your musical career? Most of my time is taken up with touring and performing, but I have taught some lessons, focusing on finger style country blues. But more often, I teach workshops, which can be either in person or online. I have also taught at a summer camp called Augusta Blues & Swing Week, in the mountains of West Virginia. Right now, I'm working on an album that's going to be a tribute to Mississippi John Hurt, someone who has been very influential, in general to Piedmont fingerpickers, and to me (and my dad). I'm going to make an accompanying book of tablature that people can get, so hopefully more people will learn his stuff!
• In your biography we can read that you've played with a lot of great names like Honey Boy and T Model Ford. If I can give you a time machine, with whom from the old guys or ladies would you like to make a record with? There are many I would love to have seen live, and played with, but my top choice has to be Memphis Minnie!