A Conversation with Jeff Black (continued)

PM: Do you consider yourself a spiritual person?

JB: Oh, yeah, definitely. That's something I draw from. I think I draw from all those old Bible stories and stuff I heard in Sunday school.

PM: Do you have any particular orientation spiritually?

JB: Well, I used to go to Calvary Baptist, a little Sunday school. Me and my sister would ride a little purple church bus every Sunday.

PM: Wow.

JB: And I think anything beyond those early parables and those little stories that you learn in Sunday school, anything else becomes politics after that.

PM: [laughs]

JB: And so I think from those days, and just my folks, they taught me a spirituality that really comes from working with the dirt, and comes from a long line of farmers. It's something that I continue to draw on, because, once again, that was something that hit me at a very impressionable age. And those old stories are the best ones.

PM: I've heard something about the Black on the Tracks Tour. Is that going to materialize? What's the latest on that initiative?

JB: We're slowly but surely trying to get it together. We want to do it right. So it's probably taking a little bit longer than we had first anticipated.

PM: And what's the principle?

JB: The idea is to take some of these excursion trains around the country where somebody was playing some music, how that might be something that some folks would find interesting. I love traveling songs, and I love rolling wheels, and I love the idea of everybody being involved in the same thing. So I think that all of us maybe jumping on a little train and maybe going down to Watertown and having a show, and throw down a little bit and have a good time is something that's been very appealing to me for a long time. We're trying to get it together where it's right. And we're just going to do it until it's right.

PM: Well, when it happens, I want to jump aboard and I want to video.

JB: Oh, I'll definitely let you know. Oh, yeah, we'll document that as much as we possibly can.

PM: You seem like the kind of writer who could really do a great job of scoring a serious film. Would you like to try that sometime?

JB: Yeah. I've been getting a little closer to that. I've got three songs in a Brian Jun movie, there's an independent movie that's coming out next year called Steel City. It takes place in Alton, Illinois, his hometown, which just northeast of St. Louis. Just in a nutshell, it's basically a story about two brothers dealing with their lives after their father has been recently incarcerated. And it's a father/son kind of a thing, a little beyond a coming-of-age movie. I've got three songs in that. And then there are these smaller independent films for folks around the country that I've been kind of dabbling in just scoring some music for that. So I'm getting a little closer to it. It's something that I've had a desire to do for a long, long time. But it's also something that you just can't jump right into.

PM: Yeah, right. You just can't say you want it and do it. It's got to present itself correctly.

JB: Hopefully, as an artist, I just keep trying to improve and keep going to school.

PM: Yeah, absolutely. And you keep getting better every record. Are there things musically or otherwise that you want to try that you haven't had a chance to yet?

JB: Well, I've often thought that it would be fun to learn to play the fiddle. I don't know if I'll be able to do that or not. But just beyond that, I think musically there are probably some people down the line that I would love to work with somehow, some way. I've always been a big fan of Cecilia Bartoli, the mezzo soprano from Italy. I've always been a huge fan of hers. I would love to sing a slow, sad song with Dolly Parton. It's too late for me to be able to work with Johnny Cash.

I would love to work in the studio one way or the other with John Carter. I've known John Carter for a long, long time. So I think there's something in our future. I don't know quite what it's going to be. And then beyond that, I think there's probably a list as long as my arm, but no names are coming to mind. It's one of those things where I think those things happen organically, if they're supposed to happen.

PM: And a few good ones came to mind.

JB: Yeah.

PM: Well, it's great to talk with you, Jeff. And I thank you for taking the time.

JB: Oh, my pleasure. Thank you very much. Thanks for telling people about my music. I appreciate that.

PM: Yeah, I will continue to, my man. Regards to Kissy. And have a good show tonight.

JB: Yeah, man. And one of these days while we're up in town maybe let's go grab a bottle of beer or something.

[The pictures of Jeff Black that we've used in these illustrations were taken by two of our favorite photographers, Michael Wilson (the portraits) and Steffen Paulus (the concert shots). We formed the box settings for their photos from pictures of boxes created by Joseph Cornell. Obviously, nobody can make a Cornell box like Cornell himself--have a look at the Cornell exhibit online at Nicolas Pioch's WebMuseum, Paris.]

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