The Road To Washington

THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON

I hope there are some fortunate souls that got to see the Swiss blues band, the Crawlin' Kingsnake Blues Band, perform with the late Rock Bottom in 1998 at Skipper's when they toured Florida to ...The Road To Washington*Interview, 12-Bar Rag / La Hora del Blues* I hope there are some fortunate souls that got to see the Swiss blues band, the Crawlin' Kingsnake Blues Band, perform with the late Rock Bottom in 1998 at Skipper's when they toured Florida to launch their debut album, Stomp My Feet. (Sepia Productions). Lead guitarist for the group, Raph Bettex, was born in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland and picked up the guitar at age 12. After learning to play he did several tours in the early nineties with New Yorker Gary Setzer and the Roustabouts (Brian Setzer's brother) and backed the late Rock Bottom on tour in Europe and several studio gigs for five years before touring the U.S. in 1998. Raph then morphed into Napoleon Washington. The moniker, Raph explains, refers to the French history of Louisiana and not only refers to the 'motherland' of the blues, but also for its mixture of different cultures forced to adapt themselves to a new land that was not always chosen (African, French-Acadian, Spanish) considering that the actual idea of being disconnected from one's roots is nested somewhere in playing the blues in Europe. Plus it is also a respectful tribute to emancipated slaves who, when freed, realized they needed 'two names' and often named themselves after presidents, Lincoln, Washington, or Jefferson. In 2003 Napoleon Washington released his debut solo album Hotel Bravo after going totally acoustic. It features 14 original songs and was entirely recorded under a traffic bridge next to a freight train yard. Raph had no difficulty convincing Eric Laesser, his agent/manager/and longtime friend to let him record under a bridge located ten minutes from his work. After finding such a perfect venue, Napoleon explained, 'The next thing I know, I'm sitting there for two months: watching trains, hearing planes, meeting dogs and clouds with the city rumble in the background. The songs kept a-coming and plus, since the blues can't deal with pretending, I better be true to myself. That's my town, my place, my reality. I ain't born in Clarksdale, Mississippi in the first place.' Alligator record's boss, Bruce Iglauer, admitted he regretted not giving U.S. market to the CD because of two major difficulties, Napoleon is European and white and he also lacks reputation. The CD received extensive European airplay and demonstrates a true understanding of Delta blues and has spent many hours in my own CD player. Napoleon recently tracked me down on my computer after losing contact for about a year due to an e-mail address change. I first met him in 1998 and we corresponded over the years and he told me about his new project, the Washington Theatre. This innovative approach to web video just knocked me out; so, I thought it was time to stalk Napoleon and convince him to share with us how a Swiss plugged guitarist who worked with the late Godfather of Tampa Bay Blues morphed into an acoustic Napoleon Washington. His Washington Theatre is awesome and deserves your attention as an exciting multi-media approach to web-based publicity. It is a cutting-edge approach to technology and music video. The shift to acoustic blues was a natural one for Napoleon. According to him, 'You know it's just love, that's all it is. And that love is the gasoline I use to fill up my tank with, and I expect to travel pretty far. The only thing is, I need to get myself a comfortable seat, no matter how slow the car is. With a good seat and a big tank, I'm bound to make it a long trip. I'm telling you, I have never felt as comfortable as I do today in this acoustic stuff. I found my seat, right here.' What happened next is best told by Napoleon himself: 'It was early one balmy afternoon in St.Pete in the end of May I think, something like six years ago. I yelled, Rock! Mind if I grab that axe of yours 'n sit on the stairs awhile?" "Go 'head", I heard him yell back, in a tone that rather meant "Why the hell you bother me with a question like that?' Well, Rock Bottom it was, bless his soul. Godfather of many. We had played five tours in Europe with him, and now I was touring Florida for the second time with my band, the Crawlin' Kingsnake Blues Band from Switzerland, and we were staying at Rock's. That's just how nice he was. The guitar? That's my point. It was a beautiful National Tricone that Rock claimed to have gotten 'as a salary for producing an album for Roy Bookbinder.' Rock had seemed too busy to answer me minutes before, but I eventually caught a glimpse of him watching me playing through the living-room window. When I came back in, he was sitting on the couch with a legal pad, scribbling furiously. 'Your gig is a late one', he said. 'I just booked some time in a studio, early afternoon. We'll be rolling some tape. I'm putting down some new stuff and we'll have a little rehearsal with the rest of the band in a while. That okay with you?' I was bewildered. We had recorded a little with him in Switzerland in the past, but nothing fancy. Now he just had heard me on the steps and figured I finally could be of some use. See, Rock didn't have a very high opinion about me as an electric guitar player, and he was damn right. I was hopeless. But right there, he had heard how bad I loved that acoustic thing. Rock couldn't be fooled. We played the studio gig, I was flying. And much more than all this, during the recording, he called me 'brother'...it's a little hard for me, emotionally speaking, to listen to that CD now for I still miss him, but it is one of my most cherished memories to this day. After that, he always encouraged me to keep on with the acoustic, and even said good things around when I put out my first demo as Napoleon Washington some time later. The final thing, besides Rock's advice, that made me morph into Napoleon Washington is a French part to the story. See, when we recorded the Crawlin' Kingsnake album "Stomp My Feet" in 1997, I was looking for a National to borrow. Hard thing to find. Until I dropped a line one day by Tomcat Blake, who at that time was living in France very close to my place. "I'll see what I can do", he just said. Couple of weeks later, he called me. 'Come grab your stuff'. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I went. Right there in his living room, he had a 1929 National Triolian for me to take to my session. I couldn't believe it! 'That yours?' I asked. "Nope. Some guy, friend, who builds up his own resonator guitars, mind you. Collector. Lends you this one. Thinks it'll match your style." I didn't even know I had a style. I did the job, and asked no questions. I was too afraid I might wake up from the dream. Only after that did I ask for the guy's address and brought it back to him. And guess what? We became friends. His name is Pierre Avocat, and along with another guy named Mike Lewis, they hand-build resonator guitars under the brand name of Fine Resophonic. Beautiful instruments, custom-made, production of no more than twenty-five a year... built some for John Campbell, Michael Messer, Eric Clapton. When we got back from Florida, I called Pierre to say hello and told him the story with Rock's tricone. And then, as a matter of small talk, I dared 'and how much would you charge me for a single-cone style-O guitar from y'all?' 'Dunno. Gotta check'. When he got back with me later, he said 'I done called Mike. Told him about you. He said if the boy pays for the wood and metal, I'll make him one'. You interested?' They made me one. They could've offered it to Clapton, but no, they offered it to me. To this day, I have no words to describe what it means to me. Suffice to say it absolutely changed my life. Period. Today, I'm about to take off for a flight to New York to record my next album. I'll tell you more about that in time, but I'm very excited with the way it's happening. Recording in the US is really soul-feeding for us Europeans, as things are really different over here. Music in general, and blues all the more, is hardly a business. It gives you a lot of room artistically, but it also makes things very heavy to carry sometimes. Now another very important thing... we're celebrating the grand opening of the Washington Theater. The Washington Theater, just that? Yessuh. It's a movie theater really, and it's located... just exactly everywhere on the planet. It ain't a new type of Hard Rock Café franchise joint, it's on the internet. To make the story short, we were ready to publish a DVD of a very amazing concert we had played, a beautiful and panoramic piece of work filmed with twelve cameras over three nights, when we abruptly realized that Washington just ain't Britney Spears. We wouldn't sell but to satisfy our egos, not to make any commercial sense. Wrong move. So we humbly figured that if we could not sell those videos, we had to give them away for free. And that's how we opened this web movie theater on www.napoleonwashington.com to broadcast these clips and every future bit of audio-visual media we'd put up. It's got the same technology behind it as the mainstream Hollywood movie sites! You can choose your clip by dragging up and down a viewer on a filmstrip, and when you pick one, you get a short explanation about what you're about to watch before you select if you want a hi-res or a low-res video. I had a team in Montreal to program all that, it's truly amazing. We could have had a DVD nobody'd care for, or a promotional tool that nobody's got... that's exactly my job: trying to figure out things soon enough to make the right choice. Looks easy. Just ain't. Just as this was to go to press, I had the opportunity to ask Napoleon about his recent recording experience in New York. As he described it, 'It was more like a 20 hours-a-day-in-the-studio effort, but everything went incredibly smooth. See, my method is to simply try to turn whatever may-at first sight-look like obstacles into something that'll work my way. What I mean is this: I'm a European guy playing American music. Which results in the fact that I'll always miss something, whatever the side of the ocean I'm at. Not so easy to deal with. But on the other hand, I can turn that into the fact that I'm-at least partially-home on both continents! Then, just take the best out of both worlds, because that gives you some sort of 'legitimate' access to everything. For this album, I wanted to work with the American efficiency, professionalism and knowledge of the proper musical vocabulary. Record with guys I had never met and will never see again, for kicks, to test myself. And it worked great, because I could use the European precision, preparation and care. I spent more than 18 months on preproduction in my own studio, and that led to razor-edge precise demos for every song. We could track very, very fast. I'm just damn lucky, but I feel like we all are: it's just a matter of finding where our own luck is hiding.' After falling in love with the Hotel Bravo CD, the Blues Stalker, sight unseen, is betting that with this CD to be released in December, Napoleon Washington will find out his luck is lurking in this release. Monte Adkinson **Website created by Artinbox Multimedia.© 2010 - Napoleon Washington - Napoleon Washington
The Road To Washington
I hope there are some fortunate souls that got to see the Swiss blues band, the Crawlin' Kingsnake Blues Band, perform with the late Rock Bottom in 1998 at Skipper's when they toured Florida to ...
NAPOLEON WASHINGTON (Official Website)
About the Five Blind Boys from the Parish | A (modest but) comprehensive discography | Blues de Traverse, Cléon (Rouen) | Blues Café | Blues de Traverse | Blues et technique: des noces d'or ! | Blues surpassé | Bottes Ouest, âme Sud | Cahors Blues festival | Cahors Blues Festival | Napoleon Washington, coup de coeur | De guitariste de blues à bluesman | Discographie (modeste mais) complète | Du blues en toute liberté | Euro Blues | Frissons de blues avant la fin | Napoleon Washington : Hotel Bravo | Homegrown | Homegrown | Napoleon Washington, Homegrown | Just a Bluesman | La dernière conquête de Napoleon Washington | Larry's Short Takes | La voix d'un médium | Le disque de la semaine | Le Grand Théâtre de Napoleon Washington | L'empire de Napoleon Washington | Le souffle hanté | Les voies du Blues | Mad Man | Mille jours avec ma guitare | Musique organique | Napoleon Washington | Napoleon Washington, opus premier | Napoleon Washington : what about that name ? | Une bio rapide | A condensed bio | Napoleon Washington : pourquoi ce nom ? | Premier disque de Napoleon | Respect | Serious Acoustic Blues | The Five Blind Boys from the Parish | The Washington TV ! | The Washington TV ! | Un CD Noir étincelant | La voix intérieure | Un voyage avec air conditionné | Archives : The Washington Theater | Archives : Le Washington Theater | Washington en concert à Caen