By 2000, Chris Thomas King had already established his career as a hip/hop blues musician — with seven albums, 10 million records sold and both a Grammy and a Country Music Award — when he was featured playing the part of Tommy Johnson in the Coen brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? And yet he became more widely known from his role in the film (and a song on the soundtrack) than from his own prolific musical career.
“Let’s face it. O Brother, Where Art Thou? was a phenomenon. It went on to be a hit on the screen and the soundtrack was a huge hit,” says King.
Though he learned to embrace his connection to it all, he admits it was “disconcerting and threw [him] off balance,” because in his own career at the time he was a “radical blues musician playing hip/hop blues.”
Just after the film came out King was “taken aback by people expecting me to come out on stage as the character I played in the film.” A part of the challenge of being so connected to such a large project was tempering expectations and stereotypes.
After some frustrating times, King learned to embrace what the film ultimately meant to his career.
“You can’t choose how you become famous, but believe me, I am very pleased that I became more well-known through such a great film.”
He certainly has not traveled in a straight line musically. King believes he has always played the blues, and that blues music “has morphed into R&B, jazz, and rock & roll at different points.” Some main pioneers of blues adaptation he looks up to are Jimi Hendrix, John Coltrane, and Miles Davis.
His 17-album discography is an impressive testament to his own creative approach to blues music. He dismisses the ultra-purist attitude of blues that some people have, where imposed ideas shape a sort of be-all-and-end-all finality: “I don’t paint with only one shade of blue.”
Chris Thomas King’s new record is entitled “Antebellum Postcards,” and was released last October as the first in a double-album, with the second part being released in September. The album is as close to a concept album as one can get without being Pink Floyd or The Moody Blues.
“Antebellum” refers to the pre-American Civil War era in the South: rich musical heritage passed down from generation to generation, being sung by people who might “laugh at what we think is a hard day in the present.”
King suggests it was an era that featured great songs, but also one without recordings. He drew a ton of inspiration from “sheet music and photographs (from the time) … they are like looking at old postcards.”
Another motivating factor in the creation of “Antebellum Postcards” is King’s hope to record his own versions of songs that were originally blues and a part of the Southern Black music canon. Many of those songs became standards in country music, and were somewhat stripped of their African American heritage.
Several songs he plays on “Antebellum Postcards” may sound familiar as country tunes (“Man of Constant Sorrow”, “Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore”, “Wayfaring Stranger”) but, as I learned in the interview, they are originally Antebellum songs. The timeless nature of the tunes shines through for him as well: “If after a hundred years a song is still reaching people, there must be something about it.”
Chris Thomas King is playing at the Showplace Lounge in Peterborough on Tuesday, June 26. The show begins at 8 pm.
