 ZAC
by Jim Crawford
The list of great Mississippi Bluesmen reads like a Who's Who. In the early days there was Charley Patton, Robert Johnson, Lead Belly, Pinetop Perkins, Son House, Elmore James, Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin' Wolf. The list is endless. Jackson, Miss. native Zac Harmon can now add his name to this roster. "I was born and raised in Mississippi," Zac said in a recent interview. "I didn't even know it was called Blues, we just played that music. We didn't say we going to play the Blues. Other people called it the Blues. Even if I wanted to get away from it, if I wanted to change the Blues in me, I couldn't 'cause it's part of my DNA. If you put me in a pot and boiled me down, all that would be left is the Blues." Like any Mississippi Bluesman worth his salt, Zac had his heroes and mentors as a young man learning his craft. "Musically Sam Meyers was my biggest teacher," Harmon says. "He was a strict disciplinarian and a great player. He taught me a lot. Mel Brown is another one I learned from. (Jackson guitarist) Jesse Robinson was another big influence. These guys played around Jackson when I was a kid and I couldn't help but learn from them. "Nationally it was Howlin' Wolf," he said. "I adored him. He was such a man's man. He was very smart and way ahead of his time. How many band leaders thought about insurance and union pay for his players? He was one of the first to do that for his guys. He always believed in working for what was his. No hand outs. "He rubbed off on me," Zac says. "He didn't believe in spending his money lavishly. Instead he bought land in Mississippi where he could hunt and fish. He was a country boy at heart and never became a city boy. I'm the same way today. Even after living in LA for 26 years I'm still a country boy. As long as I've got a pickup truck I'm good to go." As a modern, 21st century player in a genre that is many times dissected, misinterpreted, under-appreciated and often neglected, Zac has his own philosophy about the future of the Blues, where it came from, and where it is headed. "Real Blues is real music that makes you feel good," he says. "It's the most basic form of music there is. Music is medicine. If you're feeling bad and want to feel better, you listen to the Blues. If you're feeling good and want to feel better, you listen to the Blues." Zac recently coined a term "progressive Blues" that casts an interesting perspective on the age- old traditions of early Blues songs. "By progressive Blues I'm just trying to say it's Blues that doesn't follow traditional Blues patterns. There's a place for it all and it's still whatever makes you feel good." It doesn't have to revolve around the drinking and hard-living format of the early artists to fit his definition of progressive Blues, Zac says. "I'm totally concerned about the music dying," he says. "Not because nobody's playing it. It's because of the argument about what constitutes "real" Blues. You hear 'There's not enough fans.' That's not true. There's not enough fans who know they like Blues because they haven't been exposed to it. Lots of kids are Blues fans but they just don't know they're listening to the Blues. "Ask them if they know who Robert Randolph is? Derek Trucks? Susan Tedeschi? John Meyer? Most likely they'll tell you 'Yes,' but they're not aware that these are Blues players. Everything has become so bottom-line oriented that the (record) labels have labeled the Blues away from us. They don't advertise that these people are the next generation of Blues players and that's a shame. It's also causing there to be fewer and fewer places for good Blues players to play." As a young man Harmon played guitar for Z.Z. Hill, Dorothy Moore and Sam Myers among others. After settling in Los Angeles in the early '80s, Zac worked as a studio sideman and then branched out into writing and producing. During that time he wrote songs for the O'Jays, Whispers, Karyn White, Alexander O'Neal and Black Uhuru, his bio information states. After a while he got the itch to return to his first love, the Blues, and recorded his first project in 2002. "Live at Babe & Ricky's Inn" was his tribute to Mississippi Blues and garnered him enough attention to be included in the "next generation of Blues" category. In 2004 Harmon and his band, The Mid-South Blues Revue, entered and won the International Blues Competition sponsored by the Blues Foundation every year in Memphis, Tenn. They were named "Best Unsigned Band." Since then he has never looked back. "The IBC put me on the map," Zac says. "I wasn't really known outside Mississippi as anything other than a sideman. I was pretty well known in LA but only as a sideman. I played lots of kinds of music. IT (IBC) gave me a chance to make a statement worldwide. It's the best thing going for up and coming Blues musicians. "Sometime you're at a disadvantage doing your own music at IBC because they are judging the Blues of the 2000s with a 1950s format. You can't regulate a person's feelings. It all depends on the judges. It's purely the luck of the draw. "Early programmers and music promoters understood the music because they were in many cases a creative part of it. So the music was free to grow," Harmon says. " Today too many of our programmers are really simply Blues enthusiasts who really love the music of the '50s and '60s and really think that they can now replace the creative spirit that has driven the evolution of the Blues with their love for a window of time. "They pretty much control all the outlets where Blues can be found today and my fear is that what does not evolve will die. Because of this the people (fans) now get a very small rationing of anything that's progressive in the Blues. Basically what they get is the same thing re-hashed over and over and over and over. What this has done - just by attrition - is limit the Blues fan base by refusing to let it grow. So what happens is that you got "Stormy Monday" recorded a million times and finally it ain't so great anymore." Although Zac has enjoyed critical and commercial acclaim with his latest CD, the aptly titled "Music is Medicine," he says 2012 has been a difficult year for him. "It has been a very, very difficult year," he says. "We were down to about the last third of the CD when my father had a stroke. Then he passed away. He and I were really close. Then, my best friend (Bluesman) Michael Burks passed away. We both have had health issues and we spent time checking on each other. He'd go for some kind of treatment and I'd call and ask him how it went. I'd go for some kind of treatment and he check on me. I had just done a tour in Europe and he was just leaving for one when he passed away at the airport as he was getting ready to leave. So, it was kind of a double whammy for me. I've spent the last few months getting my father's affairs in order. I just didn't work a whole lot this year. I'm looking forward to next year. It'll be an opportunity to let the music heal me." More and more Blues festivals are springing up all over the place in recent years and Harmon thinks they are one of the best outlets to get like-minded people together in a peaceful setting. "Blues festivals are almost like a big tent revival," he said. "What you find is the people are really a true definition of the folks in America. I've played them for years and have never seen any fighting, any negativity. You find real Americans at festivals. Blues music is part of the healing process in America." To really get a grasp of the power of the music, one needs to travel to Europe and witness first- hand the love and respect people outside the United States share with the artists. "The first thing people ask you when they find out you're an American musician is 'Do you play Blues?' " Zac says. "I was the second Blues artist to ever play in front of the Great Pyramid of Egypt. I had 5,000 Egyptians going wild and they couldn't understand a word I said or sang. To them it's not about the notes, it's the feeling in the music. "The music bypasses the ears, goes straight to the heart and rests in the soul. They understand that. We're spoiled here in America. Good Blues has always been just right around the corner and we've taken it and marginalized it. There are the professional players and then there are so many playing who are hobbyists. It's hard to find real Blues any more, much less a place to play. "So now you got new fans coming to see the Blues and this is what they hear and they say 'Oh my God, I don't like that.' That is why I ask the question "does the Blues eat it's young?" This is a real problem. So we really have to ask ourselves the question: Do we really love this music? Do we really want the Blues to survive? That is the question. In Europe you don't have that. If they go to the trouble of bringing you over there it's because they truly love you and love what you're doing." Regardless of the state of the Blues, Harmon vows to keep playing until "I draw my last breath." "As far as getting rich in the Blues," he says, "you've got a better chance of hitting the lottery. You play it 'cause you love it, not for the money. The love for the music is where the riches lie. It's the unconditional love for the music. I don't ever want it to die." | 
