Music > Interviews

Barrence Whitfield

by Lizzoutline

20/08/15

Barrence Whitfield, or to call him by his birth name, Barry White, is a 60 year old legend. Along with his band The Savages, he’s been making the most incredibly powerful punk/RnB/soul/funk/rock n roll music for 30 years, touring all over the world and delighting audiences wherever he goes. His stage show is explosive, his commitment to live performances 110% and he’s gracing Norwich with his presence in early October at the Waterfront. I spoke to him about Mick Hucknall, country music and his good friend Andy Kershaw, who he does a mean impression of; I ain’t never heard a guy from New Jersey do a Lancashire accent before.

You moved to New Jersey as a child and that’s when you joined a gospel choir. Had you sung at all before that opportunity arose?

No, I never did, I was just this little tyke running around reading comic books. There was always music around the house, Jazz, RnB, Jackie Wilson, Chubby Checker, stuff like that. And the big thing in our house was the radio and that was your number one key to listening to music and the Top 10.

You were in various bands in high school; what sort of music did you play?

My first band was called The Funkasonics because we loved Funkadelic. Then I played funk/soul stuff, like The Isley Brothers and Isaac Hayes, music with a lot of soul, revolutionary stuff, which was really hip in the early 70’s.

Who were you listening to when you were starting to put the band together with Peter and develop your unique sound?

I was listening to people like Wilson Pickett, Sam Cooke, Otis Redding and James Brown at that time. I also listened to Motown acts like The Temptations and Smokey Robinson.

How did your explosive stage show develop?

It was just how I felt the music onstage. I always wanted to emulate James Brown but I didn’t have the footwork going! I pretty much wanted to scream my guts out. I also watched a bit of Little Richard.

DJ legend Andy Kershaw was instrumental in getting you over to the UK. Are you guys still friends?

Oh yeah! I saw him the last time I was over in England. We keep in touch a lot. He was the singular guy who in the early stages of the band loved us, loved the record and supported us so much. He’s just a great guy to hang around with; he just has his head on straight when it comes to music and I was very fortunate to meet a lot of people through him. He gave us a lot of airplay on his radio programme and I did a couple of TV specials with him including The Old Grey Whistle Test.

So what was it like the first time you toured the UK that first time in the late 80’s?

I think most people thought I was the next Little Richard. A lot of people showed up; the second gig I played in England was in Manchester and the gig was put on by a guy called Roger Eagle, (an influential DJ, record collector, club promoter, and musical mentor) who was a really cool gentleman. I stayed at Kershaw’s place and he toured me around “I’ve got Barrence here!” he’d say in his Lancashire accent. He lived in Crouch End at the time. I got the chance to walk around the neighbourhood, he’d take me to his favourite place for breakfast, and I got to meet his family. For those first five years of going to England I stayed at his flat and met a lot of great people. I was lucky to have someone like that.

Your music is a mix of so many genres; rock n roll, punk, RnB. As a result you’re toured with a real variety of names from The Damned to Tina Turner. Who have been your favourite tour-mates?

Well, Los Lobos of course, I’ve known them for about 30 years, and George Thorogood, and we just did a tour with The Sonics which was fantastic. It’s been exciting to meet people who have turned up at my shows and have expressed that they loved the band. I got to meet people I never thought I’d meet in my life, like Robert Plant, Elvis Costello, Jools Holland, and all these wonderful people. Mick Hucknall showed up when we played in Manchester and he was right up front; I kept thinking hmmm, that guy looks familiar…that hair…you know! I’ll never forget the night John Peel stayed at Kershaw’s flat after we had dinner together, and we stayed up most of the night talking about music. What a fascinating experience that was.

You’ve contributed tracks to some country tribute albums and recorded a couple albums with Tom Russell through the years. Is country a genre that’s close to your heart?

I do love country music and recording with Tom on those two records was really special. He got me into listening to singer/songwriters, guys like Hank Williams, Joe Ely, Butch Hancock, Townes Van Zandt, people like that from Texas. One of my favourites is Steve Young, a tremendous writer and vocalist. I always wanted to do a country record anyway because country is not that far away as a genre from rhythm and blues. Going back as far as the 40’s and 50’s, RnB artists would cover country songs their way, especially King Records from Cincinnati, like Ivory Joe Hunter would do I Almost Lost My Mind, or Solomon Burke’s Just Out Of Reach. Then you get a lot of country artists covering RnB tunes. Those two records with Tom are actually going to be reissued this fall. I covered a tune by Merle Haggard about an inter-racial love affair from the 60’s recently and that put me in the Country Music Hall of Fame! Amazing.

Your latest album Under The Savage Sky is just about to come out; can you tell me a little about it?

As a band we were talking about how we’ve got a bit older, and perhaps our cynicism has become more widespread. Like this one song, Incarceration Casserole, which is about a guy whose wife has gone to jail, but he realises that that means that he can’t have a good meal or get his house tidied up and he becomes distraught! So there’s some humour in it. There’s also a track called Adjunct Street about a guy who’s depressed and alcoholic and lives by himself, and there’s there’s Willow, based on a true story about a 15 year old girl living in New Mexico who got hooked up with a cult and found out that the head of the cult was raping and taking advantage of the girls there. She resisted and had the guy arrested. So it’s a mixture of real life stories and observations about life and plus, you know, rock n roll is rock n roll…“I’m a good man, I just ain’t living right, I want to get married and have a family”, all that good stuff! We went at it the way we always do and recorded it live in the studio.

The album cover’s very striking and reminds me of a Hitchcock design. How did that come about?

We wanted something eerie and strange. My drummer’s girlfriend is an artist, and from England as well and she did it for us. We wanted it to look like a Hitchcock design so that’s cool you picked up on that! It’s an album that has a nice cover and the music goes with it.

Barrence Whitfield and the Savages play the Waterfront on 2nd October. Tickets available from uea.ticketbookings.co.uk