artist Interview

The Palm Wine Boys
Acoustic World Folk

Tom Chandler: guitar and vocals
Dylan Eliyahu Sills: bass, flute and vocals
Richard Linley: guitar and vocals
Q.B. Williams: percussion and vocals

Richard Linley interviewed by Judy Wolf

If some of you have been enjoying this music for a while, than you’ve been tapping your feet to it long before I have. I listened to it for the first time recently when I linked onto the Palm Wine Boys website and I fell in love with the melodies, the rhythms and the music right away. Playing out of my little computer speakers was this music that made me stare off out my window into the clouds and smile. I called everyone in the house into my room and we all smiled. For those of you who haven’t heard it before, let me just start out with an introduction of what palm wine music is, right from the source, the Palm Wine Boys’ website:

‘Palm wine music is a West African style of guitar music, mainly from the countries of Sierra Leone, Ghana and Nigeria... walking a thin line between music you can relax and listen to and music that makes you want to dance.’

‘The name "palm wine music" of course comes from the music's association with the drink palm wine, which is made by tapping a palm tree and fermenting the sap. This produces a mellow, milky drink (2 percent alcohol) that gives you a relaxed kind of high. Palm wine historically was cheaper and easier to make at home that beer, and so it has been associated with a more rural and working class existence. The idea is that, at the local watering hole or at someone's house, palm wine the drink would be accompanied by palm wine the music, frequently with songs made up to honor the person who was footing the bill for the booze. Perhaps an American equivalent for this kind of association between music and social event would be the honkytonk…

I spoke with Richard Linley, the founder, guitar player and songwriter of the group. I was nervous as I am used to doing so much of my communication through my keyboard and wanted to e-mail him some questions. He wanted to talk. “Oh, I like to talk.’ He said during our phone conversation to find out when good time to e-mail him would be...Thank god there is still a man left in the age of technology who wants human voice and interaction. I think I may do all my interviews by phone now. So I hope I got this right Richard…through my scratches of notes or my feeble attempt to still use my computer as we spoke, I hope did not fail your beautiful words!

I see you mostly play around the San Francisco and surrounding California area. What venues do you like playing the best?
Well, we are actually trying to do a little traveling, out of California and head out to all the westen states before taking on the whole country and world. I guess the places I like to play the best are places where people are there to listen to music. Where the main objective is to listen to music. When you’re in cafés and bars, they sometimes have too much going on and we don’t like being background to a bunch of clanking glasses and other loud noises. Our music is fairly subtle and there are so many nuances of what we do that sometimes that gets lost in the loud bar atmosphere. We can't compete with an espresso machine.

Tracy Chandler, whom I see was the photographer for both cd covers, which are wonderful by the way. t I loved the picture on the cover of the first album and when I first looked at it, I thought it was an old depression era shot but as I looked closer, I could see it was you guys. Tell me about that cover.
We are really a blend of styles; American folk and this African style. What we wanted to come up with was this idea of, ‘what if there were these guys in the dustbowl of 1920’s America who met this African guy, and they played music? What would that sound like?’ That’s what I hope we sound like. When we conveyed this to Tracy, this is what she came up with and she did a beautiful job.

Who started the band? How do people ‘start’ bands?
Well, anything or anyone can start a band really. We used to be this big 8 piece band and originally it was Tom and I who started that band. We just met the others through connections and connections of connections. We disbanded that band and then QB came aboard and then very recently Eliyahu joined from an ad I put on the internet for a bass player. QB was actually part of the 8 piece band, so the 3 of us have been playing together for about 10 years.

So what is the difference of going from an 8 piece band to a four? What do you feel is gained/lost?
Logistics are amazing in a group that big. Really the reason was, when you’re a big band like that, the world beat music and dance is mostly what gets created which is great, all that is fine when you’re a dance band. When you’re a big dance band like that all people care about is the groove. And even that is beautiful but I felt that we put so much heart and soul into our songs and all of that was getting lost in the groove. I thought that as a smaller group, the song becomes the feature. It’s a more subtle creation which brings us closer to the people in a way. ‘Song’ is the vehicle to a dance group, it’s our vocals and lyrics and music that make it more intimate. We actually try and make our concerts very casual, like you ARE on the front porch. We talk with the audience, people are free to ask questions, speak with us. We try to keep it intimate, no matter how big the venue.

To quote your website,’… the Palm Wine Boys, bringing with them the sensibilities of highlife, soukous, and township jive, to a more mellow format. What is soukous?
It’s a West African style, like highlife, which is more like nightclub music. Palm wine is for the front porch, for friends for intimacy…I like to think of what we do is highlife unplugged. (God I love that!)

How long have you been together as Palm Wine Boys?
About 4-5 years.

What is the best thing about the chemistry with each band member or group as a whole?
We all come from such really different musical backgrounds. I think that’s the main thing when it comes to the music. Tom Chandler and I are very similar in which we both journeyed into various types of world music. Elihou plays Middle Eastern, Indian, and he also happens to be a very excellent jazz bass player. He's an amazing flutist as well QB is rhythm and blues,and a wonderful songwriter, I’m folk. Tom played heavy metal as a teenager (but has moved on) and is a great jazz guitarist as well as being a very good oud player. The diversity we all have and all of our points of view with one common goal is what really adds to the chemistry. It’s what makes what we do the ‘palm wine’ style; we just add our own little twist.

Have you ever been to Africa?
No unfortunately, I have not but Eliyahu is going next month and we are all very envious. His payback to us for being gone is to bring us back a case of palm wine and lots of cds.

Have you ever had palm wine?
I have had it; it has very, very mild alcohol content. If you’ve ever had Zima or if you’ve ever had sake, it’s like mixing them together. You don’t really drink a lot of it….it’s just a mild drink for enjoyment.

How has your feeling or perception of the music changed if any, over time now that you’ve been playing together for a while now?
The thing I do the most probably is try not to preconceive anymore. It used to be I would write a song or compose something and I’d already have it arranged in my head. I don’t do that any more. Now when we get together to rehearse or play, I just let everyone play it and let them form it. Maybe I’ll say something if it doesn’t seem to be coming together, but it’s the free play that is so unique to the mix when we are able to just come together. What I want hasn’t changed though since I started, and that’s for what I want this music to be. A mix of American Folk with African rhythms.

In ‘Where Will You Go From Here?’ from your first album, I heard that lead voice (which is you…) and I just wanted you to keep going and singing to me and telling me and telling me and the pitch and tone of your voice is a carrying type of voice that you don’t hear very often, and you don’t want it to put you down but just keep lifting you…I wanted to lie on the ground, watch the clouds and just be in it. I really love that song.
Wow. Thank you…that is beautiful. I wrote that song for my son.

How many kids do you have?
I have two, a boy 22, and a girl 16. It’s amazing that you find yourself relating to them in a completely different way when they reach about 14-15. It’s …amazing.

What drive/inspires you every day to pick up the guitar, write a song, and sing?
Life. Music and writing songs for me has kept me out of trouble, not always mind you but it has always been a life saving device. A way to express for me. I love too, the sheer joy of writing. The process, to me, has always been more important than the final product. I get inspired by everything…my kids especially. On the new album I thank them.

You mention on the website that you spent many, many hours in the studio for your new CD, Up and Down. What do you like the most or the least about working in the studio?
Playing live is one way, recording is a completely different thing. I think it’s the minutiae of what you are doing, the picking out of the tiny little grains of sand from the huge ocean floor because that one small little grain is messing up something. So you change that one thing, then you change that other thing to try again and again to get it perfect. It’s never perfect. I don’t like this digging thing.

The good part would be the from the different approaches to the songs that you take and how that ultimately may change how you perform them live. I know the co producer we worked with on this new cd, Paul Tumolo, was used to people coming into the studio and knowing exactly what they’re going to play… we didn’t do that. I think we got on his neves a bit, but he was great to work with.

Essentially, I end up playing the same thing as I’m rhythm guitar, and my stuff is always kind of similar to where Tom, Eliyahu and QB are constantly evolving. What I love about recording is that you end up with little moments of time, what that song was at THAT moment, which will never take place again. That moment being how you felt about that music right then and there.

Even now I’ll come across bits of recorded music throughout my life…IF I were to actually listen to it now, which I would NEVER do, but IF I did, I think I’d remember how at the time I recorded it I was thinking, ‘this might be the best thing that I have ever done! Ever!’ and now I’d think it’s awful. Or even the opposite, listening to something I thought was awful at the time and thinking now that it’s actually pretty good.

How is this new CD different from your first?
Technically and sonically it’s better. We recorded this new one in a really nice studio whereas the first one was done in my house with all digital recordings. The biggest difference I’d have to say is Eliyahu being in the band. It has changed the feel of the thing; it’s more rhythmic and flowing. Also I was bass on the first cd and I do not play bass.

It IS more musical almost- is that Eliyahu? You can hear it...it’s ‘bigger’ more vast musically.
Yes. It is bigger musically. 6-7 min long songs which is huge to us. It sounds very big even though we are using the same instruments.

Reading E’s bio; it is so beautiful! He seems like such a very beautiful soul who’s just hanging out down here with us for now.
Yes, he is. He is a very unique, beautiful individual.

I loved this part from his bio: ‘He has since become passionate about music education, finding fault in the western music conservatories with their over emphasis on the left brain, leaving out the original reasons for musical creation, such as the spiritual, the dance, the communication.’ Halle friggin lu YA!!!
Ha ha ha ha! Yes. Music has to touch you. Has to touch you. Its purpose IS to touch you. Even the angry music touches the angry part, music can connect us to our sexual parts, sad parts, loving parts, even dancing; it’s the connection to that ‘real’ thing that makes you want to dance…so that must always be first and foremost purpose.

From Tom Chandler’s bio: 'Tom recently, has also composed and recorded the soundtrack for the documentary film "Killing Tradition: the arming of Africa". - What is this film? When was this made? Released? In film festivals??? Where is it? What is it about?
It's about gun running in North Africa. I don't know what ever came of the movie. Like most important documenteries, it is hard to find. Unless you're Michael Moore. Long live Michael Moore!

You played with S.E. Rogie, the ‘godfather of palm wine music. What was this experience like for you?
It completely changed my life. It made me realize I could do this type of thing. I was just really, really searching for a way to express the music I loved; the African music and the folk music together. I’d never heard them played and mixed before even though that’s essentially what I was searching for. What I had heard of, of African music, was the highlife, soukous, townshipjive, all dance type of music, which is great, I love it. What seemed to be going unfulfilled was the ignoring of the songwriting part of myself; my folk roots. I didn’t know how to mix the two and hearing him was like ‘wow’…he was doing what I felt inside.

How did you meet him?
In the mid 80s, a choir was formed to sing South African Freedom songs and I was put in charge of forming a band to accompany them. I don't remember how we found him, but the bass player was a young African fellow named Rogie Jr. He introduced me to his father who was, of course, S.E. Rogie. He was such a legend in the 60’s and so popular and famous in Africa and Europe, but I had never heard of him. I had no idea of the greatness I was encountering. I will have people contact me to this day to try and find his records. I just got a letter from a guy who lived in Sierra Leone, where this music originated, who remembered Rogie and couldn’t’ find a way to buy his records. He found us, asked us.

It’s wonderful thing in life that what needs to be found is found and that you all came together. Thank you so much Richard!

Please visit their website, it’s loaded with information about their music, other African style music, where Palm Wine Boys are playing, you can LISTEN to them, see the awesome photos, and see, hear and read what I’m trying to talk about here.