Tuba Skinny is playing Friday, Sept. 1, at the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Charlestown, Rhode Island. Click here for tickets and more information.
TRANSCRIPT:
James Baumgartner: You released two albums this year, including Magnolia Stroll, which came out in April, and it’s made up of all original compositions. Can you tell us about that?
Erika Lewis: We’ve been talking about making an original album for years. And over quarantine, we were able to get together a couple of times and do a lot of recording so we were able to focus on that. And it’s … probably six of us in the band who write songs. So it’s a bunch of original tunes.
Baumgartner: Including “Six Feet Down,” which is one of your songs. It’s a song of the genre I like to call, “I’m going to die, but I’m happy.” What’s the inspiration for “Six Feet Down”?
Lewis: I was listening to a lot of Sister Rosetta [Tharpe], and I feel – and a lot of gospel and blues. And I feel like I was really inspired by how people can have such a strong faith and still celebrate life in the face of hardship and adversity. I think that was more my sentiment, was saying something like, “times are hard, times can be hard, but I’m still going to enjoy what I can while I’m here.”
[music: “Six Feet Down”]
Mareva Lindo: And then your other album is “Hot Town,” released in May. Can you tell us about that?
Lewis: That’s our latest release. And it’s more in the style of of album that we typically release, which is our interpretations of old blues, jazz, ragtime tunes, with a few of our originals mixed in.
[music under: “Hot Town”]
Lindo: Talking about your influences, it seems like you’re – and you’ve mentioned this – you regularly pay homage to kind of those who came before you, specifically in the New Orleans musical tradition, which is super rich. Who are some of the artists and traditions you’re honoring with your music?
Lewis: Well, just a lot of the greats of early jazz – Louis Armstrong, Fletcher Henderson, Fess Williams … all those guys, I think we’ve played and been influenced by a lot of their melodies and structures. Like you said, it’s a super rich melting pot of sounds and influences. And over the years, we’ve played a variety of sort of genres coming out of the roots of early jazz. … I mean and, for me, Bessie Smith was the ultimate influence on my singing and my attraction to that style of music – just her raw, powerful expression. … So for me, that was kind of what drew me in and inspired me to sing.
[music: Kissing in the Dark]
Baumgartner: What do you love about the New Orleans music scene?
Lewis: I love New Orleans. I think once you have spent time and fallen in love there, there’s nothing quite like it. And that’s why people write all those songs about it. Because it’s an intoxicating, creative, magical place that’s also full of hardship and, you know, people surviving. And there’s a lot of intersection of, like in my song, “Six Feet Down,” I mean that – the spirit of New Orleans is what I was talking about. People there know how to celebrate the life that they have just by…the hardship that comes with it. And living there, I think you feel like anything goes. You feel like you can be your creative, weird self, and that you’ll find people just out on the street, walking around, who want to collaborate with you and play with you. Yeah, it’s a place where it feels you can really be who you want to be as a creative person.
