Eric Bibb - Dear America (2021)

Eric Bibb is back. The US blues musician and singer-songwriter is releasing his new album "Dear America" in 2021, the follow-up to his 2018 double album "Global Griot." The name suggests it: It's a musical love letter to his fractured homeland.

Bibb has known many different Americas, the good, the bad and the ugly. Born in New York City on August 16, 1951, he experienced firsthand the boom surrounding the Sixties folk revival. That era is so vivid in the 69-year-old's memory that he can still recall the idealism in the Greenwich Village night air and see Bob Dylan standing in his living room. But equally vivid are the dark social flashpoints of last year, when protesters highlighted the open wound of U.S. race relations as a bitter presidential election fissured the country.

Eric Bibb is an articulate and historically savvy citizen of the world whose U.S. motherland - with all its pain and shame, hope and wonder - has been infused into his art at every turn since his 1972 debut album, "Ain't It Grand," put him on the map as a new force in blues, folk and every other genre he held dear. But the Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter may never have addressed the United States - or put himself in perspective - with such focused eloquence as on "Dear America." "On this record, I say all the things I want to say to someone I care about," Bibb says of his new album. "But it's also kind of a self-portrait."

"If you could shout out to your country, what would you say?" When Eric Bibb set out to write the title track of his new album, the songwriter unpacked his seven-decade experience of being in a relationship with a partner of dramatic extremes. "It's a love letter," he explains of the album's basic concept, "because America, for all its associations with pain and its bloody history, has always been a place of incredible hope and optimism. Being American, and especially coming from New York City, is a blessing to me."

"The definition of love is truth," the songwriter notes. "You have to tell it like it is. There's so much shocking hatred in America at this point, and that aggression and violence is really America's history bouncing back like a rubber band. This album is a real communication, a real attempt to bare my soul, heal hurts, and help bring forth a new world. That's what it's all about."

"Dear America" brings Bibb full circle, as it captures the pulse of these feverish times and brings the songwriter back to his roots in New York. When the bandleader hit Studio G in Brooklyn in November 2019 to record the record with producer and co-writer Glen Scott, a top-notch studio band and guests like drummer Steve Jordan and Memphis guitar sensation Eric Gales, the electricity in the air was palpable. "My home is Sweden now," Bibb says, "but New York City is where I grew up. So to be there recording this album that has so much to do with my whole journey - that was really inspiring."

"Dear America" carries the feeling of a homecoming, not to mention the distinct impression of a career high. With such a meaningful title, Bibb feels the content better fit, and the songwriter gave himself the space to write the strongest material of his life and enlist his dream band. "It was kind of a cosmically orchestrated series of events," he reflects. "I was so happy to be able to record with Ron Carter, who I had an early connection with through my father. Tommy Sims was on the sessions, a wonderful bass player who I had worked with back in Nashville. I've played with a lot of great drummers, but Steve Jordan has that authority: it's just about the beat, man. As for Eric Gales on 'Whole World's Got The Blues' - he was just sublime, probably the strongest electric blues player right now."

Recorded before the pandemic crippled the world's recording studios, the chemistry on "Dear America" is palpable, and each musician plays with the emotional abandon the material demands. There are lighter songs, too, Bibb points out, citing the benevolent chug of the locomotive-themed "Talkin' 'Bout A Train" or the graceful opener "Whole Lotta Lovin'," with its heartfelt homage to American roots music. "It's loving and playful," he says of the latter. "As opposed to the heavier material that follows. I wanted 'Whole Lotta Lovin''' to open the album because if I had to pick one thing about America that I think is an unadulterated and radiant gift - it's the music."

Elsewhere, as "Dear America" unfolds, those songs don't hold back. Bibb, who has always been a writer with a fluid sense of time and place, glides back and forth between U.S. states and eras, describing the nation's past and present, for better or worse. In the wistful "Emmett's Ghost," he revisits the horrific murder of Emmett Till, whose riotous lynching in 1955 fueled the civil rights movement. "The song was written before the George Floyd case," he explains, "but I feel like it has a special resonance right now."

On the somber "Whole World's Got The Blues," Bibb shows a flair for capturing the malaise on the streets in his home country and beyond. "All you have to do is turn on the news and you see conflict after conflict," he says ruefully. "I'm talking about violent conflict, which of course you can see globally."

And yet, just as the human story of the United States has both light and shadow, Dear America is a record that infuses its exploration of the nation's most toxic issues with hope, love and a brighter path to the future. All is not lost, Bibb insists, and neither are we. As the songwriter bids farewell with the joyous and glowingly optimistic closing songs "Love's Kingdom" and "Oneness Of Love," he leaves no doubt that the future must be written by us. "I wouldn't be a town crier for bad news," he says, "if I didn't think that spreading bad news is a step toward good news."

In addition to Bibb, a few special guests await on "Dear Amercia," including bassist Ron Carter, guitarist Eric Gales, harmonica player Billy Branch and bassist Tommy Sims. The full track listing and all contributors can be found below

TRACKLIST

1. Eric Bibb - Whole Lotta Lovin' (feat. Ron Carter)
2. Eric Bibb - Born Of A Woman (feat. Shaneeka Simon)
3. Eric Bibb - Whole World's Got The Blues (feat. Eric Gales)
4. Eric Bibb - Dear America
5. Eric Bibb - Different Picture (feat. Chuck Campbell)
6. Eric Bibb - Tell Yourself
7. Eric Bibb - Emmett's Ghost (feat. Ron Carter)
8. Eric Bibb - White & Black
9. Eric Bibb - Along The Way
10. Eric Bibb - Talkin' 'Bout A Train, Pt. 1 (feat. Billy Branch)
11. Eric Bibb - Talkin' 'Bout A Train, Pt. 2
12. Eric Bibb - Love's Kingdom (feat. Tommy Sims & Glen Scott)
13. Eric Bibb - One-ness Of Love (feat. Lisa Mills)