| Bruno Blum | |
|---|---|
Bruno Blum shows his Don't Drink and Drive, Smoke and Fly artwork picturing a sound engineer mixing dub music. Click to enlarge. |
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| Background information | |
| Also known as | Doc Reggae |
| Born | October 4, 1960 |
| Origin | Paris, France |
| Genres | Reggae, rock, blues, dub |
| Occupations | Singer, guitarist, songwriter, music producer, cartoonist, painter, photographer, writer, speaker |
| Instruments | Guitar, vocals, bass guitar |
| Years active | 1977–present |
| Labels | Human Race, Rastafari, Ménilmontant International, Out Here, etc. |
| Website | [9] |
Bruno Blum is a singer songwriter, guitar player and music producer nicknamed "Doc Reggae." Born in Vichy, France on October 4, 1960, he is mostly known for his work in the reggae music field, and also works as a comic book artist, illustrator, painter, photographer, writer and speaker.
He was the first French musician to record and release dub music, as well as afrobeat sung in French,[1] and has released several French songs albums in a wide variety of styles. He is known, among other things, for his work with the press-acclaimed Asmara All Stars[2] and on Serge Gainsbourg's three reggae albums, which he has produced new mixes of, as well as dub and deejay versions in 2003. He completed a new mix of Serge Gainsbourg's Gainsbourg Et Cætera Palace live album in 2006. Blum performs steadily with his rock and reggae bands as a singer and lead guitar player, and speaks worldwide on the history of reggae music, African music and other rock and blues culture-related subjects. His reggae lectures come with his reggae photography exhibition.[3] Written in a lively style, several of his books on music history give him an authority status in the French-speaking world. His successful French (Guerre) and English versions of Bob Marley's War recorded with The Wailers, as well as his work on major Bob Marley & the Wailers reissues[4] with U.S. partner Roger Steffens gave him some international recognition. He has also directed several documentaries for television, and Tenor Saw's classic Ring the Alarm[5] reggae video.
Fully bilingual, he occasionally records 'updated' pastiches of well-known songs in both English and French, including I Feel-Like-I'm-A-Fixin'-To-Die Rag,[6], Viens fumer un p'tit joint à la maison [7] and satirical songs such as Ça Bouge (sur la place Rouge). His own French songs output often displays puzzling double-entendre lyrics. His abounding, dense world often includes a touch of humour, and his art complements his Jamaica, Nigeria and USA-inspired music.
Influenced by the electric, genuine analog sound, and militant spirit of the 1970s, his wide array of works melt into a coherent whole, where different styles are approached in true eclectic fashion. Alternatively playing blues, dub (which he often mixes himself on analog sound boards[8]), rock, jazz, afrobeat, reggae, etc., he is playing Organic music guaranteed to be played without machines by live, free-range musicians.[9] A vegetarian and ecologist, he has lived without drugs or alcohol for over twenty years. An independent polymath thriving on passion, he always funded his own recordings, which put forward his individual, idiosyncratic lyric style. He also creates a vinyl record label in Jamaica.[10] Originally renowned as a rock critic Bruno Blum gradually embodies an adventurer-musician globe-trotter figure, an astute lyric writer and a remarkable guitar player,[11] as well as a historian of English-speaking popular music and graphic artist.
A prolific artist, besides photography, illustration and comic strips, he has also always produced graphic work meant to be exhibited.[12] He often draws a blurry line between plastic arts and comic strip, as in the "Don't Drink and Drive, Smoke and Fly" series (see picture above) where the story jumps out of the pages to become a series of pictures, before going back to its initial, former frame.
Contents |
A Spirou weekly reader and André Franquin (Spirou, Marsupilami, Gaston Lagaffe) fan, the song Les Élucubrations d’Antoine is a revelation for him at an early age. When advertising is permitted on French television from October 1, 1968, his parents of humble origins Nicole and Tony Blum start producing commercials. Their success is immediate. Their company, named FBI (Falby Blum International) has already produced several films by young director Jean-Jacques Annaud when they are awarded the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Advertising Film Festival in 1972 for Annaud’s Crackers Belin film. The company has opened offices in five countries as Tony Blum moves to Toronto in Canada, where his son joins him during the 1974 and 1975 summers. Aged fifteen, he is already bilingual after several stays in the UK, U.S.A. and Canada. His father produces the first feature film by Jerome Savary Le boucher, la star et l'orpheline (1975). Bruno Blum gets to meet and know his parents’ colleagues and friends, including various directors and actors such as Pierre Desproges and Jerry Lewis, but he is not interested in advertising. A dedicated comic strip reader, as early as twelve he is the founder of several amateur college comic magazines with his classmates. After an encounter with Asterix author René Goscinny, he creates a magazine named ‘’Klaus’’ in the Paris art school Les Arts Appliqués where he is studying comic book art with Georges Pichard, Jacques Lob and Yves Got. In 1974-1975, the very young editor has gathered a team of talented artists that would all become professionals, including Bernar, Fernand Zacot, Gilles Hurtebize, Jean Teulé and classmate Jean-Marie Blanche, son of the famous French comedian and humorist Francis Blanche, an inspiration to both friends. Failing all studies, Blum is being evicted out of three colleges, including two art schools. Self taught from then on, he would build teams following the same pattern, being the prime mover in many of his future projects.
Following two convictions for record theft, and as his parents’ company goes bankrupt, causing them to lose almost everything, in 1976-1977 the drifting teenager moves to London to study animation film with Oscar Grillo (who directed several animation films for Paul McCartney). He lives in a North London Jamaican neighbourhood, where he discovers reggae sound systems and dub music. Going through straits, he is staying in London squats, sharing houses with punk musicians including Private Vices and The Electric Chairs. A precocious, gifted person, he has already formed a rock group when he starts writing for glossy magazine Best, a popular rock monthly for which he is London correspondent from 1977 to 1981 as chronicler, reporter, illustrator and photographer. He would then work for years with a small team comprising Christian Lebrun, Francis Dordor and Patrick Eudeline, travelling (and recording) to the UK, U.S.A. and Jamaica as a reporter. His successful In The City column, in which he publishes accounts of the very influential British music scene of the time, is written in lively, vivid gonzo style and leaves its mark on the French youth. He meets several reggae artists, including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Steel Pulse, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley and widely contributes to promoting reggae music among the French youth with his stories in popular Best Magazine. He also interviews rock artists, including Lou Reed, Johnny Thunders and the Heartbreakers, The Clash, The Sex Pistols, The Rolling Stones, Paul McCartney and Fela Kuti. By 1978, he has become a daily contributor as London correspondent and chronickler to nationwide French radio station Europe 1’s Monde de la Musique show hosted by Pierre Lescure. He is recording and touring the UK in 1978-1979 with British punk group Private Vices,[13] which he founded in 1977 with Christophe Ruhn. He was to be the first French journalist to write about The Pretenders, Devo, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Madness, Motörhead and the then-unknown Stray Cats, which he put up in his London squat as they first arrived from New York City. He also drew their original logo (as seen on the original Runaway Boys single cover), and drummer Slim Jim Phantom’s tattoo showing a drum set bearing his name.
Blum was a militant ecologist since the age of fourteen, and after discussing the matter with Pretenders singer Chrissie Hynde, he went vegetarian like her, a theme he would later sing about in his song Les Andouilles. Blum then becomes a DJ at the London Marquee Club as an occasional replacement for his girlfriend DJ Mandy H. Initially published in Best, his fiction comic strip Rock Commando staging Motörhead is published in New Music News in London then by the band as a comic book in the UK.. He then creates the Nutty Boys[14] comic book for pop group Madness, drawing their biopic in issue #1. Blum comes back to live in Paris after a busking episode in Nice in the summer of 1982 with Nice-born photographer Youri Lenquette on second guitar. In 1983 he forms Les Amours, an eight-piece vocal group which records and tours in 1984. In 1984-85 Blum then begins a side career as fashion model,[15] posing for several advertising pictures, including for France Inter radio. Still writing for Best in the 1980s, for a time he does contribute to the Les Enfants du Rock rock TV show as a reporter and publishes cartoons in the magazines Rigolo, Best and Zoulou, an Actuel magazine offshoot. In 1985, as seen in several TV shows,[16] including Michel Drucker’s, he is featured live in Catherine Ferry’s rock backing band produced by French pop star Daniel Balavoine. Blum then records a few of his compositions in 1986 with a four-piece version of Les Amours not including the vocal group. After treating some personal problems reported in his Cultures Cannabis book, he has since abstained from using any legal (alcohol, tobacco) or illegal drug. In 1989 he records with some of Ziggy Marley’s musicians in Kingston, Jamaica where he presses his ‘’Des Couleurs’’ vinyl single. In late 1989, he records and releases Ça Bouge (Sur la Place Rouge) in Paris, coinciding with the fall of the Berlin wall. His first album Bruno Blum (1990) assembles these various recordings. He becomes the first French musician to have played, produced and released a dub record. A video of his rock song L’Histoire de ma Guitare taken from the album is broadcasted several times on M6 television in France.
In 1990 Bruno Blum plays onstage with Willy DeVille,[17] and joins Bo Diddley[18] live at Le Casino de Paris. A noted singer and guitar player, in 1990-1994 he leads a rock cover band featuring John Weeks and other American musicians named The Sexy Frogs, with whom he records the original ‘’J’aime les blondes’’ as well as various songs. In 1994 he is the editor of a Best special reggae issue for which, among others, he has interviewed Lee "Scratch" Perry. With the help of Patrick Zerbib and Léon Mercadet he then edits in 1995 a special Bob Marley issue for one-shot new magazine Radio Nova Collector that was soon to become Nova Magazine. He draws several album covers and publishes artwork in Backstage, Actuel (Kronik le Kritik), Best (Scud le Rok Kritik Sourd), Hara Kiri Hebdo (weekly comic strips on vegetarian culture), L’Environnement Magazine, Panda Magazine, hosts a short, daily radio show on Radio Nova and directs the documentary film Get Up, Stand Up – L’Histoire du Reggae produced by Jean-François Bizot for the Canal + channel. Legendary Jamaican producer Clement Dodd produces two of his original songs at Studio One in Kingston, Jamaica. As Dodd aka Coxsone saw Blum’s Best of Reggae special issue, he nicknamed him « Doc Reggae », which has stuck since.
In partnership with American specialist Roger Steffens he conceives and produces a series of ten Bob Marley & the Wailers albums[19] that include around a hundred rare or previously unreleased recordings (he also mixes eight of them), time period photographs and much previously unheard of 1967-1972 information. In 1997-2003 Blum revives the original Danny Sims-owned JAD American label in Paris at this occasion, and successfully releases the albums in several countries.
Doc Reggae then creates the Jamaican label Human Race Records and its European incarnation Rastafari Records, through which he releases several reggae vinyl singles featuring the voices of Haile Selassie I, Marcus Garvey, Big Youth, King Stitt, Buffalo Bill and Doc Reggae himself, also playing the guitar on all tracks. A version of Bob Marley’s War is recorded using the voice of the lyrics’ creator himself, Haile Selassie I and surviving members of the Wailers. A vinyl single featuring Bob Marley and Haile Selassie I reaches the #1 spot in the April 1998 of British magazine Echoes charts. The War Album is then recorded with Big Youth and Buffalo Bill.
In Jamaica he directs videos for Tenor Saw’s Ring the Alarm and Buffalo Bill’s Perfect Woman, as well as several TV reports for the Tracks show broadcasted on the Arte channel. After the demise of Best in 1995 he joins competitor Rock & Folk magazine until 1999, then gives up all journalism work, excepting for a few stories published in Les Inrockuptibles, which he leaves in 2002.
Pierre Astier publishes his first book, the comprehensive biography Lou Reed – Electric Dandy at Le Serpent à Plumes. A rock and reggae specialist, Blum was to publish a further fifteen books, including some successful ones, among which :
• Le Reggae
• Bob Marley, le Reggae et les Rastas as well as his travel chronicles, fully illustrated with his photographs and artwork Jamaïque, sur la Piste du Reggae where he tells the story of his Jamaican adventures. He also co-signs Le Dictionnaire du Rock as a main contributor with Michka Assayas.
Still performing live through the decade, after the 2001 The War Album recorded with The Wailers, where he can be heard playing the guitar and voicing two tracks, he is noted as a lyric writer on his second solo album Nuage d’Éthiopie, also in 2001. Released on his own De Luxe label, this reggae album includes the single Si Je Reste (adapted in French from The Clash’s Should I Stay or Should I Go), a duet with Annabelle Mouloudji. Nuage d’Éthiopie gets good reviews. To Yves Bigot « French reggae has found its songwriter ».[20] Backed by The Wailers on Avis aux Amateurs, he puts to music the letter in which Arthur Rimbaud breaks the news on his mother that he will remain in Africa. Going against the grain of fashionable electronic music, he forwards in a 1970s-influenced style where lyrics and skilled electric instruments players are pivotal. He refers to Boris Vian, Alain Bashung, Linton Kwesi Johnson, Jacques Dutronc (he has recorded a parody of Dutronc’s Et Moi Et Moi Et Moi) and Serge Gainsbourg of whom he recorded a version of L’Appareil à Sous (originally recorded by Brigitte Bardot) - and soon an English version of Lola Rastaquouère.
Think Different, his third album of original compositions, was recorded in a wide array of styles and released in 2002, followed by Welikom 2 Lay-Gh-Us ![1] recorded in Lagos (Nigeria) with a 20-piece band from Fela Kuti’s group,[21] and released by BMG, which also reissued his Bob Marley 1967-1972 twelve-album series. JAD Records suddenly signed a distribution deal with Universal, and BMG was compelled to retrieve the entire JAD stock from the shops. The JAD delivery included two previously unreleased Peter Tosh albums, a Buffalo Bill album as well as Amala & Blum’s Welikom 2 Lay-Gh-Us ! album which, although just released, was also retrieved from the shops by mistake (as it had nothing to do with JAD Records) in spite of getting daily airplay on José Artur’s Pop Club show on France Inter. Nevertheless, Blum remains the first French musician to release an afrobeat album – destroyed shortly after its release, it only reached about a hundred journalists.
In 2003 Universal Music releases two double Serge Gainsbourg CD albums, Aux Armes Et Cætera and Mauvaises Nouvelles des Étoiles in a new 1970s style Kingston mix produced by Bruno Blum, featuring veteran Jamaican sound engineer Soljie Hamilton. Also included on the album are dub and deejay versions (including Lisa Dainjah, Big Youth, King Stitt, Lone Ranger). The two press-acclaimed albums unveil several previously unreleased recordings, among which the Gainsbourg composition Ecce Homo Et Cætera. Blum also voices one track himself, an English rendition of Lola Rastaquouère, and plays guitar on his new arrangement of Marilou Reggae, recorded with Horsemouth Wallace on drums and Flabba Holt on bass.
After contributing to slam shows in his Ménilmontant neighborhood, he records slammer Nada’s Live at the Olympic Café (2001) album. He also supplies artwork for the CD cover as well as the follow-up Ultrash, which he produces and plays on as Nada recites his lyrics over newly recorded instrumental versions of Velvet Underground songs. Two other ex-members of Best magazine’s team participate to the album : Gilles Riberolles and Patrick Eudeline, who contributes with several short songs on Ultrash.
Gainsbourg… Et Cætera,[22] a new Blum-produced mix (Thierry Bertomeu, engineer) of the poorly mixed, original Serge Gainsbourg live album Enregistrement Public au Théâtre Le Palace is released in 2006. This double CD includes five previously unreleased versions and an interview with Serge Gainsbourg.
A new album entitled Doc Reggae (partially recorded in Jamaica on the ‘’Marilou Reggae’’ sessions with Horsemouth Wallace and Flabba Holt) is coming together with his group Dub De Luxe. Blum keeps performing live with Dub De Luxe as well as, from 2006 in an American group playing classic 1930s/1960s R&B covers sometimes featuring pianist Gilbert Shelton, the well-known Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers comic book artist. Blum also produces an album by Shelton.
In 2006 he is invited to play a series of shows in Asmara, Eritrea by the French Ambassador in Eritrea. It is his first of a series of trips that would lead to producing an anthology album of the best Eritrean singers (released in 2010).
In June 2007, the publication of his book Culture Cannabis[23] leads Bruno Blum to an hour-long clash with Professor Jean Costentin live on national radio France Inter. In 2008 he obtains a Master in musicology in Paris and publishes Le Rap Est Né en Jamaïque (‘’Rap Was Born in Jamaica’’) in 2009. He also produces the Harry Belafonte - Calypso, Mento & Folk 1954-1957[24] anthology. Still performing onstage, he MCs dances as deejay and selecter, and speaks regularly in conferences around his country and abroad. In 2009 as he was one of the main writers in Best Magazine he creates the Facebook group Best, le mensuel du rock. This internet site would eventually lead to Blum directing an anthology book of Best's best stories.
In the summer of 2010 a major Emma Lavigne exhibition on punk rock visual aesthetics and photographs at the Rencontres d’Arles show his collection of rare original punk records. At this occasion he speaks on punk musical aesthetics from 1930s jazz to 1940s-1970s rock music. In September, Doc Reggae performs at the Trois Baudets in Paris. For the first time, he offers a multimedia event where his paintings, artwork, comics trips as well as his Jamaïque sur la Piste du Reggae photo exhibition and video footage are shown before his own reggae show.
In 2008-2009 he produced the Asmara All Stars Eritrea’s Got Soul (released in 2010) album in Eritrea, also playing on several songs. The album gathers some of the best musicians and singers from eight ethnic groups, including Faytinga, Sara Teklesenbet, Mahmoud Ahmed Amr, Temasgen Yared, Ibrahim Goret and Adam Faid Amr.[25] The album gets a warm welcome in the press as well as the radio:[26] If you like the Ethiopian soul-funk sound of the early 1970s, you should find much to enjoy in this contemporary take on it. Eritrea is Ethiopia’s neighbour and many of the country’s musicians actually contributed to those classic recordings. The main difference with this contemporary project is the influence of Jamaican reggae. But the dub elements fold erfectly into the sinuous Ethiopian grooves – as our own Dub Colossus have already demonstrated. Vibrant, heady and sensuous stuff (The Independent, London, October 2010). Two album release party shows, including one in the Opera House, take place in Asmara in October 2010.
In November 2010 Volume 1 of Best of Best, an anthology of rock magazine Best to which he was a major contributor, is published. The 320 pages book was conceived, coordinated and edited by Blum with the support of the original team including Sacha Reins, Patrick Eudeline and Francis Dordor, who wrote a tribute to the late editor Christian Lebrun.[27]
He is also editor of the following Caribbean music anthologies: Jamaica, Mento 1951-1958,[28] Bahamas, Goombay 1951-1959,[29] Trinidad, Calypso 1939-1959[30] and Calypso[31] for which he writes sizeable, standard reference booklets.
In 2011 he designs and draws both ten-CD Anthologie des musiques de danse du monde (Dance Music Masters) box sets covers as well as each of the twenty album covers they contain.[32] As part of the Festival des Cultures Juives de Paris in June 2011 he speaks[33] on the theme "Bob Marley, culture Rastafari et Judaïsme" in the Paris 4 Town Hall. In 2011 Bruno Blum also translates the Kim Gottlieb-Walker's Bob Marley and the Golden Age of Reggae photo book (as Bob Marley, un portrait inédit en photos) to which director Cameron Crowe contributed.
An anthology of his Jamaican record label Human Race is released in late 2011. Essentially recorded in Jamaica, the double roots reggae CD Human Race[10] includes The War[34] Album with a bonus track, and features the voices of Haile Selassie I, Marcus Garvey, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela as well as Big Youth, Spectacular, Buffalo Bill, King Stitt, Brady, Annabelle Mouloudji, Joseph Cotton, Lady Manuella, Bruno Blum and several previously unreleased tracks. Illustrated by several photographs and original artwork by Blum, the CD booklet is written by renowned U.S. reggae historian Roger Steffens.
Aside from his songs, booklet notes, writings for Best, Rock & Folk, Actuel, Hara-Kiri, Nova Magazine, Bruno Blum has published several books, often illustrated by his own artwork and photographs:
In French:
He has also contributed to the following:
In English:
In French:
Most of Bruno Blum's books are illustrated by his artwork and photographs.
In English and French:
The Complete Bob Marley & the Wailers 1967-1972 series in partnership with Leroy Jodie Pierson and Roger Steffens:
In French:
In partnership with Gilles Verlant: