“I was often excluded from joining the backing vocals in different bands because I couldn’t and still can’t harmonise for shit,” Buzzard laughs. “I didn’t really think I could sing but, as it’s said, necessity is the mother of invention. My voice is quite soft and weak but when I project it breaks up and has a huge, rough timbre.
“My sister lived in Italy for a while. I’d been staying with her for six months or so just camping on her couch, unemployed, when she said one day that I had to do something. She had a friend with a small jazz club, so I started playing as the opener there every night. That’s when I started singing and people seemed to like it. So, I persisted and developed my own style. It’s no doubt an incorrect way to sing but it works for me. I don’t really think I have a good voice, but I know I can entertain folks with it.”
Buzzard’s being remarkably humble, because he’s regularly compared with Tom Waits and C.W. Stoneking. His voice sounds like gravel, whiskey and cigars. Buzzard’s had a varied musical history. Although he sounds like he was born playing it, Buzzard’s not just dwelled in swampy-tonk – there’s been Avant-garde, classical and punk music round things out.
Coming from a musical family, he says, certainly helped. “My grandmother was a pianist and piano teacher and we stayed with her after school and heard her teaching her students,” Buzzard recalls. “She played classical but also jazz, boogie and stride, so I was aware of that music from a very early age. My auntie, her daughter, was an opera singer and my old man listened to jazz and prog rock. Music was just one of the games we played as kids. We had a primitive tapedeck and liked recording ourselves making radio plays and songs. We used whatever instruments were handy. That was the starting point – making our own Goon Show.”
Having that background meant he could play across a range of genres and earn a crust without resorting to the nine to five drudge. “I just wanted to keep working,” he laughs. “I didn’t want a regular job so I played in all kinds of situations to stay employed.”
In the end though, the blues and boogie won out, and that’s probably the way it’s always meant to be. “It’s challenging and fun to play and I’ve always just understood it,” he explains. “The blues made sense to me from an early age. I could play a blues scale before I learnt any major or minor scales. And I’ve always been able to improvise since I can remember.”
Buzzard’s back on our shores straight off the back of time in New Orleans, which you’d imagine would almost be a spiritual homecoming. “It’s great to be accepted there by other musicians who play the music I love, but it’s not an easy town to play in,” Buzzard reflects. “Everything’s broken. The venues are all falling apart and the equipment is often broken or stolen. Everyone’s perpetually drunk and you can’t take breaks because you’ll lose your audience with so many bars packed together – if you stop, everyone just goes next door or on down the street. So it’s hard work playing for three hours straight at a time for mostly tips. But it’s a great creative atmosphere and the womb of blues and jazz. We all want to go back to the womb one way or another.”
BY MEG CRAWFORD
