Eddie ‘Devil Boy’ Turner is one of the hottest young blues guitar players (and much else) around, with two albums available on the Northern Blues label – ‘Rise’ (NBM0027) and ‘The Turner Diaries’ (NBM0036), plus many recordings with Otis Taylor.
Fritz talked to him and keyboards player/ famed producer Kenny Passarelli on his recent European tour (ND):

Fritz Svacina: How long did you play with Otis (Taylor)?

Eddie Turner: I played with Otis for about seven years. It was really good playing with Otis. Kenny and I started the band with Otis and we had a lot of really good experiences and we learned how to play a different style of music that no-one else was really playing at that time. Nobody is playing that kind of music that the three of us played even now. It was just for the moment, so it was great. We travelled through Europe and the United States. It was a wonderful experience and I learned how to play a different type of guitar.

FS: How many times did you come to Europe with Otis?

Kenny Passarelli: Eddie came the first time, I couldn’t come but it was 2003,
I believe, December was the first time you guys came, to Paris, and then that following Summer we came back seven times! So it was a lot. I think that what was the best part of the Otis Taylor experience was the fact that we did five CDs together, so that brought us into the studio as a group. When we moved on from Otis, I wasn’t aware of Eddie’s other (talents). Eddie had never sung with the group, it was just Otis. It revolved around Otis Taylor. So when Eddie said, “Hey, I want you to listen to some material and see what you think. I think I’d like to do a record, do a CD.....”

ET: No, no, no.

KP: No, what happened – when it was time to move on from Otis, all of a sudden, Eddie just blossomed. All of the years that we were together I don’t think that I ever heard any of his demos he’d been doing at home and things like that, so all of a sudden it was like “Wow! OK, this is Eddie, I didn’t know that”. All of the time we were in the studio, Otis was very controlled in the sense of he only wanted so much guitar – we’d be in the studio, so being the producer and wanting what the artist wanted, I had to follow what he wanted to do, knowing that in the background was this monster guitar player. So we used to set an effect, we created a sound-scape for Otis. Basically, when we parted company with Otis Taylor, Eddie revealed to me some demos and some ideas he had for making a CD. I was really taken aback by his voice and the ideas that he had as a writer, which was something that never.…

Otis was Otis Taylor – I produced Otis but at the same time I could only do so much with his particular type of style, OK, and he only allowed so much of Eddie. What happened is in the European tours, especially in 2003, in the live show it became more apparent and Eddie had a chance to really shine. Because in the studio he was restricted but in the live shows, Otis would sing the song, whatever, it would be time for a lead and all of a sudden it’d explode. There would be this virtuoso, this great-sounding guitar – people started taking notice. So when it was time to move on, other than the fact that I knew Eddie was a great guitar player, but as a singer and a songwriter, this evolved. We had this great trio and it was very unique because there was no drums, it was just bass, guitar, and Otis playing his thing, and it was really different, nobody had heard anything like that. But then we evolved to what we are doing now, and it was a Godsend, that evolution. Eddie had a chance to evolve and show all these other sides, as a writer – he’s an intelligent guy, he’s a college educated man, so he’s coming from lots of different areas, he can articulate what his ideas are for the lyricist’s stand-point. As a producer of my background, working with people like Elton John and these really great songwriters, it’s always important for me to work with artists who have all of that together. Otherwise it’s not what I’m used to, and Eddie had all this, and on top of it he can play great guitar, which is exciting for me as a player, as a producer, as a performer.

ET: I love playing with Kenny.

KP: We have a great time. I don’t play bass with Eddie other than in the studio, but when we play together on stage when I’m playing keyboards, we still have this rapport that really works. My contribution is a supportive role and I understand that and that’s what I want to do. I want to do that to the best of my ability, whether it’s playing the keyboard or the bass. So when you have that environment, it gives him the opportunity, he can do whatever he wants to do – with power, with force, with freedom too, without restriction. That’s where we are and Eddie can be Eddie without somebody telling him not to be – I think that’s where we are now.

FS: That’s great, wonderful. How did you meet?

KP: We met many years ago at a jam session….

ET: Long time friends….

KP: But then from ’94, we’ve thirteen years of really being around each other a lot.

FS: Who is the biggest influence on your style of blues?

ET: I would say…. going back, back, back, people like Jeff Beck, a big influence is Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, big influences. That was early on. I knew about the blues but I wasn’t really into it, I was into British electric guys, like Peter Green, and then you go back and you look at where their influences came from, and you go, “Oh, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters”. 15 years old, I lived right outside Chicago, and you can see Muddy Waters, you can see Howling Wolf - one of my large influences on the power was Howling Wolf. I would go and see Howling Wolf – he was just amazing! To go see him was amazing. There was this big man playing this little guitar, it was great, very dynamic, a very, very, very powerful performance coming off the stage. So I incorporated of lot of these blues guys. Then I had an uncle who was very much into jazz music, so I was always listening to John Coltrane and Miles Davis. I remember the first time I heard George Benson on the old CTI Records, I was totally into that. So you start to meld all these different influences that you hear all the time. After a while it’s not blues music or jazz music or rock music, it’s just good music and bad music – and that’s what I believe in.

FS: Why does your first record have so many funky styles, in all the right places but with phrases and things that make you very different from other guitar players?

ET: I don’t try to be different, it’s just natural for me. When I was a little kid, you’d listen to Motown. You want to kiss a girl, you have to kiss her to ‘My Girl’, because otherwise she’s not going to have anything to do with it. When you’re thirteen years old, you know… but you’d hear all those musical influences coming through and coming through and coming through, after a while you just go for it, it’s just part of you.

FS: What is your favourite type of guitar, what do you use for very fast soloing?

ET: I like the Stratocaster because I like the tremolo bar. I play a Les Paul, I like the Les Paul, it’s a very nice guitar and I’ve got one. I used it on the last record a lot, but when it comes to playing I can get more emotion out of a Stratocaster. I can twist the guitar, I can do all these things with it that I can’t do with a Les Paul.

FS: How do you get a fat sound on a Stratocaster?

ET: Actually I use pedals to get certain sounds, but most of the time it is just right into the amp! For solos, just to get a little more crunch, I’ll use a pedal, almost like a flanger, it just modulates the sound and that can give you a nice, spacey sound, a little bit of delay and a wah-wah pedal, but mostly it just comes from the hands.

FS: That’s good! What can we expect from Eddie Turner in the future?

ET: Well, Kenny and I are going over tracks for the new CD, hopefully it will be out by the end of the year. I have just been writing for the past three or four months and sending it to Kenny and he’s critiquing it and going, “Yeah, this is OK” or “I don’t know about that, Eddie”. We work together really well.

KP: We work well and what we find is that when we go into the studio is when it really happens. We can talk all day long about this and that and the other, the thing is that Eddie has become more of a prolific writer. The first record we cut, maybe he had twelve or thirteen ideas for songs, some of them were complete songs and some of them weren’t. ‘The Turner Diaries’, there was some material that came together in the studio, and then this one – because I live in Mexico City and Eddie’s in Denver, I get an email, I look and there’s thirty ideas, over thirty ideas, thirty songs. So he’s in the middle of touring, which it can be very difficult just to find the time to write, and he can find the time to do that. So we’re going to have a lot of material to choose from to do the third record.

FS: How many slow songs….?

KP: You like slow songs, yeah?

ET: It’s probably going to be like half. For some reason I’ve been listening to a lot of Bobby ‘Blue’ Bland.

KP: It’s interesting because we were talking recently about the two albums, and that ‘The Turner Diaries’ went way out, and this third record is going to be almost coming back to the middle. It’s going further in other ways but it’s returning to a style.

ET: Yes, it does

KP: It’s going to be interesting for the listener, I believe.

FS: OK, how do you like Europe?

ET: I love Europe. I’ve always loved coming over here.

FS: And the blues scene in Europe?

ET: From what I have seen, the blues scene is really good. People listen to it. They’re not just into the party blues all the time, just going to a bar and get drunk, they’re hearing blues more like an art form. A lot of times in the States it’s just a place to go and drink and party, which is good. There is nothing wrong with that whatsoever, but sometimes you want to take your music a little farther, and some people don’t want you to take it any farther. They’re happy with what it is. But over here in Europe they’re interested in knowing, “Well what can you do? We already know this – we’ve seen the real guy, so why do you want to imitate the real guy, because we’ve seen him, you can’t beat him. So let’s see what you can do with it and can you be as good – or try to be as good or as influential as some of these older and wonderful artists are?” So they will give you a little bit more opportunity, and if you’re no good, you’re no good, OK. They let you know a bit faster than they do in the States. I think the blues scene here is very strong, very progressive, and it’s a very good place to be. At least that’s what I’ve seen. Someone else may say something completely different, but that’s what I have seen. So I really feel it’s an honour to be able to play. And then like where we were playing tonight, when I walked out in that room, there’s like seventy years of jazz, blues history down in that basement. You walk into a room like that and you see that and you realise how important music really is, and you see what type of cross you have to bear, because these men came before you and you have to stand up and try to be as good as these older performers. So I think Europe is really a much better place to be to be an inventive musician.

FS: And always have a little talk to the crowd?

ET: Yes, I love to go and talk to people in the crowd and see what they think. “It’s too loud” (laughs).

FS: OK. Thank you Eddie and Kenny.

ET: I am glad that you are interested in me as an artist, so thank you very much. I appreciate it.