Ben Harper & the Marriage of Vice and Virtue

Ben Harper released his first album (Pleasure & Pain) in 1992 when he was in his early twenties. Now, 18 years later Harper is an accomplished musician with a dedicated following. An odd combination of independent/underground kitsch and popular acclaim has spun Ben Harper into a professional netherworld, both on and off the musical map.

The guitarist, singer and song-writer is known for criss-crossing genres and has never settled into one mode of music through his professional career.

I had the chance to see him perform live in New Zealand in 2000, where he was more popular than his native United States at the time. The show was very impressive. Ben Harper gave us a polished performance filled with raw energy, a great combination.

When he covered Jimi Hendrix classic song "Cross Town Traffic" my jaw dropped to the floor.

At the time, Ben Harper was still touring behind the 1996 album Fight for Your Mind - his strongest and most complete album to date. One might argue that Harper was at his peak as a song writer during that time as he has not managed to top Fight for Your Mind in the years since, nor has he galvanized the public like he did at the turn of the century.

A truly talented musician, Ben Harper has composed several very powerful songs that span genres from acoustic ballad to rock and roll to instrumental guitar, though his most poetic and potent work tends to be on the lighter side.

Musical Strengths & Weaknesses

Ben Harper's strengths seem to be very closely tied to his weaknesses as a song writer.

He doesn't have a strictly "pop" sensibility. In fact, Harper's songs are often a little too complex for the broad "pop" aesthetic. This is a virtue at the same time it is a vice. His music tends toward anger and experimentation at the same time it hints at the talents of a competent musical voice and talent.

Harper's attitude is bitter, striving and restless at same times, while it is alternatively sweet and calm at others. This disaffection and striving comes through in the inconsistency of his albums, which are brilliant at moments and average at others.

Perhaps the most damning complaint against Ben Harper's music is that it is so often almost great.

If Ben Harper could score a big hit and top the charts with an album, maybe his music could go back to being about expression instead of the angry exploration it has become.

This brings us to the second issue of Harper's strengths as a musician: his versatility.

If you listen to any of Harper's albums - with the exception of Fight for Your Mind - you will find yourself on a journey through various genres, usually oriented around American music from the south and more often than not featuring Ben Harper on the slide guitar.

I get the sense that Harper moves between genres in fits of restlessness, seeking a platform that will give voice to his ideas, and I wish that he would narrow his range and focus on what he is saying instead of how he says it. Too much variety can be distracting.

This is a criticism that can only be leveled at a musician of talent and potential. At 40 years old, Ben Harper cannot carry the twin labels of "talent" and "potential" like they were tickets to the big time. It is time for him to make his mark with a solid, statement album.

Poetry & Politics

Where Ben Harper has been inconsistent in the musical styles he has chosen as vehicles for his ideas, the ideas themselves have been exceptionally consistent.

Ben Harper writes about a few topics and, generally, he writes about them very well.

Politics, religion, and relationships going sour spiritually - these are the corner-stones of Ben Harper's lyrical lexicon.

Politically, Harper has been an outspoken opponent of the power structure of commercial-governmental institutions, suggesting that the fusion of capital interests with political interests has lead to a situation of frightening aspect. The consumer is brain washed and should wake up to that fact and find himself in the mix, if he can, in order to save his soul.

It is tempting to connect Ben Harper's political views with those expressed by a great many reggae lyricists from Jamaica to Africa to England and the USA.*

Where reggae often turns directly from politics to religion, Ben Harper does the same, only he is not speaking to Rastafarian beliefs.

Harper writes with an evangelical almost Catholic rigidity when it comes to ideas of God and he is surprisingly direct. This can be disturbing at the same time it is refreshing. There is a pleasure in hearing someone simply say what they mean, clearly, and without fear of offense or judgment. But, as much as I don't mind being preached to by someone I agree with, it is a pain to be preached to by someone whose views are so far afield of my own.

The lyrical arena where Ben Harper is most adept and nuanced is in his writing on relationships. Expressing the notion of beauty as being an integral part of relationships, Ben Harper turns the common paradigm of beauty on its head.

Instead of people being beautiful in themselves, they are only beautiful together.

This idea leads Harper to some very poetic moments in his music and makes for some poignant melancholy, especially on his earlier albums Will to Live and Pleasure and Pain.

Ben Harper's albums include: Pleasure and Pain; Fight for Your Mind; The Will to Live; Live From Mars; Diamonds on the Inside; Both Sides of the Gun.

If you like Ben Harper's music, you may also enjoy Michael Franti.

* On Fight for Your Mind, the music is clearly inspired by reggae studio techniques as well as the prevalent acoustic-electric style of many 1970's Jamaican reggae albums.

In addition to this musical connection, we can see Harper's reggae-political alignment in the light of his guest appearances at reggae concerts and on Stephen Marley's Mind Control album - a brilliantly conceived collection of songs that deftly bridge the various gaps between roots and dance-hall reggae, reggae and R&B and politics and culture.

The political conceit of Mind Control is a traditional reggae perspective: the establishment (Babylon) will compromise or kill you, spiritually, unless you separate yourself from the system, spiritually, existentially, or even physically.

Sources: Wikipedia