A few weeks back I received an unsolicited CD in the mail from a musician with whom I wasn’t familiar. Nothing unusual about that...I listened to it. Nothing unusual about that either. It turned out to be a great CD. Now that is the unusual part. After listening to the music, I pulled out the CD package and read the liner notes. I should mention I listen to the music first without being prejudiced one way or the other by the musicians, recording engineer or producer that I may know or at least am familiar with who made contributions to a particular CD to which I am listening.

As it turns out this CD which is entitled Chromaticism was recorded at Kid Andersen’s Greaseland Studios in San Jose, California. The record also includes some of the best musicians in the talent rich Bay Area or anywhere else in the world for that matter. The record has a wonderful sophisticated, jazzy, blues sound and, as the album’s title implies, is full of some superb chromatic harp playing.

The question remained, who is this 59 year old who goes by the moniker “Big Harp” George? He is George Bisharat and this is his debut album, which will be released on September 2^nd. He sure doesn’t sound anything like a rookie interloper making a vanity project, because he is not and it is not. Just like truck driver Slim Harpo or countless other blues musicians, Bisharat has a day job and just happens to have a background unlike any blues man I have ever met.

George Bisharat is a Professor of Law at the University of California’s Hastings College of Law who happens to be a bluesman of the highest order. The man who has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from U.C.  Berkeley, a masters degree in history from Georgetown University, went on to graduate cum laude from Harvard Law School and earned a PhD from Harvard University in Anthropology and Middle Eastern Studies is also a marvelous harmonica player. The man whose editorials as they relate to the Palestinian - Israeli conflict have been published in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Los Angeles Times as well as in publications and journals all over the world also happens to be able to write in the blues lexicon. He wrote six marvelous originals that appear on his new album, Chromaticism. I met George Bisharat on Sunday, July 20^th, and we spent a great deal of time discussing a variety of subjects including blues music and his contribution to that language. Enjoy a conversation I had with “Big Harp” George.

David Mac (DM): Where are you from George?

George Bisharat (GB): I was born in Topeka, Kansas. We first moved to California in 1955 when I was just a little kid. My dad, who immigrated to this country from Palestine, was a medical doctor before coming here. He was drafted into the U.S. Navy and was stationed at Treasure Island which, as you know, is right in the middle of the bay, half way between Oakland and San Francisco. He was the Lieutenant Commander of outpatient services for the entire 12^th Navel District. So the man who got sea sick on the boat coming over to America got a job in the Navy on an island surrounded by water.

We started out in Topeka because my dad was shifting specialties and was studying to be a psychiatrist. Topeka was where the Menninger Foundation is based.

DM: What is the Menninger Foundation?

GB: It is a high quality psychiatric training program.  

From Topeka we then moved to South Dakota, where as part of an agreement, he received a higher stipend to support his family and agreed to take a job for two years with the Veteran’s Administration whereever they needed him and that turned out to be in a small town in South Dakota.

We eventually ended up in your neck of the woods out in Southern California. We settled in Rolling Hills on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and that is where my dad opened his psychiatric practice.

DM: Were your parents particularly interested in music?  

GB: Yes! My dad was a lover of various kinds of western classical music. He loved tangos. For whatever reason, tangos were popular in Palestine when he was growing up there.  He actually met my mother in a record store in Connecticut. My mom, who is an American, was born and raised in Connecticut and graduated from Vassar College. She took this job in a record store and met my dad when he wandered in there to go shopping. They had an immediate connection over their mutual love of music. My dad, for instance, was a Mozart fanatic and he thought that we were wasting our time listening to American popular music.

My mom on the other hand was much more open to different kinds of music. Growing up she was exposed to many types of American music, such as jazz. She also was very interested in what her kids were listening to. She was wonderful. Say I would be listening to Stephan Grappeli or something and she would be bopping along and she might say something to the effect of, ‘Hey he just quoted so and so.’ She just loved Jimi Hendrix and thought Foxy Lady was fantastic. However, she wasn’t particularly interested in blues. She became interested in it later on through me. On the new album I included an old tune, Someday which was a favorite of hers.

DM: So, from there I take it, you discovered blues music in the juke joints of Rolling Hills and the rest is history.

GB: (laughs) of course...

DM: But seriously, whether you grew up in Rolling Hills or most places on the planet in the second half of the 20^th Century, blues music is not something in which we are surrounded. It is a question that I ask of almost anybody. How did you find this music that was, and still is, out of ear shot of most people?

GB: The first real blues that I was exposed to was Paul Butterfield. My older brother went to a performance by Paul Butterfield in Los Angeles and brought home his East West album. I had never heard anything like that and I just flipped over it. I had a high school friend and we were both obsessed with music. He told me that if I liked blues harmonica then I had to listen to Sonny Boy Williamson. He said, ‘If you haven’t heard Sonny Boy Williamson then you have not heard blues.’ He was right of course. So I got this Sonny Boy Williamson album he did with the Yardbirds in London. It isn’t a very good record. There is however that one solo harmonica/vocal song, I Don’t Care No More, that he does on the album that I still perform today in social gatherings when there is no amplification. I then got the album Bummer Road. By then, I was off and running.

DM: When did you start to translate this love of blues into playing it yourself?

GB: I started playing when I was thirteen. By the time I was fifteen I was playing in a band and just a couple of years after that, while I was attending UC Davis, I was in a trio that later expanded to  a quartet. It was kind of cool because we were playing in bars and I was only seventeen years old.

DM: What kind of music were you playing back then?  

GB: We were doing acoustic country blues. We had some Big Bill Broonzy, Robert Johnson and Lightnin’ Hopkins in our repertoire.

I went to Beirut where I attended the American University starting with my junior year. That is where my dad, uncle and sister all studied. It was kind of a family pilgrimage to go to school there. I met a group of guys who were a mix of Arabs from different countries and Americans. It is where I met Raja Kawar, who plays drums on the new album. We formed a band in Beirut. These guys were all more advanced than I was. They started turning me on to all the great stuff.

DM: Such as...

GB: James Cotton, Junior Wells and Little Walter... we did songs like Checkin’ Up On My Baby and Messin’ With The Kid. We did the James Cotton version of Off The Wall. Candidly, my playing was awful. I got away with it because people there really didn’t get it. I was really learning a lot. I learned more about playing harmonica that year than any single year before or since.

DM: Do you remember the name of the band?

GB: Oh yeah...of course I do. We were the Bliss Street Blues Band.  

DM: What a great name.

GB: You might find the background of that name kind of interesting.  Daniel Bliss is one of the founders of the American University. It was established in the 19^th Century and originally called, The Syrian Protestant College. It was established by American missionaries. The street that runs along the top of the University is called Bliss Street.

It should be noted that the school is located on this drop dead gorgeous site on the side of a hill overlooking the Mediterranean. The campus tumbles down the hill from the urban area towards this corniche.  On the other side of the corniche there is this rocky beach. The entire area is wooded with pines and banyan trees. It has all kinds of flowering vines and these beautiful old buildings. So it is an absolutely idyllic spot.

It is also a beacon of learning in the Arab world. It is a place that has had such a positive impact on my family as it is where my dad and all his brothers got such incredible medical training. Well, three got medical training there and a couple became architects. So Bliss Street runs, as I said along the top of the University.

I was the one that came up with the name of the band. The word “bliss” of course means extreme happiness, so it works as kind of a double entendre.  So the Bliss Street Blues Band stayed together for about a year and we had some success. We did some concerts that were pretty amazing events for that area. I know when we think of the Middle East today there is this image of women wearing veils and all this terrible stuff, but little do we know that the Middle East, and Beirut in particular, was extremely open in those days. We had concerts that could have been held anywhere in the United States in terms of the atmosphere, the freedom and (pause) well quite frankly, I must say the beautiful women.

The members of this band have always felt this connection to one another. We have even had a couple of reunions. One took place in London in 2003 and in 2006 in Beirut. We performed at the same venue on campus where we had performed decades earlier.

DM: Did you have any aspirations to play another instrument or was the harmonica your thing from the get go?

GB: I have never spent any serious time trying to learn another instrument. However, my dad actually pressured me into playing violin for a while, his favorite instrument. Just to please him and because I really didn't have a choice, I submitted to lessons for a while, and played in the school orchestra. But I loathed it and quit as soon as I could escape unscathed. I was actually in a band as a singer when I was eleven. When I was fourteen I performed in an operetta. It was Ahmal and the Night Visitors by Gian Carlo Mennoti.

DM: You played on one track on an album that came out a few years ago on a JSP Records release with a couple of real blues heavyweights. How did this come about?

GB: Otis Grand had been a member of the Bliss Street Blues Band. He, as you know, was living in London and recording for JSP Records. He had come out to the Bay Area to record a record on that label with Joe Louis Walker. The studio they were using was in the East Bay town of Richmond which is just a hop, skip and a jump from my home, so Otis stayed in my home while he was out here. I would drive over to the studio and hang out. One evening he told me that they needed just one more song for the album and I asked him if I could play on it. So in the evenings we would sit in my living room and he would play his acoustic guitar and I would accompany him on harp. We came up with something and the next day I brought my little Dan–Electro amp into the studio and we laid the track down. It came out pretty good.

Otis then took me aside and told that I need to get a little band together and record something. He said, 'People need to hear your music. This is professional quality playing and you shouldn’t let it go to waste.' My thoughts were, ‘What do I have to add to the blues conversation?’ Otis said, ‘You will never know until you try.’  That idea stuck with me. That was really the beginning of the process that led to my current recording. There were a few other stepping stones along the way, but the seed that was planted by Otis was the first step.

DM: With all your other endeavors how often have you been able to play your instrument?

GB: I carry a little diatonic harp with me in my pocket and often just play it while I am walking down the street. Back when I was going to school at Georgetown University I was living just off DuPont Circle in Washington D.C. There were these guys who would hang out on the stoop in that area and they referred to me as Professor Harp. It was kind of flattering and an exaggeration because at that time I wasn’t a professor yet and I wasn’t all that good at the harmonica either for that matter. It was kind of funny and at the time a pretty cool moniker. I actually thought about using that as my artist name but there is another guy who goes by Professor Harp and yet another who goes by Dr. Harp. I don’t think either one of them have a PhD.

DM: You mentioned a couple of other stepping stones let’s talk about those.

GB: Land mines might be a better metaphor than stepping stones because of what I learned from my mistakes.

DM: Such as...

GB: I learned that if I am ever going to make a record, I am going to work with Chris “Kid” Andersen. I had worked with other very talented musicians and a good sound engineer who didn’t know anything about recording an amplified harp. When I came up with the concept for the album Chromaticism, I told Kid about what I had planned and he said, "I know what this shit is supposed to sound like.”...and he was right. I made the decision to record at his Greaseland Studios and thank God I did. Thank God!

The other key moment was when I performed my song Chromaticism live. I composed the song for a harmonica, instrumental songwriting competition. We performed the song in conjunction with Mark Hummel’s Harmonica Blowout. Charlie Musselwhite, Curtis Salgado, Sugar Ray Norcia, Little Charlie Baty and the great drummer June Core all played. So it was a real all-star affair. We all performed our songs and the audience voted. Needless to say I didn’t win, but the musicians reacted with interest and appreciation. I happened to run into Little Charlie the next day and he told me that I should have won that thing. The whole experience was very encouraging to me.

I had met Curtis Salgado that evening and we remained in contact. I sent him some of my recordings and he mentored me to some degree. He gave me some coaching advice on my vocals. I mean who better than Curtis. For my money he is the best singer in the blues, if not in all of popular music. He also validated the concept of featuring the chromatic harmonica the way I do on this album. He told me that it would be a good way of differentiating me from the pack.

DM: Was there a particular performer or performance that inspired your new album?

GB: Paul DeLay! He took the chromatic harp way, way, way beyond what anybody had done in blues.

DM: I am glad you mentioned Paul because, for a variety of reasons not the least of which he died a fairly young man a few years ago, he is, in my view, very under appreciated. I also noticed you have a song on the record dedicated to him. Let’s talk about Paul and his impact on your music.

GB: I first heard Paul’s music in the mid 90’s. I was, at the time, really buried in my professional life and I was not getting out and hearing live music as often as I am accustomed. I was trying to find new music and I found this harmonica compilation. It had Paul’s song on it, Why Can’t You Love Me? I listened to it and I thought ‘My God I never heard anything like that in my life. It is just so beautiful. It is one of the most amazing compositions and performances of the chromatic harmonica in blues.’ I then started to purchase as much of his music I could get my hands on.

His music is so interesting and so different. Every other harmonica player out there it seems plays and you can listen to it and say to yourself, ‘I know where that lick came from... that’s Big Walter. I know where that lick came from that’s Little Walter. There is a Junior Wells lick. Here comes something from Cotton…’ and so on. Everyone seems to be repackaging all of these familiar licks. Paul on the other hand never sounded like anybody else...ever. He never even sounded like himself. He was always coming up with fresh ideas. What made him different on the chromatic was that he didn’t always play in the third position. He also made liberal use of the slide or the button which gives you half tones.

I then think, ‘Why aren’t other people doing this?’ This all inspired me to start experimenting with these things. I started to sound like a different player. My playing started to sound good to me as well as fresh and different. The doors started opening up for me. I feel like I have gone from being a derivative player to someone who has found my voice. The other thing that is kind of interesting is that when I go back and play the diatonic my playing sounds different. So my chromatic playing has influenced my playing on the diatonic.

DM: So now you have taken your new voice to Greaseland…

GB: That’s right. It is, as you know, Kid Andersen’s studio. First off, Kid is an all around amazing musician. He is, as everybody knows, a top notch guitar player and as fewer people know a great bass player. He has a great ear and a lot of musical experience and knowledge. Not just in blues, but in other musical genres as well. He is extremely versatile. On top of that he is just a delightful person to be around. As I am sure you are aware, he is just hilarious. Even though he is something like 25 years younger than me he is like working with a musical big brother. He would help to identify mistakes, he helped with song ideas. He does it all and all the while keeps the mood light and fun.

While the place is not some huge luxury studio, he does have all the equipment you need. Plus, as we touched upon earlier, he has a particular expertise in recording harp players. I just thank my lucky stars I recorded this record there. If I ever make another record, I would make a bee-line to Kid’s Greaseland Studios.

DM: Let’s talk about the band that was assembled for this project. Were these players your choices?

GB: These were mostly my choices. The album’s producer Chris Burns had a lot of input as well. You know we talked about the steps that led to this point and this album. The two major one’s that led to whatever artistic success this album achieves boil down to selecting Kid Andersen’s studio and, prior to that, selecting Chris Burns as producer.

DM: How did you get Charlie Baty to play guitar on the album?

GB: That was me. Getting Charlie on the record was a huge priority for me. What I wanted to be my brand was a little more of a jazzy blues sound. I didn’t want to make another Chicago style, gut bucket blues sounding record. I wanted to create a sound that had a little more sophistication and for me nobody speaks that language like Charlie. There are a lot of great players out there and Charlie can play virtually any style, but very few, if any can touch Charlie with that jazzy type of blues sound. Charlie had heard me at that gig we talked about earlier. So he knew where I was coming from and I also knew he kind of liked what I was doing from that chance encounter we had in the street that day in Oakland. So I contacted Charlie and told him Chris Burns was producing the record. He said, “Congratulations on getting Chris.”

Also by using Kid’s studio we kind of get him as the bass player and guitar player on a couple of tracks. That kind of came with the studio, so that was great deal.

DM: Charlie and Kid aren’t the only guitar players on the record.

GB: That’s right. I used Rusty Zinn on four tracks. I had played with Rusty on stage a few times at that point, so I knew him a little. Rusty is a guy, as I am sure you know, who really knows how to play with a harp player. He had worked extensively with Kim Wilson through the years. He had worked a lot with Mark Hummel and a lot of other folks as well.

DM: You have a song on the new album which speaks about a new kind of slavery in a sense and that is Cell Phone Hater. Are you a cell phone hater?

GB: You know I carry one everywhere. I have a worn spot in the front pocket of my jeans where the cell phone sits when I am not on the thing. What I wanted to do is speak to the paradox of how technology is a double edged sword. I am a professor of criminal procedure and there are lots of issues that relate to how technology has infringed on our rights to privacy. In this song I took a more light hearted approach to that subject. The goal with that song was to get people to laugh, but also to get them to think. One thought that comes to mind that I would like to make that was stimulated in part by your question, is that I just love humor in music. It is why I love Rick Estrin’s music so much. He is freaking hilarious. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the lyrics, it could be in the music. You can do that by quoting something that seems out of context or is unexpected.

DM: You don’t play harp on this tune and I think it was great choice to use the saxophone.

GB: Thanks for bringing that up. Some people told me that this tune was begging for the chromatic. I wanted to create kind a dark, smoky mood to the song which stands as kind of a counter balance to the humorous lyrics. I think I could have achieved that with the chromatic, but I am also very conscious of the fact that the harmonica can become very monotonous to the listener. There are so many bands out there and so many players who wail away on the harp ceaselessly. It can really grate on an audience. So, on this record I wanted to make the sounds diverse by playing in different positions, by playing both acoustic on some numbers and amplified on others.

DM: You even play a diatonic on one number.

GB:  That’s right. What it boils down to is I want to make good music. I don’t just want to be a harp player, I want to be a musician. I just want to what’s best for the song and if that means I stand down then so be it.

Take the song Strollin’ Down Bliss Street, which might be my favorite on this album. I sent this one track to a friend of mine and he asked me, why Charlie takes four chorus’ on guitar and I only take two on harp. The answer of course is, that is what the song called for.  I have my moments all over the record, but this song, which has a T-Bone Walker type vibe, is the perfect vehicle for Charlie’s guitar genius. The song actually is an original lyrically, but is actually based on an old T-Bone Walker tune.

DM: Pony Tail!

GB: That’s right. Charlie was so great to work with and his work on this tune as well as the song, Cocktail Hour is just so great. He even asked me if he could stretch out a little bit. I of course said, YES!

DM: There is a song on the CD called, Hey Jaleh! Who is Jaleh?

GB: That’s my wife. I had friends that counseled me to change the name and not use such a foreign sounding name. That goes back to the old questions as to how I present myself. Should I draw a line between my academic self, my political self and my musical self?   

DM: You are welcome to answer your own question because I think it is an important one.

GB: To me it is pretty simple. The way to do blues successfully is to be yourself, no matter who you are. I am not going to go out there and put on a wide brimmed hat and try and look like Junior Wells. I am not Junior Wells. I didn’t grow up in Chicago. I didn’t have his life and his life experiences. If I try and look like or act like Junior Wells, I am going to look like an ASS. If I sing songs about pickin’ cotton or about hell hounds on my trail, I am going to look like an ASS.

Let me give you an example of the type of songwriting that inspired me. I hate about 90% of what I hear in the country music field these days. However, there is a small strain that I really appreciate. One of the best songwriters for my money is Lyle Lovett. He wrote a song about a rodeo cowboy and the song takes place in New Jersey. Now when you think of rodeo you might think of Lyle’s home state of Texas or Montana or Wyoming, but not New Jersey. But, by putting the song in New Jersey, it becomes much more authentic and not a cliché. It had to be real or why would he pick New Jersey. I thought to myself ‘That is how I am going to do it. Her name is not Bessie May. She isn’t African- American. She doesn’t pick cotton. She is Iranian and works on a computer.’ It just has to be real and that’s how I started to feel comfortable about the songs I was writing.

DM: What I find interesting is that you toggle between two very disparate worlds. The blues world, that is steeped in a working class, blue color world, and the world in which you inhabit on the surface are two very different places. Let’s speak to that if you don’t mind.

GB: I am aware that I have lived a very privileged life. Yet, because of my Palestinian background, I have always identified with the downtrodden. That’s why I became a public defender. That’s why I put my Harvard Law Degree in service of people who couldn’t afford to pay my fees, but needed it desperately. So for me it is seamless, but I also can see how it might appear otherwise from the outside.

DM: I appreciate the fact that you embrace these seemingly contradictory worlds and do so with unflinching honesty.

GB: Many people in the blues music world who know who I am have said that I should keep quiet about my “day job.” They say, people won’t understand or that it might invite discrimination and I would suffer the consequences as a blues musician. I get that, but this is who I am. I am not going to lie about it.

Let me put it to you this way. As you know Dave, the blues is about the affirmation of life against oppression. Blues is about the absolute refusal to bend in the face of adversity. There is a word the Palestinians use to describe this. It is called “sumud” which literally means steadfastness. It means I will always be here.  It means, you are not going to take life from me. I will always come back. I will always sing. I will always rejoice. You can’t hurt me because no matter what you do to me, I will always be here.

The music known as the blues comes from that philosophy. It is part of that determination. Blues not only expresses that resolve, it makes it stronger.