Alex Gardner (AG): Where are you from Nathan?

Nathan James (NJ): I am from Fallbrook, California, in Northern San Diego County. I have lived in the area all my life, I like to stick close to home. I have family there and I have to help out with stuff so I stayed around. I live in nearby Oceanside. I am pretty established in that area. It makes it easier to get gigs when I am not on the road.

AG: Did you come from a musical family?

NJ: My parents didn't play at all but I had grandparents on both sides that were musicians. My grandmother was a professional country singer in the 50's and 60's and my other grandmother played piano. She had planned on becoming a piano teacher, but she stopped to start a family.

AG:  Did you start by playing the piano?

NJ:  I didn't actually. It's one thing I still don't know how to play very well.

AG: What was the first instrument you remember playing?

NJ: I first played trombone in fourth grade. I quit that because I didn’t like the band teacher. I picked up music again in the eighth grade. I was listening to music so much that I realized that I should play an instrument or something. So I asked Santa Claus for a bass because I liked the low end rhythm sound. I guess the wires got crossed or something at the North Pole because I ended up with an acoustic guitar.

AG: Turns out Santa knew what he was doing. What kind of music were you listening to back then as a kid?

NJ: Metallica.

AG: Metallica?

NJ: Yeah, the really early hard stuff. The Black Album came out and that’s kind of what got me wanting to play guitar.

AG: How was it or what was it that got you to make the leap from that to blues music?

NJ:  I started playing Metallica kind of stuff for a while. It came to me pretty easy. It was fun but I got bored with that stuff very quickly. That’s when I started searching out other kinds of music. Once you start playing an instrument you find there are lots of other kinds of music out there. I grew up with classic rock. It’s what my parents listened to. From there I worked my way into blues.

AG: What led you to the Blues?  Was there a particular artist that opened that window for you?

NJ: My first stepping stone to the blues was the Allman Brothers Band. The whole idea of improvisation really appealed to me. I never knew what that was. I didn't know jazz at that point in my life.  I didn’t know blues for that matter. I had heard of it but I didn't really know it, if you know what I mean. Then I realized that this was a real creative form of improvisation. The Allman Brothers, of course, were doing a lot of improvisation and incorporating that into blues. They were doing some traditional blues songs but doing it their own way.

I started out with the more recent vintage Allman Brothers with Warren Haynes on guitar but worked my way back to the earliest stuff with Duane and Dicky Betts. When they would do a cover I would see who wrote it and then checked that stuff out. I started to connect the dots. I really got deep into searching out old recordings and finding the origins of a song. It has become a lifetime quest.  

AG: Do you remember the first song that you traced back?

NJ: Oh man, let’s see. It’s probably Robert Johnson’s Crossroads that Cream covered. I just happened to buy a Robert Johnson LP from this old record guy at a swap meet. I asked him for recommendations. He was kind of a pivotal person that just randomly handed me stuff to take home. Then I realized, “Oh yeah, that’s the same guy who did that song.” It just all kind of came together really. I remember I looked up Statesboro Blues that the Allman Brothers did on their Live at the Fillmore East Album. It turns out it was written by “Blind” Willie McTell. That’s how I got into real country blues.  

AG: Was there any blues radio you could hear where you lived growing up?

NJ: There was a pop station that would play blues real late at night. They would play some real early B.B. King stuff from the 1950’s. When I heard the Three O’clock Blues by B.B., that completely changed my life. I kind of knew about that stuff but I hadn’t really heard it. Not too many years later I saw B.B. at an outdoor concert at the Embarcadero Arena in San Diego. I was sixteen years old. My neighbor drove me down there. Dr. John opened for B.B. It was really cool.

Years later I opened a show for Dr. John. I got to meet him. He was very complimentary. I still haven’t met B.B. yet.

AG: When did you start playing out in public?

NJ: I joined bands when I was maybe 17 or 18. I started playing with some local bands.

AG: Did you start out playing rock?

NJ: No, I was strictly into the blues by then. I got into it pretty quick. When I heard that B.B. King stuff, I knew exactly what excited me and what kind of music I wanted to play. So I joined a band that included the singer and harmonica player, Billy Watson. Actually, Billy was the first guy to hire me. There was this band that he was a part of called The Blues Pharaohs that used to play around a little bit. One of the members of that band introduced me to James Harman.  Right before I met Harman, I was hired by Johnny Dyer and Jamie Wood. All of this happened before I was twenty years old.  

AG: You’ve been with Harman ever since.

NJ:  I’ve been with him off and on for a long time. In 2000, I got off the road with him for about three and a half years.

AG: Why?

NJ: I wanted to get into more acoustic, country blues. I met Ben Hernandez a few months later. I just wanted to have a duo. We had a lot of gigs. We could play every night of the week. There were times where we would play two or three times a day. We won the International Blues Challenge in 2007. The prize was we got to play on one of these cruises.

AG: So how many of these blues cruises have you been on?

NJ: This is my second. I also did a small blues cruise out of Long Beach, CA, that went down to Ensenada, Mexico.  

AG: On the Blues Cruise, have you participated in any of the legendary jams?

NJ: No.

AG: That surprises me a bit.

NJ: I'm not much into jam sessions. They can be really loud. I have played jams before and they can be sort of fun, but that is really rare.

AG: We have to talk about your gear. What gave you the idea to make the washboard guitar?

NJ:  It goes back to having wood shop training from junior high and high school. I was always into electronic classes as well as the arts. I was into music of course, drawing, crafts, wood shop, and metal shop. I made my first guitar when I was in high school. I made a couple right after that. I hadn't made anything for about ten years. I just wanted to make something again. I just wanted to make something that looked crazy. I admired guys that make their own instruments. Basically it is a fun challenge to make music on something that is not your standard instrument. So then I did it one day.

I bolted a guitar neck to a 2x4 behind the washboard. I knew I had to have something strong, and strung the strings through it. You have to bolt the neck to something thick to hold the electronics. A washboard fit the bill. I just experimented with that and realized from the very first gig that I could play the washboard too. I didn’t even think about that. I wear metal finger picks to get that sound.

AG: It really adds a rhythmic dynamic that is great. Is that where the name of your band, Rhythm Scratchers came from?

NJ:  Yes. Our latest album, What You Make of It, which came out last March on Delta Groove Music, features three different versions of these washboard guitars I make.

AG: It is a terrific album.

NJ: Thanks Alex.

Editors Note: What You Make Of It also features bassist/harmonica player Troy Sandow, drummer Marty Dodson as well as the horn section of Johnny Viau and Archie Thompson. Nathan is joined by very special guest, James Harman, who sings and blows harp on one of his own compositions.

You can catch Nathan James in a very intimate setting on January 8, 2013, at the Memphis restaurant in Costa Mesa, California. On this evening Nathan will be joined by very special guest Al Blake. For details check the tab that reads: SPECIAL EVENT