Musician-Artist Don Dean's Eclectic Human Condition (Part 2): the Interview

  Band poster for Eclectic CD by Don Dean.

For part one of this article please click here. Part two begins now:

Aberjhani: Your music has been featured on a number of popular websites across the Internet but you have also made an exceptional impact with original visual art presented on canvas, cups, t-shirts, and other items. How have you managed to remain so creatively productive in two such distinct fields of creative expression?

Don: Sometimes it’s not easy. At the moment while I’m so busy trying to promote this CD I’m also working on tracks for the next CD and that music takes over. But as a rule it’s just different sides of the same coin. Writing, music, art, it’s all the same thing.

Aberjhani: In what way?

Don: It’s all just me trying to connect, to use my voice. I decided long ago to turn what was a weakness into a strength. My weakness is I get bored very easily. Once I feel I’m getting to the core of a subject I just move on without finishing it [until later]. Think of it this way: if you’re watching a film and you figure out what the end is halfway through, well I guess most people will stick it out but not me. I switch the channel to see if there is anything more engaging to view. I work best when I have lots of different projects going all at once.

Aberjhani: How would you describe your initial exposure in England to different types of African-American music?

Don: Well the very first thing I remember is my father loved Dixieland jazz. He had a racist side to him but he loved Sammy Davis Jr. and Dixieland. Then as I got older I started listening to the blues on the radio and we also got a station called Radio Luxemburg late at night that played a lot of American stuff. But we had a massive blues explosion here when I was about 16 or 17. Ironically as Blacks in the states were turning their back on the blues as it not being hip anymore, in England for some reason we really identified with it. So through the Brit version we started to listen to Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, John Lee Hooker, Howling Wolf, and Leadbelly, and these guys found a whole new audience over here. See we didn’t have the same problems, they could go where they wanted. Course we had our racists here but at least they wouldn’t get strung up just for sitting in the front of the bus.

"Reflections" artwork by Don Dean. (used by permission of artist)

Aberjhani: I wouldn’t say Blacks turned their backs on the blues but we definitely have been known to undervalue our own cultural worth. What about later?

Don: Then I got into Frank Zappa, the early Chicago, and of course the one and only [Jimi] HENDRIX who again had to come to England to be made before the States realized what they had. Then when I got married my wife was into all the soul and through her I listened to Marvin Gaye and got into funk. Earth Wind and Fire were my top group along with the Crusaders, Chick Corea, Stevie Wonder—this around the time of Songs in the Key of Life—Bob Marley and Grover Washington. So you’ve got this whole fusion of soul, jazz and rock music going on while still rooted in the blues but also loving African music, listening to Fela Kuti and the like, and not forgetting the great Gil Scott Heron. And there is the stuff I listen to now --when people listen to the CD they see why it’s called Eclectic.

Aberjhani: How does your new CD differ from your previous releases?

Don: My first two CDs were limited fairly simple groove-oriented affairs. I was still only a sax player who wrote songs. By the time I got to my third CD I had learned to play guitar, keyboards, drums, flute and bass, plus I had learned a lot about producing so naturally I wanted to spread my wings. This led to a bit of self indulgence over long tracks that were well received critically but not commercially. Now I know we as artists are supposed to frown at that word [commercial] but all it means to me is you’re making your music more widely accessible. So long as you keep to your true self it’s not a sell out. I had also gone back to my first CDs for another listen, so this one was thought out right from the cover design on through to the music. It truly is all me as I designed it all so I used a bit of self discipline, captured the feel of the first CDs and added the musicality of the third.

Cover of Dean's first CD And So It Begins.
 

Aberjhani: Who are some of the guest musicians on Eclectic and how did you end up working with them?

Don: Well as I play all the instruments myself we can’t really go down that road but I have two fantastic vocalists who breathe life into my lyrics--Randolph Matthews I met through a guitarist who played in one of my bands. I asked him if he knew any female vocalists and I was delighted when he answered his then partner, now wife Shalke, was also a vocalist. We have over the years become close friends. He taught me a lot and through him I realized that I could say what I wanted to say but in a joyful and positive way rather than a dark and angry way.

Continues with Final Part 3: All One People

By Aberjhani, the African American Art Examiner and the author/ co-author of eight books including Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance and The American Poet Who Went Home Again.