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The Soul Avenger
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"I started off in Tremé. I was raised with the brass band music coming in the windows from the cars outside. I have the spirit… Reggae was my calling."
Ben Hunter sits in his little living room near the Fair Grounds, surrounded by guitars and old prints of young Bob Marley and Peter Tosh, and looks thoughtful as he discusses the relationship between New Orleans jazz and blues and Jamaican ska and reggae. His passion is his new project called Soul Avenger, a New Orleans-influenced reggae album recorded in Jamaica with the house band at Jack Ruby's studio.
Ben's musical and spiritual quest began as a young man as he was growing up in the faubourg Tremé. "Tremé in the day… oh it was raw, it was the center of the universe, always action, always something goin' on. I used to sit in the window and watch out on the street… There were brass bands all the time, and coming round the corner would be a parade." Ben's voice gets a far-away quality as he is clearly letting himself get drawn back into the memories of a tight-knit and vibrant community.
That quest to express himself through the street-level experience of music brought Ben to reggae. "It was always a dream to do this, to make this a cultural reality," he says. After being the focus of a documentary, Baptized at Katrina, and contributing a song to the soundtrack, Ben was inspired to do the album Traveler, an acoustic record featuring himself on vocals and guitar, a classical guitarist, and a cellist, "to deal with Katrina, with the things that happened through this time and space." It's a mellow and heart-felt album, eloquent in its simplicity.
Whenever the spirit strikes Ben, he will spend any amount of time you require explaining the connection between reggae's development as a musical form and New Orleans' influence. Bob Marley in particular was a big fan of Fats Domino, an absolute icon of the New Orleans standard. "Soul Avenger has actually been kicking around in my mind for years, but the time is coming to pass" to get it made, says Ben. "New Orleans has influenced all music. We have to make a bigger impact with this album, because we're New Orleans. It's expected." He'll be traveling to Jamaica later in the year to begin recording, and plans to have the album out in 2010. To know more about Ben's discography, visit his website. Financial contributions for the making of Soul Avenger, including paying for the musicians' studio time, as well as travel to Jamaica, can be made via PayPal on the website.
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