The Burnaby NOW arts reporter, Marelle Reid, recently chatted with John Lee Sanders about his career and upcoming performance at this summer's Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival.
Question: Where are you from?
Answer: I grew up in Mississippi. I moved there when I was 10 years old. Mississippi, Alabama, Louisana; I lived around a lot of the south, until I was around 26 and I moved to San Francisco. But my roots are in the south.
Q: How did you get into Blues music?
A: My brother was a great piano player in a rock and roll, rhythm and blues band and they were pretty well known.
And I met a DJ who was really well-known around Alabama; he discovered Otis Redding and he started putting me in shows for big name acts when I was 12 or 13 years old.
I started out as a singer, then I learned piano, saxophone, guitar, and that's kind of how I got started.
Q: Did you take music lessons as a kid or did you learn on your own?
A: I did both. I was playing piano from first grade; from five or six years old until I graduated from the University of North Texas where I majored in composition. So I have this hybrid background because I grew up with Roots and Blues music, black music, you know, Blues and all that, but then this was during the Vietnam War, so that was a way to avoid the draft, but I wanted to learn everything; you know, classical, and orchestral music, and everything, so I've got a pretty broad musical education and background.
Q: So you've produced music outside the Blues and Roots genre?
A: Oh yeah, I've done film scores and I've played with a lot of singer-songwriters and written stuff with big bands, you name it. You have to know everything, every style there is.
Q: Did you always know you wanted to be a musician?
A: I definitely did. I met Elvis Presley when I was about five or six years old, right at the peak of his career.
My grandmother lived in Memphis, a few blocks away from Aretha Franklin and Elvis and all that, so I was kind of around for the birth of rock and roll, when it was kind of starting.
All these kind of things started me on that path.
Q: Did you get to see Elvis perform?
A: I never got to see him perform. I was pretty young, he was on the road a lot and then he went into the army and then started making movies and then when he came out he started doing the Vegas thing.
At the time, I thought Elvis was into music that was a little too Vegas for me, at the time. Now I've learned to appreciate more of what he was doing.
Q: Who are your main influences? A: Well, I love the early Blues stuff. Ray Charles, Muddy Waters, BB King and then a lot of the solo R&B people; Otis Redding, Stevie Wonder. Those are my main influences. Elton John.
I worked with Long John Baldry for 20 years, and Baldry discovered Elton and he was one of the early influences on me as a writer.
. I grew up in the Mississippi Delta, home of Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, BB King, Albert King, I mean all them in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now, but they grew up on plantations and it was kind of looked down upon when I was growing up. 'Oh, you need to learn the classics.'
But when I went there and saw the respect that they gave the musicians, it was like, 'OK, this has been validated in my mind.' Bluegrass was kind of looked down upon as a lower class kind of art form.
Q: If you could jam with three people, dead or alive, who would you pick?
A: Well, I've already jammed with two of them. I've played with Stevie Wonder, and in Vancouver I got to play with Jimmie Page when he came with Long John Baldry.
Well, there's so many. Gosh, that's a hard one.
Oh, I was a huge Beatles fan, so Paul McCartney. Or Elton (John).
Q: What prompted your move to Vancouver from the U.S.?
A: That's a long story. I started touring with Long John Baldry in '86, '87 - I came up here to do a record with him.
We were on the same record label and I toured with him about once a year and met a woman on one of my tours in 1998 and we got married in 2006 and bought a house in White Rock and another one in Kelowna.
We're divorced now so I'm back in Vancouver, so that's kind of how I got up here. But I always thought I'd live up here.
When I first came in '86 and Expo was going on it was really an exciting time in the city. It had a nice energy to it and I got to work with a lot of the musicians in Vancouver.
You know it's not the same kind of scene as it was when I first came up. It's kind of sad there's not enough venues for us to play.
Q: Have you played in Burnaby before?
A: No, I haven't played in Burnaby. I've played all over the Lower Mainland; Chilliwack, White Rock, North Van, blues festivals.
Q: What can your audience expect from your set here in August?
A: Well, it's a little more eclectic Blues than your average Blues band. It's got a lot of New Orleans influence, and New Orleans has jazz, blues, gospel, Dixieland, soul, Caribbean, reggae.
It's a little more African. I mean it's all African, but it has a mixture of all of that kind of stuff.
It's very eclectic, so you can cover a lot in that.
I mean, a lot of blues artists all start to sound the same after a while, but they're all different tempos; I write a lot of my own stuff, my songs have a lot of stories, there's a lot of humour. It's very happy.
It's a very joyous kind of culture down there.
So, my music has a lot of that.
What: The 14th annual Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival. Headlining the festival is Blue Rodeo, the country-rock band on tour celebrating 25 years together. In addition to John Lee Sanders, the lineup includes gospel trio The Sojourners, funk/ soul/R&B singer Charles Bradley, Canadian blues-rock musician Shaun Verreault, blues/soul/R&B singer Shakura S'Aida, multi-award-winning blues guitarist David Gogo, folk-rock/reggae duo Jon and Roy, blues rocker ZZ Ward, folk-rock artist Vince Vaccaro, singer Ndidi Onukwulu, and the six-piece ensemble band Brickhouse. The 12 bands will perform on three stages this year.
When: The festival takes place on Aug. 10 from 1 to 10 p.m. Gates open at noon. There will be a Blues Family Area, with activities for kids, open from noon to 7 p.m. Children must be supervised by a parent or guardian.
Where: Deer Lake Park in Burnaby.
Tickets: Advance single tickets are $65 and a pack of four is $180. On the day of the festival, single tickets will be available for $75. Children 12 and under get in free with an adult.
Info: Chairs are permitted. Chairs with low backs and short legs are appreciated. Deer Lake Park is a general admission lawn seating environment and there are no reserved seats. If you have a physical disability or are mobility challenged, there will be a small special needs seating area available on site.
Contact the box office to make arrangements. There will be a variety of food and beverage options at the festival. The festival site is licensed and anyone purchasing or consuming alcohol must be 19 years of age or older and will require a DAV (drinking age verification) wristband available at the gates and the beverage sales area. Two pieces of identification will be required to obtain this wristband; one primary piece of I.D. (driver's license, passport) must include a photo. There is free drinking water at two locations on site, as well as an ATM and portable washrooms. There is also an activity zone for children, however, children must be supervised. For more information and/or tickets, call the box office at 604205-3000 or visit www.burnabybluesfestival.com.
