Bluesman’s Accents Genuinely Southern

When James Harman played the prestigious Utrecht Blues Festival in Holland last November, his band was the only white group there. The 16 other acts were all black and included such semi-legendary figures as the Meters and James Carr, one of his boyhood heroes.

And yet Harman, a staple on the Southern California blues scene for more than two decades, not only headlined the 12-hour affair, he got the most press and, according to reviews, the best crowd reaction.

One reason for Harman’s widespread acceptance in blues circles is his remarkable talent. According to Cashbox, “James Harman is perhaps the finest white blues singer/harmonica player we’ve ever heard.” “Ohmahgod,” gushed Guitar World, “this guy is real.”

But more importantly, at least as far as European audiences are concerned, is “my Southern accent,” Harman said with a laugh.

“They love me over there because they know I’m from Alabama. There are a lot of white blues boys, but most of them are not Southerners. And, to Europeans, if you’re black, that’s one thing, and if you have a Southern accent, that’s another, but if you’re neither black nor from the South, you just don’t have the credibility, regardless of how good you play.”

Harman, who will be appearing Saturday night at the Belly Up Tavern in Solana Beach, is about as credible a bluesman as you can get.

Born and raised in the tiny Alabama town of Anniston, 72 miles east of Birmingham, Harman, 45, learned all about the blues through osmosis.

“I saw and heard all the real guys when I was growing up,” Harman recalled of the 1950s. “Back then, blues was the only thing that made sense. When you turned on the radio, you either got hillbillies doing country, or black guys doing the blues. So you either went for country, or you went for the blues, and I went for the blues.

“In 1962, when I was 16, while everyone in California was listening to the Beach Boys, I was turning on the radio and listening to Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Sonny Boy Williamson, people like that. And, by the time I got to high school and all my schoolmates were excited about the latest Beatles record, I thought, this is really silly, childish stuff compared to Otis Rush and Buddy Guy, the stuff I was into at the time.”

Harman’s blues education didn’t just come from the radio. He used to hang out at places where the old black guys played, hoping to take a gander at them and maybe even sit in for a song or two.

“I would go down to all the fish fries and chicken houses and just hang out, and eventually they started letting me in,” Harman said. “And then when I put together my own band, they started giving me work. I was thought of as that cute little white kid who could really sing and play harmonica like a man; I was really accepted in those black joints.”

Only in the late 1960s, after Harman had moved to Panama City, Fla., and begun touring along the Gulf Coast, was he able to find work in white roadhouses and honky-tonks as well.

“That’s because of the Rolling Stones,” he said. “Before, when I would get up there and play ‘Smokestack Lighting,’ I was like this outcast, this nigger-lover, if you will. But then, when these English guys with long hair did it, all of a sudden it’s a hip thing; everyone started saying, ‘that old weird music Jimmy Harman is playing is all right.’ ”

Still, Harman didn’t want to be stuck playing clubs all his life, so he decided to relocate to a bigger city with a more vibrant music scene. He tried Chicago, then New York, then New Orleans, but failed to make much of a splash. Finally, in 1969, he packed his bags one last time and moved to Los Angeles at the urging of another white blues band, Canned Heat, whom he had met in Florida.

“All these white blues guys, like Paul Butterfield and Mike Bloomfield, were going to California, so I figured it was time for me to go as well,” said Harman, who now lives in Orange County.

Within a couple of years, the James Harman Band was regularly playing such popular clubs as the Troubadour in Hollywood and the Golden Bear in Huntington Beach. They were signed by ABC Records and eagerly set about recording their debut album.

Then, around 1976, the bubble burst. ABC went broke, the album never came out, and efforts to secure another record deal were unsuccessful due to the looming vinyl shortage and emergence of disco. Harman subsequently took several years off to catch his breath.

In 1979, he decided to give it another shot. He put together a new band and returned to the Southern California nightclub circuit, which he has been successfully plying ever since. Harman has also been touring regularly throughout the United States and Europe and released a handful of critically acclaimed albums.

His next album, “Do Not Disturb,” is due out in May on the Black Top Records label, and features such celebrated guests as Los Lobos accordionist Dave Hidalgo, ex-Blasters pianist Gene Taylor, and saxophonist Lee Allen, who has played with Little Richard and Fats Domino.

Yet he has long given up on the dreams of superstardom he harbored back in 1969, when he first moved West. It appears the same thing that’s helped him in Europe has hurt him in the United States: authenticity.

“My music stays much closer to the roots than someone like Robert Cray,” Harman said. “When I write, I write what’s on my mind, and it comes out a blues song. Robert Cray, on the other hand, has people who write pop songs for him, and then there’s this handsome black man doing what’s essentially a pop song, and that’s what gets him on the charts.

“I’m not a thin, young, pretty black person, so when I go out there and sing and dance and do my shtick, I’m just another good old barrelhouse boogie boy. I don’t know anything about trying to be weird and timely and cutting edge, either. I don’t have four guys with long hair and no shirt backing me up; none of that stuff strikes me as being very cool.

“I’m just into playing my songs well and showing up on time and having a good time with it, and if it takes all those trappings to become very successful, I never will become very successful. I’d much rather stick with the top of the bottom, because at least it’s real.”

After his Saturday night concert at the Belly Up Tavern, Harman will be back Feb. 3 to co-host the Sunday Afternoon Blues Party with the Joint Chiefs, and again on Feb. 6 for a concert with ex-Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor.