In 1971, Marvin Gaye signed "What's going on", a record by an artist concerned about the war in Vietnam and the open fronts in the United States between racial and social injustices.

Half a century later, war has been in Ukraine since the Russian invasion and the United States still faces the same inner demons.

In his new album, "Bloodline maintenance", Ben Harper evokes the nuclear threat ("Where did we go wrong"), the work of remembering slavery ("We need to talk about it") and inequalities ( "Problem child").

"I am terribly concerned about the world that we are going to leave to our children and grandchildren, to the point that I even lose sleep over it", confides the artist, reached by telephone by AFP in Toulouse (south-east of France) between two tour dates.

"I have no illusions about what any person, song or voice can do in the face of all this. I am as helpless as you are, but for the causes that are close to our hearts, like fighting against those who want rewrite history, sometimes you have to talk, sometimes you have to shout, sometimes you have to sing, because silence is not an option".

Settling in France

Faced with an anxiety-provoking American climate weighed down by outbreaks of gun killings and the questioning of abortion by the conservative Supreme Court, Ben Harper, a Californian by origin, decided to change scenery.

"I want to settle in France, I've been here since I was 17: let's be clear, I don't idealize any place, everyone has their problems to solve, but I'm looking for a little inner peace and I can't. 'to have in the United States', develops the singer and guitarist.

Logical when you think that it is a French festival, the Trans Musicales in Rennes (west), which was for him an international springboard in 1993. "It was my first official concert outside my home, I did not expect not to such a (warm) public reception. Nothing can replace that memory, I couldn't sleep the days after."

American singer Ben Harper in Toulouse on July 27, 2022 Lionel BONAVENTURE AFP

"I had wandered around the region, I had been mystified by the Breton landscapes. I had been to Carhaix to see the menhirs, the sea. I had been carried away by all that".

Nor does he forget Jean-Louis Brossard, boss of the "Trans".

"I haven't met since someone who can bet as much on an unknown artist as he did with me".

Sam Cooke, Ray Charles

Leaving the United States is not for the fifties – who does not look his age and continues to practice skateboarding – synonymous with renunciation.

The gloomy observations he makes in his 17th studio album are counterbalanced by the light that can spring from a heart, the most powerful of engines.

He thus digs the furrow of a Marvin Gaye, "the only one, apart from perhaps Dylan, capable of singing both love impulses and social painting as in + How sweet it is + and + What's going on +".

Marvin Gaye is not the only illustrious godfather chosen by Ben Harper, who sometimes sounds like Sam Cooke ("More than love") or Ray Charles ("Honey, Honey").

If the musician always knows how to make his guitar cry to illustrate his point ("We need to talk about it"), he reaches for the first time the point of balance between all his influences, since soul is adorned here with gospel , funk, jazz, rock or blues.

"I hope this record in its ultimate form resembles a modern soul record with traditional instruments, he synthesizes. This album is a meeting point for my influences, a place from which to take off in the future. ".

© 2022 AFP