Interview: Selwyn Birchwood

Mentorship has always been a huge part of learning how to play music. For bluesman Selwyn Birchwood, his inspiration and those lessons came at the behest of greats like Buddy Guy and the late Sonny Rhodes. Those skills will be on full display when Birchwood hits the stage during his current tour.

The Florida native is out in support of “Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues,” his eighth and most recent studio album. It’s also the first effort the single-minded musician produced solely on his own -- an important step he felt he needed to take.

“I feel like this sets the stage for what it is we’re really doing and is the best album I’ve done by far,” he said in a mid-May interview. “I took the reins on the production side so I could produce it myself. What you get on this album is the exact sound from inside my head translated right onto the tape because I didn’t have to barter or fight with a producer or anyone from the label. It was just straight to tape on this one and I think you can hear that.

“This is the first time I had absolute zero input from outside and did it the way I think it needed to be done,” he elaborated. “I was able to really get the sounds, colors and textures on these songs that I always wanted. I just felt like it was getting really stifled with other avenues.”

The resulting platter is made up of 10 Birchwood-penned originals that range from the gospel-flavored title cut that overflows with screaming riffs and soulful harmonies to the soaring ballad “Soulmate,” punctuated by Birchwood’s crying phrasing and mournful growl. Elsewhere, the tender acoustic ballad “Labour of Love” is an ode to parenting couched in gentle saxophone accompaniment and Birchwood’s tender croon, while “Should’ve Never Gotten Out of Bed” isn’t just a classic sad sack slice of blues, it allows the guitarist to wield his formidable lap steel skills.

Birchwood first started noodling around on guitar when he was 13, which was also around the same time he was developing a healthy interest in Jimi Hendrix. But it wasn’t until he was 17 and saw Buddy Guy in concert that the blues fire was lit for him.

“Seeing Buddy Guy made me want to start pursuing that kind of music,” Birchwood explained. “That’s what really grabbed me. I didn’t know what I was looking at, but whatever it was, I wanted to learn and that’s what I wanted to do. That’s what set me to try and pursue this music.”

The second major inflection point came during his quest to “…find Jedis steeped in the blues…” and a high school friend mentioned his next-door neighbor was a blues musician. He then handed Birchwood a Sonny Rhodes CD. Birchwood was immediately smitten by what he heard and asked for an introduction.

“It took about six months before I finally met Sonny,” Birchwood recalled. “He instantaneously said he wanted to have me in his band after hearing me play half a song. Sonny asked if I had a passport and I said yeah. Within three weeks I was traveling with him all throughout the U.S. and Canada. I really saw what was out there and was glad to be exposed to that kind of lifestyle at such a young age.”

That kind of apprenticeship became the kind of real-time musical education that not only taught the aspiring blues musician the ins and outs of being a touring musician, but helped add lap steel to his repertoire, something Birchwood picked up directly from Rhodes.

“Sonny was famous for using lap steel guitar in the context of playing hard-driving Texas blues,” he said. “I wasn’t just side manning for Sonny. I was driving, setting up all the guitars, amps and everything. I was pretty much taking on everything at 19 years old, not only out of wants, but also out of necessity with that band because it just needed to be done. I would play on his lap steel during sound check or if we had a day off. I said I thought it was so cool and liked the sound of it. When I got home off the tour, I was going to save up enough money to get my own lap steel and that’s exactly what I did. I then started incorporating it into my own music.”

With that kind of pedigree under his belt, Birchwood has been focusing on becoming his own true creative self, a path he’s gone well down on thanks to the advice of myriad blues elders whose wisdom he’s mined.

“The old-school guys told me you’re supposed to evolve from emulation and imitation to creation and innovation,” he said. “They said you need to find yourself, play what’s in your heart and see what that sounds like. I don’t think I’m at that point at all, but that is definitely the goal -- to continuously try to be yourself and eventually you will be.”

Tickets for Birchwood's shows at WSLR's Fogartyville Community Media and Arts Center are available here.