Pete Harper brings his outback blues to Falls
JOHN LAW
When you’ve toured as much as Peter Harper, bad days are inevitable. But just try getting him to complain.
It won’t happen. He knows what bad jobs are, and playing your songs in front of supportive people around the world is not a bad deal.
“It’s such a beautiful life you can have, to see the world,” he says.
“I was a factory worker, and I used to hate it. Clocking in, clocking out, having a boss to yell at you. Whenever I feel a little down, I go, ‘Look at what I’m doing now.’ Every time I finish one part of my job, I get applause. Who gets applause for doing something?”
So asking the Australian blues rocker how things are going inevitably garners a “Great!” in response. He’s on the phone from China, winning over new fans enamoured with his mythical brand of blues.
“We’re having the best fun here,” he says. “They’re just lovely people. Thankfully, I have a guide with me who makes sense of all the craziness we’re experiencing.”
And for like most audiences, it’s Foster’s didgeridoo that gets the biggest reaction. The indigenous Australian wind instrument is the
Harper and Midwest Kind
Where: Seneca Queen Theatre, 4624 Queen St., Niagara Falls When: April 8, 8 p.m. Tickets: $22.25; www.senecaqueen. ca backbone of his band Harper and Midwest Kind, who head to the Seneca Queen Theatre in Niagara Falls April 8.
“I just finished a tour of Australia, and they loved it, too,” he says. “I went, ‘Wow, back in my home country they’re still loving that stuff.’
“As common as it is in Australia, not everyone plays one. When you hear a didgeridoo, you expect to see some Aborigines in the desert, playing it with a couple of sticks. But I put it in to music with a full band, and they go, ‘Wow, that’s different.’
“I think it lends itself to any kind of music at all.”
Born in England, Harper moved to Australia when he was 10. While playing in a brass band, he was blown away by Stevie Wonder’s harmonica playing and self-taught himself the instrument. He spent the next several years bouncing from band to band, and during one club gig was told by someone from Detroit he should take his act to America. He brushed it off at first, but then decided to take the plunge.
Relocating to Detroit, he absorbed the local blues scene and fell in love with the city’s culture. His debut album was recorded at Detroit’s famed Soup Kitchen Saloon.
Touring the U.S. was a costly but necessary gamble.
“We toured for two years and it cost me a lot of money,” he says. “I think I was losing about twenty grand a year. But you know what? You have to do these things to get to where you want to get.
“Some people come and up and say ‘How did you do it?’ I take a lot of risks. You have to have faith in your music and hopefully people will like what you do.”
Since then, Harper has scooped 14 blues/world music awards, and reached No. 3 on the Billboard’s blues charts with his 10th album, 2016’s Canada has been especially welcoming, and Peller jokes he has now seen Niagara Falls enough times he’s like a bored tourist.
“I drop my band off to have a look and I go and find parking. It’s like when Chevy Chase takes his kids to see the Grand Canyon, and he’s like ‘Uh huh … let’s go.’”