REVIEW : The Ballad of Boogie Christ - Soul Surmise

I had two fascinating meetings with songwriter and visual artist Joseph Arthur. After a gig at the Errigle Inn in Belfast, way back around 2001, I approached Joseph after the gig and asked him about the spiritual references in his songs. He got animated, had the house sound turned off and played me, and my mate Gordon, a new song Redemption’s Son. Quite a moment (read about it on the page beside this one on this blog). About a year later I was in Calvin College interviewing Joseph before a concert he was doing in the college later in the day. I was excited about the idea of following up our post gig chat in Belfast. So I asked a question... And then another.... And another... it didn’t go well! “What books are you reading?” “Lots.” “What?” “Oh I don’t know their titles.” It was like interviewing Bob Dylan circa Blonde On Blonde! Arthur was not prepared to commit to any kind of detail or substance. The difference in the two experiences was a little surprising but looking back I understand. Here is a rock dude cornered in a Christian College lecture room being asked deep and meaningful questions. Avoid! The enigmatic nature my two meetings with him about sums up Joseph Arthur. This guy shifts soundscapes and styles in a whim. Almost every album has been different. Indeed that is one of the things he was firm about in that Calvin interview, saying that he was always eager to move from sounds and make very album a different hue from the one before.

That fidgety approach to his records has had me lose a little interest in Arthur now and again and feel that nothing ever reached the heights of 2002’s Redemption’s Son. The Ballad Of Boogie Christ Act 1 has my attention again. It is as also an eclectic sprawl of styles from orchestral to horns to soul singers to psychedelia and even throws in some mid sixties Indian meets rock! It all blends beautifully and more organically than some of Arthur’s recent albums. It rocks with literal boogie, filled with melodies big of sound and wonderfully artistic of instrumentation.

For me the lyrics set it apart. One of the reasons for this might be that the songs started out as poems. They are wordy, clever of couplet and original of rhyme. The content has certainly that transcendent mature that drew me to Arthur way back when. He himself describes it as a fictional record about “about redemption and what happens after you find it and lose it.” It seems Joseph hasn’t lost his draw to that redemption things in the time since he sang Redemption’s Son to me in that small bar in Belfast. At Calvin when I pushed his obvious identification with Christianity he was most animated at denying that, saying that there were lots of religions that could be identified with his work. I did point out that the word Son after Redemption did indicate Jesus. Here again it is Christ he use in naming the transcendence at work in the redemption and Jesus gets various name checks. Yet, again it is not easy to pin down any creed that could be theologized. He needs saints, divine love and even the Holy Spirit gets called for. Yet, there is much doubt too. It’s all intoxicating heady stuff and most satisfying indeed!

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