Jalu
Steve's Destiny
Action star has New Orleans ties
By JOHN WIRT
Music critic
Published: Jul 4, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 am
The world knows Steven Seagal as the martial artist-action-movie star of Under Siege, Above the Law, Hard To Kill, Out for Justice and more than a dozen other films. But many may not know that, every day, he plays the blues.
Seagal, a singer-guitarist, released his blues debut, Mojo Priest, in 2006. It features Seagal originals plus his renditions of blues classics “Little Red Rooster,” “Dust My Broom” and “Hoochie Coochie Man.”
A stellar group of blues greats contributed to Mojo Priest, including James Cotton, Koko Taylor, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Lockwood Jr., the late Ruth Brown and late Bo Diddley.
Seagal and his band, Thunderbox, followed the album’s release with their first national tour.
“I had done shows all over the world for, probably, the past 30-something years, but that’s the first time my band toured,” Seagal said this week.
He didn’t undertake the tour with great expectations.
“Well, as an old Buddhist, I don’t really expect much of anything, I just wait for what comes and do it,” he said. “But, for me, it was a great tour. We didn’t have a bad show. Every show, we burned the house down. We had a good time.”
Seagal never concerns himself with the perception that he’s an actor playing at being a musician.
“You can’t worry about what people think,” he said. “You just have to be yourself and try to be a good human being and try to make the world a better place.”
This week and next, Seagal is in New Orleans, one of his favorite places. He’s filming an A&E special and performing a concert at the House of Blues Thursday, July 10. The show features Thunderbox and special guests including Aaron Neville and Tab Benoit. Seagal plans to donate proceeds to a children’s hospital.
The A&E special will cover Seagal’s law enforcement and musical activities in the New Orleans area. A commissioned Jefferson Parish deputy, he was a decades-long friend of the late Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee.
“Yeah, he was like a father to me,” Seagal said.
The actor-musician is proud of his law-enforcement work.
“I’ve been a police officer here for about 20 years,” he said. “Getting the bad guys and all that stuff, we have done all that to try to make it a better place down here. And A&E wanted to see all the things I do here, which, very often, I play a juke joint here, a club there. We just want to show the flavor of how we do it down here.”
Seagal also made his way to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
“Yeah, as soon as the storm hit I jumped down to try to help the people who were in the water and help my brothers protect themselves,” he said. “A lot of unspeakable things happened, but we helped as many as people as we could and did the best we could.”
In recent years, Seagal devoted more time to his music.
“Well, I could afford to,” he said. “Music has been the love of my life. It got to a point where I said, ‘You know what? I gotta do this more and more, for myself.’ It’s that important to me.”
And blues is the music that means the most to him.
“I’ve always loved the blues,” he said. “I’m lucky that, when I was young, I got to be around and play with a lot of great blues legends. So that’s something that’ll never leave me. It’s a part of my fabric.”
Seagal, a native of Lansing, Mich., got his first guitar at 12. He always preferred blues to the more popular pop and rock ’n’ roll.
“I grew up around Albert Collins, Albert King, B.B. King, Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters,” he said. “I got to be friends with a lot of those people and learn from them and play with them.”
Seagal also counts the late, Grammy-winning American roots-music artist and long-time Slidell resident Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown among his mentors.
“He was a dear friend of mine,” Seagal said. “When he’d come to California, he’d stay at my house. He really taught me a lot about the blues over the years.”
Because he’s famous for his practice of Buddhism, martial arts and passion for Asian culture, people expect Seagal to cite Eastern spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi as his ultimate guides in life. Many of his teachers, though, were elder musicians such as Brown and B.B. King.
“They were great storytellers,” Seagal said. “B.B. King, every time I sit with him, he tells amazing stories. If you can’t learn from those stories, you don’t have a brain and you don’t have a heart.”
Seagal is well aware that he’s increased his musical activities at a time of turmoil in the music business.
“Some people say there is no more music business,” he said. “Well, whether there is or there isn’t, music will never die.”
He also hopes that he can help keep the blues alive.
“That’s big talk from a little man like me, but I’d sure like to think, in the back of my mind, anyway, that I had the right to say that.”
As for movie projects, Seagal recently filmed the crime-thriller Kill Switch in Vancouver. His co-stars include a fellow actor-musician, Chris Thomas King from Baton Rouge.
“I felt like it was the best,” Seagal said of their on-screen chemistry.
King cited Seagal’s musicianship and love for the blues earlier this year in an Advocate interview. The respect is mutual.
“Chris Thomas King’s a great guy, a great actor and great musician,” Seagal said.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/entertainment/music/22869334.html
By JOHN WIRT
Music critic
Published: Jul 4, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 am
The world knows Steven Seagal as the martial artist-action-movie star of Under Siege, Above the Law, Hard To Kill, Out for Justice and more than a dozen other films. But many may not know that, every day, he plays the blues.
Seagal, a singer-guitarist, released his blues debut, Mojo Priest, in 2006. It features Seagal originals plus his renditions of blues classics “Little Red Rooster,” “Dust My Broom” and “Hoochie Coochie Man.”
A stellar group of blues greats contributed to Mojo Priest, including James Cotton, Koko Taylor, Pinetop Perkins, Hubert Sumlin, Robert Lockwood Jr., the late Ruth Brown and late Bo Diddley.
Seagal and his band, Thunderbox, followed the album’s release with their first national tour.
“I had done shows all over the world for, probably, the past 30-something years, but that’s the first time my band toured,” Seagal said this week.
He didn’t undertake the tour with great expectations.
“Well, as an old Buddhist, I don’t really expect much of anything, I just wait for what comes and do it,” he said. “But, for me, it was a great tour. We didn’t have a bad show. Every show, we burned the house down. We had a good time.”
Seagal never concerns himself with the perception that he’s an actor playing at being a musician.
“You can’t worry about what people think,” he said. “You just have to be yourself and try to be a good human being and try to make the world a better place.”
This week and next, Seagal is in New Orleans, one of his favorite places. He’s filming an A&E special and performing a concert at the House of Blues Thursday, July 10. The show features Thunderbox and special guests including Aaron Neville and Tab Benoit. Seagal plans to donate proceeds to a children’s hospital.
The A&E special will cover Seagal’s law enforcement and musical activities in the New Orleans area. A commissioned Jefferson Parish deputy, he was a decades-long friend of the late Jefferson Parish Sheriff Harry Lee.
“Yeah, he was like a father to me,” Seagal said.
The actor-musician is proud of his law-enforcement work.
“I’ve been a police officer here for about 20 years,” he said. “Getting the bad guys and all that stuff, we have done all that to try to make it a better place down here. And A&E wanted to see all the things I do here, which, very often, I play a juke joint here, a club there. We just want to show the flavor of how we do it down here.”
Seagal also made his way to New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina.
“Yeah, as soon as the storm hit I jumped down to try to help the people who were in the water and help my brothers protect themselves,” he said. “A lot of unspeakable things happened, but we helped as many as people as we could and did the best we could.”
In recent years, Seagal devoted more time to his music.
“Well, I could afford to,” he said. “Music has been the love of my life. It got to a point where I said, ‘You know what? I gotta do this more and more, for myself.’ It’s that important to me.”
And blues is the music that means the most to him.
“I’ve always loved the blues,” he said. “I’m lucky that, when I was young, I got to be around and play with a lot of great blues legends. So that’s something that’ll never leave me. It’s a part of my fabric.”
Seagal, a native of Lansing, Mich., got his first guitar at 12. He always preferred blues to the more popular pop and rock ’n’ roll.
“I grew up around Albert Collins, Albert King, B.B. King, Freddie King, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters,” he said. “I got to be friends with a lot of those people and learn from them and play with them.”
Seagal also counts the late, Grammy-winning American roots-music artist and long-time Slidell resident Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown among his mentors.
“He was a dear friend of mine,” Seagal said. “When he’d come to California, he’d stay at my house. He really taught me a lot about the blues over the years.”
Because he’s famous for his practice of Buddhism, martial arts and passion for Asian culture, people expect Seagal to cite Eastern spiritual leaders such as the Dalai Lama and Mahatma Gandhi as his ultimate guides in life. Many of his teachers, though, were elder musicians such as Brown and B.B. King.
“They were great storytellers,” Seagal said. “B.B. King, every time I sit with him, he tells amazing stories. If you can’t learn from those stories, you don’t have a brain and you don’t have a heart.”
Seagal is well aware that he’s increased his musical activities at a time of turmoil in the music business.
“Some people say there is no more music business,” he said. “Well, whether there is or there isn’t, music will never die.”
He also hopes that he can help keep the blues alive.
“That’s big talk from a little man like me, but I’d sure like to think, in the back of my mind, anyway, that I had the right to say that.”
As for movie projects, Seagal recently filmed the crime-thriller Kill Switch in Vancouver. His co-stars include a fellow actor-musician, Chris Thomas King from Baton Rouge.
“I felt like it was the best,” Seagal said of their on-screen chemistry.
King cited Seagal’s musicianship and love for the blues earlier this year in an Advocate interview. The respect is mutual.
“Chris Thomas King’s a great guy, a great actor and great musician,” Seagal said.
http://www.2theadvocate.com/entertainment/music/22869334.html
