On Friday nights, more than gourmet food is served at Capone’s Italian Dinnerhouse in downtown Taipei City. From 9 p.m. to 11 p.m., diners also have a chance to feast their ears on performances by BoPoMoFo—an amateur band with professional skills and execution.
The band, which has been performing gigs at the restaurant for the last three years, is on a mission to spread the gospel of the blues in Taiwan, where interest in the genre has been quite muted.
Founded by Chicago-native DC Rapier in 2005, the five-member group has a Canadian bass player, a German keyboardist, a Japanese guitar player and an American drummer. Rapier, the lead singer, also plays the harmonica, guitar and tenor saxophone.
“Playing the blues at the restaurant helps us introduce the music to many people who never ever go to a blues concert,” Rapier told Taiwan Today in an exclusive interview May 2.
But Rapier’s efforts to popularize the music go far beyond his weekly shows at the restaurant. He is also the president of The Blues Society on Taiwan, a nonprofit cultural organization that he founded in 2004 to promote an appreciation of the music.
“After I moved here, one thing I really missed from back home was the fact that there was no blues here,” said Rapier, who has lived in Taiwan for 21 years. In Taiwan, jazz has been far more popular than the blues, he added.
It is a situation that does not sit well with Rapier. “Unless you have an idea of what the blues are, it’s impossible to understand what jazz is,” he said. “These two kinds of music actually grew up together.”
Blues and jazz did not begin to go their separate ways until the late 1940s, mostly as a result of different instrumentation, Rapier said. For example, the former usually incorporates guitars, pianos and harmonicas, along with vocals, while the latter is mostly based on pianos, and is often performed without a singer. “But they always come back together,” Rapier added.
In addition to jazz, the blues gave birth to rhythm & blues, rock ‘n’ roll, country western, heavy metal, soul and pop. As legendary blues musician Willie Dixon once said, “The blues is the root. Everything else is the fruit.” The great fecundity of the blues is due to its emphasis on improvisation, according to musicologists.
The enormous historical influence of the blues is one reason why Rapier is introducing it to Taiwan. He also hopes musicians in other genres can gain a better understanding of the origin of their music.
As an affiliate of the Memphis-based international organization Blues Foundation, the BSOT has connections with many blues musicians, festivals and hundreds of organizations, Rapier said, adding that his group now has some 1,000 Taiwanese and international volunteers.
To cater to fellow blues lovers and expand their numbers, the BSOT has organized a number of events over the past few years. One of these has been Blues Bash, an annual festival held since 2005 that features performances by well-known blues musicians from around the world.
Turnouts at the festival have increased year after year, a sign that the society’s efforts are paying off. “In the past three or four years, there’ve been more Taiwanese people in the audience than foreigners,” Rapier said.
More information on the 2011 Blues Bash, scheduled to take place this November, will be given out in the coming months, Rapier added.
The BSOT also holds workshops at venues such as record shops, during which outstanding international guitar and harmonica players are invited to give instrumental lessons to Taiwanese youth, mostly in their early 20s.
“Because of the workshops we’ve had, more and more young Taiwanese are contacting us and have put together their bands,” Rapier said. “This is part of our goal.”
Another reason for the music’s popularity is that listeners find it easier to dance to. “This also shows people that blues is meant to be danced to, meant to have fun with,” Rapier said, adding that one of the best ways to respond to music is to get up and shake it all about.
While the blues dates back to the late 1800s—it was developed by southern African-Americans, who combined African spirituals and work songs with European-American folk music from Appalachia—the music is “not some museum piece.”
“We’re not trying to just recreate what was done years ago,” Rapier said. “We’re doing it because we want to have fun too.”
Rapier also clarified a common misconception about the blues—that all its songs are extremely sad. While the blues arose from the shared experiences of African-Americans suffering poverty and socio-political repression, it has been fun music performed at parties and dances as well.
Indeed, one thing that has led to the widespread popularity of the blues the world over is its close ties to everyday life experiences—just as a person can at times be sad, funny or angry, so can the blues. “The music talks about a story that everybody can identify with,” Rapier said.
In its efforts to promote the blues in Taiwan, BoPoMoFo released its first album “Hell Froze Over” in December 2009. Recorded at the legendary Sun Studio in Memphis—where Elvis Presley recorded his first hit “That’s All Right”—it has nine original songs by Rapier, one by the band’s keyboardist Klaus Tseng, and a bluesy version of the Beatles’ song “I Saw Her Standing There.”
With their unflagging enthusiasm and exceptional talent, the band has also played with blues heavyweights such as pianist Mitch Woods, harmonica player Matt Kelly, guitarist Shun Kikuta and singer Joanna Connor.
Recently Kikuta has been playing every Friday at Capone’s with BoPoMoFo, an opportunity the band highly appreciates. After attending the 2005 Blues Bash, the Japanese musician decided to spend a few months in Taiwan every year to help expand the local blues scene.
“I always respect BoPoMoFo because of their love of the blues,” Kikuta said, adding that BSOT members are his brothers in Taiwan due to their mutual passion for the music.
“As Kikuta plays at different clubs around Taiwan, I know he’ll be influencing a lot of young guitar players,” Rapier said. (HZW)
Write to Elaine Hou at elainehou@mail.gio.gov.tw