Bought For A Dollar, Sold For A Dime

A host of musical heavyweights assembled in The Big Room at Real World for this rare and privileged session, with all but the London-based McDonald and his co-producer, British dub maestro Adrian Sherwood, flying in from across the USA. Titans such as soul singer Bernard Fowler, whose voice has graced sets from The Rolling Stones, Sly and Robbie to Ryuchi Sakamoto. “Bernardʼs voice has got everything. Itʼs emotional, changeable and incredibly powerful. We call blues singers like him elephants, ʻcause they sure know how to trumpet.”

There, too, was drummer Keith LeBlanc, a percussionist with a similarly impressive solo CV. Bassist Doug Wimbish, erstwhile axeman for rock outfit Living Colour and session player extraordinaire. All of whom made up the seminal British outfit, Tackhead (1987-1991 CK), a band whose futuristic beat was once likened to a thousand iron doors shutting at once— and whose pioneering devices are now integral aspects of rap and pop. LeBlanc, Wimbish and McDonald had previously blazed a trail as The Sugarhill Gang, house band of the famed early ʻ80s rap label Sugar Hill Records; they were, quite probably, the most important rhythm section on the planet.

“Iʼve worked with a helluva lot of different people over the years,” says McDonald, who learned blues guitar from his father, Willie, a steel mill worker who would lull his son to sleep with bedtime songs instead of stories. Young Skip made his live debut in a jazz band aged 10; aged 12 he was playing with a gospel quartet and an R&B band soon after. “Everyone has their own skills, their own way of doing things,” he continues. “Seeing things done from all these angles has been like breadcrumbs to me. So I like to take something old, something new and put a little bit of me in there. Oh yeah— and then I like to have a good time.”

And itʼs blues that offers the best time of all. Such vibrancy is deftly captured on Bought For a Dollar, Sold For A Dime, buoyed by the almost psychic connection of all involved. “We played as if we were doing a gig with an audience. The colours, the feeling, the rhythm —everything matched.”

Real Worldʼs state-of-the-art facilities opened its arms to other collective regulars: impassioned vocalists Saranella Bell and Kevin Gibbs, harmonica player Alan Glen and brass ensemble, The Crispy Horns. Deep-throated guest vocalist Ken Booth recorded his parts —for the affecting ‘Canʼt Sleep At Night’ and the measured, spacious ‘Temptation’— in Jamaica. Guest drummer, the Paris-based Cyril Atef, uploaded his contributions to the mixing studio, where McDonald and Sherwood put their final touches to tracks both new and reworked. The result is a live album, Little Axe-style.

“Adrian comes from an era of doing it one way,” says McDonald of Sherwood, the lap-top-leaning mixologist behind the ongoing dub/roots/sound system project, On-U Sound. “And I come from an era of doing it another. That whole exchange and mix and match and push and pull is what makes us good together.”

Sherwoodʼs cut-and-paste aesthetic extends to lyric writing. Tracks co-written with McDonald (under the names B Alexander and A Maxwell) mix original words with new phrases as they variously blend vintage blues with electronic triggers and the haunting dynamism of the Little Axe crew. ʻA man has to go back to the crossroads to find himself,ʼ intones Fowler on the dramatic, harmonica-laden ‘Soul of A Man’ (“Thatʼs about realising that lifeʼs right in front of you”); ‘Canʼt Stop Walking’, reconstructed from a 1930s blues track, is flecked with McDonaldʼs deft, intuitive chord changes. ‘Canʼt Sleep At Night’ borrows from a song by redoubtable Depression-era singer, Big Mama Thornton. And ‘Come Back Home’? “Cause youʼve been gone too long,” offers McDonald, mercurially.

Bought For a Dollar, Sold For a Dime boasts not one but two Tackhead covers. ‘Take A Stroll’ —itself a cover of a 1930s blues track— is a rhythmic gumbo of dub-reggae and blues that “let us go back to our roots and rediscover ourselves.” The rousing, cinematic ‘Hammerhead’, a reworked chain gang song refreshed with gutsy horns, big blues voices and compelling female harmonies. “Itʼs all part of a body of music that I know can be confusing to some people,” says McDonald of his collectiveʼs various side projects (Bernard Fowlerʼs Bad Dog, Mark Stewart and the Mafia and a reformed Tackhead among them). “Itʼs music as a lifestyle rather than music as a career.”

‘Another Friend Gone’ is an uplifting, gospel-flavoured number with a clap-happy choir, a sample of the old hymn ‘How Great Thou Art’ and always, McDonaldʼs blues guitar: “Itʼs for all my friends who have passed away,” he says. “Itʼs for all those fallen angels.”

‘Too Late’, with its admonishing lyrics (ʻAre you a sheep or a man?ʼ) and ambient yet urgent blues vibe, is an environmental call-to-arms: “Everyone knows about global warming, but they should be stepping in to fight. Weʼre saying do something now, while you still can.” Then thereʼs ‘Temptation’, which insists that people take their own advice instead of doling it out to others.

McDonald has. “I always say there are only two kinds of music. The music you like and the music you donʼt like. I only make music I love.” Before starting work on Bought For a Dollar… he listened to a lot of his favourites. “I always do my research. I go through everyone from Beethoven, Skip James and Charlie Parker to Janis Joplin, Howling Wolf and Son House. In terms of feeling and emotion thereʼs nothing thatʼs said now that hasnʼt been said before.” He pauses, smiles. “A lot of times I think people try and create the wheel again when you just have to do enough research. Itʼs better to work hard than wait for divine inspiration.”

Bought For a Dollar, Sold For a Dime hints at God-given greatness, nonetheless. McDonald might not have sold his soul at the crossroads, but heʼs looked both ways —down the road of the old blues, up the highway of the future— before proceeding.

“I see myself as a time traveller,” he says. “I started out live and went into studio culture. Iʼve gone all the way back and come full circle, though this time Iʼve got the advantage of technology as well. Hey, Iʼm even doing covers of my own songs. Itʼs all part of the same puzzle.”

“I understand the blues better now that Iʼm older,” he continues. “But doing this album…” He flashes a grin. “This album has made me feel young again.”

Words by Jane Cornwell