San Diego Union Tribune, March 4, 2007
Ben Hernandez and Nathan James' Paths Crossed, and a Duo Act Soon Hit The Road
They're headed in a 'pure blues direction'
by George Varga
pop music critic
Nathan James and Ben Hernandez were both in their mid-teens when they began their enduring love affair with the blues.
For James, 28, the turning point came at a swap meet at Oceanside's Valley Drive In, where a vendor encouraged him to buy a used vinyl copy of Robert Johnson's "King of the Delta Blues" album. For Hernandez, 30, it was a CD reissue of a vintage Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee album, which he acquired during a trip to Memphis with his high school gospel choir.
"To this day, I pull that album out and it still gets me," said Hernandez, who was born in Hanford in California's Central Valley and grew up in nearby Exeter. "I have this fascination with Southern culture and folklore, and this music has that appeal to me. It's genuine and soulful -- real people, singing real songs."
Hernandez -- who sings and plays harmonica, kazoo, washtub bass, jug and spoons -- didn't join his first blues band until he was a 19- year-old college student. James, a Fallbrook native, was already touring and recording at 19 as the lead guitarist and sometime singer in the James Harman Band.
Since teaming up as a duo in 2000 after being introduced by a mutual friend, James and Hernandez have devoted themselves to such rural styles as Delta and Piedmont blues. They also play ragtime, gospel and jug-band music, and their enthusiastic performances mix their self-penned blues songs with vintage tunes by such pioneers as Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red, Sonny Boy Williamson and Blind Boy Fuller.
Rather than try to update the vibrant idioms they play to make them sound "contemporary," James and Hernandez stay true to their roots. What results sounds both earthy and exotic to the younger audience members the duo attracts to its shows.
"A lot of them think it's new, just because it's so old!" James said. "It also reminds them of something the White Stripes or Black Keys do, because we're two younger guys playing in a duo. That has kind of helped us with younger listeners, and we show them that we're geared more toward the pure blues direction."
James and Hernandez average at least 20 performances a month. But they appear more often in places like San Clemente, where they have had two weekly performance residencies for the past several years, than in San Diego County, where both reside.
This summer will see the duo embark on its first tour of Europe. The tour is a direct result of their first-place win Feb. 3 at the annual International Blues Challenge in Memphis, where they were sponsored for the second consecutive year by the nonprofit Blues Lovers United of San Diego. James and Hernandez beat out 62 other solo acts and duos from across the country and as far afield as France, Australia and Taiwan.
To mark their victory, the two will perform a celebration concert March 12 at Humphrey's Backstage Music Lounge on Shelter Island. Then, it's back to their regular schedule of performances in bars, restaurants and any other venue amenable to their rootsy music.
"We've learned to be really expressive with our playing, and how to entertain people but still have depth to what we do," James said.
The goal, Hernandez added, isn't fame, but simply to play the blues and to do it right.
"A lot of our motivation comes out of wanting to preserve and play the music we love," he said. "There are no illusions of grandeur playing the blues. It's music that feels good and that's why you play it."
