The voice of Lincoln Durham is somewhat striking, unlike that of most small-town Texans, resembling more such legendary country bluesmen as Son House and Mississippi Fred McDowell. Some are reminded of Townes Van Zandt, Paul Rodgers (of Free and Bad Company), Ryan Bingham and Ray LaMontagne.
Durham has created a lot of buzz for someone who has only been a professional musician for two or three years, but expresses the desire to be as globally popular as possible as he prepares for his first Arkansas performance this week.
“A lot of the places we want to play have yet to feel the same way about it,” he laughs. “I’ve wanted to play Little Rock for a while, but a venue has to want the artist, and the venue finally said yes. When Facebook puts up tour dates, folks will put up comments like ‘When are you going to play here’ and so on, and I think enough Arkansas folks must have done that.”
Durham brings no band, since being a one-man band is part of his approach to his music.
“That’s the only way I have done it over the course of these years,” he says. “I bring a few guitars, including a cigar box model, a fiddle, banjo, harmonicas, a kick drum, tambourine and snare. I want to eventually add accordion, too.”
And when it comes to fiddle playing, Durham has impressive credentials that few can match: He won the Texas State Youth Fiddle Championship at age 10, but says his skills may have eroded.
“I was a lot better back then, but I’m sloppier now,” he says. “There was some rust there, for sure. My granddad started me off learning fiddle when I was 4, and by the time I was 15 or 16, I started playing guitar.But when I started making my first record, there was a point where I saw a fiddle and told my producer I might could add some of that myself.”
Durham’s producer was Ray Wylie Hubbard, a Texan who knows a bit about rootsy music when he hears it. And when he heard Durham for the first time at one of Hubbard’s New Year’s Eve gigs, Hubbard was quick to realize the raw potential of the young Durham, who had been born in the tiny Texas town of Whitney and grew up in not-quite-as-tiny nearby town of Itasca, south of Fort Worth, not far from Interstate 35 West.
About six years ago, Durham moved to Austin where he soon became widely known for his slide guitar skills and gritty vocals on songs that are a blend of blues, gospel and folk influences. He performs only his own songs.
“I don’t have a problem with covers, but I figure why should I take the time to learn someone else’s song when I could instead write one of my own,” Durham says. He has opened shows for the Band of Heathens and a couple of acts that he became fond of: The Dirty River Boys and James McMurtry.
Durham released a self-titled debut EP in 2010, and with Hubbard’s help (such as teaching Durham how to finger-pick on guitar) as co-producer, he recorded and released a 2012 CD The Shovel vs. The Howling Bones. On Oct. 22, Durham’s new album The Exodus of the Deemed Unrighteous will be released.
“I like a raw sound, for sure,” Durham says. “On the first album, we had some other people come in, but on the new one, there’s just me and Rick Richards on drums, who plays with Ray Wylie,and right now is out with Joe Walsh. With Rick’s help, we came up with a raw, ugly, backwoods sound. I’ll use Rick till he’s sick of me.”
All the comparisons to legendary bluesmen have not bothered Durham, who is honored to have his name mentioned in the same sentences.
“I listened to them and was a really big fan of old blues,” he says. “Those were guys who sang, not for fame or fortune, but because they didn’t know what else to do. And I love doing it and don’t know what else to do in life.”
Lincoln Durham
Opening act: Cliff Hutchison
9 p.m. Wednesday, Juanita’s, 614 President Clinton Ave., Little Rock
$8 advance; $10 day of show
(501) 372-1228
juanitas.com
Style, Pages 29 on 10/15/2013