If you can’t dig the blues, you must have a hole in your soul, according to musician Jimmy D. Lane.
“It’s a very emotional music,” said Lane. “It’s a true feeling. It’s a feeling that you try to relate to, to people who are listening in the audience.”
Lane said when he performs songs, he tries to take people away from the bad aspects of their lives, extending his hand out to the listeners.
He remembers one night a man approached him after a performance and said he had thought about committing suicide, but listening to Lane had changed his mind.
“I said ‘man, I am so glad you came in, keep your head up, man. You will figure it out. There is always a solution,’” Lane said.
He doesn’t know what happened to the man after that evening.
“If music can move people like that, it is a very powerful thing,” he said. “That is something that really drove it home, how powerful music is.”
One musician that moves Lane is John Lee Hooker.
“If I’m feeling down I’ll put some Hooker on, John Lee Hooker, he just takes me away,” said Lane.
Earlier this year, Lane released two new singles, Methadone and One Kind Favor. Methadone is an original song by Lane. He was inspired to write it after watching a program about the methadone drug problem in Seattle. At the end of the program, it was revealed that the main person interviewed for the show had died from a methadone overdose after filming was complete.
“It struck a personal chord for me, being that I had lost a sister to drugs,” said Lane. “She struggled really hard with it.”
Lane said that although his sister had kicked the habit before she died, the drug had already taken its toll on her body, leading to her death.
One Kind Favor is a remake of Blind Lemon Jefferson’s song.
Lane said one of his songs that resonates with people is What Makes People, a song released on his album It’s Time in 2004.
“With the climate of the world, everyone is asking what makes people do things,” said Lane. “It’s passion, passion is the answer for me. People do things, good or bad, because of passion.”
The idea for the song came to him after he witnessed a road rage incident when he was living in Chicago. After witnessing the confrontation he went home and wrote the song.
Lane is the son of Chicago blues singer and guitarist Jimmy Rogers, who became widely known for his work as a member of the Muddy Waters band.
Lane said growing up he didn’t realize who his father was musically.
He decided to pursue a music career one day in his late teens when he was listening to the song Hey Joe by Jimi Hendrix.
He was laying in bed deciding what to do with his life and the song came on the radio.
“I had heard that song so many times before and I just thought it was a cool groove,” said Lane. “It hit me like boom, like some sort of spiritual thing.”
He decided he wanted to delve deeper into music, and he would listen to Hendrix and Eric Clapton to discover what they were doing musically. Four years later, Lane was the lead guitarist for the Jimmy Rogers Band.
Lane performs, with an opening performance by Summer and the Sinners with Frank Alexander, at the Queen’s on Saturday (July 30) at 9 p.m.
Tickets are $15 in advance at the Queen’s or www.thequeens.ca or $18 at the door. The show is presented by the Nanaimo Blues Society.
For more information please go to www.facebook.com/JimmyDLaneMusicPage/ or www.jimmydlane.yolasite.com.
arts@nanaimobulletin.com