Cape bluesman Ivas John reflects on past, embraces acoustic sound for new album

People sometimes assume Ivas John's a bluesman because he was born in Chicago, as if it just happened.

"[Having been born in Chicago] had nothing to do with that," he said. "The blues are everywhere."

In a way, it glosses over his earnest conversion to the genre and years of hard work making a name for himself within it.

"It's not like I grew up in an apartment above a blues club or anything like that," he said.

Instead, he had what he considers to be a typical suburban childhood with a typical suburban boy's CD collection.

"I had the Green Day CDs, Metallica, stuff like that," he said, but the blues were a revelation. "It just moved me in a way that I had never experienced before. It opens up a whole world. It wasn't like that music hadn't been around me, but I had never really listened to it before."

It was hearing Fenton Robinson's "Somebody Loan Me a Dime" at 14 that did it.

"I don't know if I found the blues, or if the blues found me," he said. "When the record finished, I just put it back and let it play again. And I did that all night, three or four times in my room with the lights off."

From then on, the blues were his passion.

Cape Girardeau residents may recognize him from the weekly gigs at Port Cape Girardeau with his band, which just came to a close earlier this month after a seven-year run.

He's just released a new album, "Good Days a Comin'," that stands in contrast to the hot, electric blues for which he's primarily known. It's all acoustic, ranging from the itchy, up-tempo "Payday Boogie" to classic bluesy twang in "Keep Your Train Movin'" and some country-inflected numbers such as "Can't Help But Wonder Where I'm Bound."

He said the decision to do an acoustic album has helped add a dimension to his playing style.

"I feel like as I grow as a musician, I'm becoming more and more comfortable bearing the entire responsibility of the sound myself," he said.

He's also grown to appreciate the elegance of a lone acoustic.

"Maybe it's because I'm getting old and more simplified," he joked. "But you can just pick it up. You don't have to plug it in or fool with pedals. I like being able to just lean over and pick it up and play."

But he's by no means abandoning his electric. In fact, he said playing acoustic is improving his electric playing.

"I've started bringing a more acoustic sensibility to an electric sound," he said. "When you're playing by yourself, you find ways to make it sound full and lush, with different chord voicings. ... You learn a lot about how to fill out the sound and make it sound complete."

He said playing with his band is freeing, in the sense it grants him free range to focus on a single task, solo or note, but playing on his own is freeing in its own way.

"You have to keep the rhythm yourself; you have to carry the whole thing," he said, but he explained complete creative agency comes with that responsibility.

"If I want to add a measure here, or a verse or something, I'm free to do that, and I'm not going to mess up the whole band."

The latter, self-determinant type of freedom perhaps is showcased best in the album's final song -- "Sunday Morning Blues," a wide-open, winding instrumental. John wrote that song by himself, but many of the songs on the album were written with the help of his father, Edward John. The pair have worked together as a songwriting duo Ivas' whole career, which he sees as fitting, considering his father was instrumental in his creative development.

"He's always been a big influence on me," John said of his father. "I always credit him with introducing me to the kind of music that I play now. And there was always roots music around the house, always guitars around."

And for as long as John can remember, his father's been writing songs, too.

"He's never had a career in music per se, but it's always been a part of his life," he said. "He's got a knack for writing songs. ... If I'm frustrated about something or we're hitting a slow point in the writing process, I can express that to him, and we can work together pretty well."

Even if it's over Skype to Chicago, where Edward still lives.

While the younger John handles arrangements and the music, he said his father often provides "a nugget of a verse and a general melody, and then I'll just go in and kind of flesh it out completely. ... I'd say lyrically, at least half of the material came from him."

But the playing is all Ivas -- and his crack backing band -- and whether you prefer electric or acoustic, he's got a show booked soon for that.

He'll perform at 6 p.m. today at Rustle Hill Winery in Cobden, Illinois, and starting Aug. 23, the Ivas John Band will play from 6 to 9 p.m. every other Sunday at The Library in downtown Cape Girardeau.

For more information about the album or upcoming shows, visit ivasjohn.com.

tgraef@semissourian.com

388-3627