Robert Connely Farr Interview
First of all Robert thanks for taking the time to sit down and chew the fat with me, appreciate you.
Let’s start out easy, a little background for your fans, you were born in Mississippi correct?
Originally born in Auburn Alabama but moved immediately back to the original Farr hometown of Bolton Mississippi. My ancestors moved to Bolton from Georgia / South Carolina mid 1820’s is when they got to Bolton / Brownsville area. I grew up in Bolton, and couldn’t understand at the time why I was there, felt so out of place listening to Metallica and trying to ride a skateboard. I wouldn’t know if the musical legends that came from my hometown until long after I moved to Canada.
What made you decide to move to Canada?
Happy accident really. Just happened to be at a time in my life I was relocating & happened across Vancouver kind of serendipitously & decided to stay.
Is Vancouver where you met Jay Bundy? How did that meeting come about?
I met Jay at an opening for an exhibition of his at an art gallery in Vancouver. Not only is he a well respected Canadian musician, he’s also an art teacher & creator in his own right – with emphasis in kinetic sculpture / visual arts. He’s been a huge reason for a lot of the videos we have – all the ones for Pandora Sessions! But yeah I had an album in the works (Way Down Here / Mississippi Live & The Dirty Dirty) and asked him to play on it. Rest is history.
You and Jay seem so in synch with each other was that an immediate connection or did it take time working together to get so locked in with each other?
Seemed to be something of an immediate connection. We started out as a 2 piece, our first show in Gibsons BC was a 2 piece and here we are 17 years later back to a 2 piece!
While we are talking of close relationships, your friendship with Jimmy Duck Holmes is well known and I recently came across the video of how you met Jimmy and how your relationship with him evolved, can you tell that story for our listeners who may not have seen the video?
Well I encourage them to watch the video, I don’t know if I can type all that out but I tell ya, it was a pivotal moment in my life the day I met Jimmy Duck Holmes. Funny thing was I grew up not far from him, driven by his place countless times over the 30 + years I lived there. But the day I saw that front door open and went in – that’s the day my life changed. Jimmy brought music home for me. Quite literally. My dad was with me that day (he’s not with us anymore) and that was special to me because he realized right away there was something incredible about Jimmy. And that it resonated with me. My dad joked with me that day as we were leaving the Blue Front after meeting Jimmy that first time, he said “you had to move halfway around the world to find music in your own backyard!!!”
You credit R.L. Boyce with teaching you the Bentonia style of blues, how did you two meet and how did it come about that he mentored you in the style?
I credit R.L as a mentor but his style is more Hill Country style. Think Jessie Mae Hemphill type stuff … now I always saw & played with R.L Boyce out in Bentonia, he was something of a regular. And R.L was always trying to show me something, pull me up on stage. I remember the last night we played together a few months before he died, he had a holt of my hand pulling me up on stage (bottle of whiskey in his other hand) I said “R.L I can’t hang with you” he turned and grinned at me real big & said “I’m a show you how!!!”
What was it about the Bentonia style that drew you in?
That sad droning eeriness and the minor chords and that it originated where I grew up – quite literally.
Since I mentioned the video of you meeting Jimmy Duck Holmes let’s talk a bit about Social Media. You have a pretty good presence on social media sites, how important is social media in your opinion, to an artists success these days?
I like to think that it can be a good tool to reach out and stay connected. I put my efforts into where I get the money from, try to drive other sites to my YouTube & Bandcamp. Because I’m trying to make a living with this.
I would imagine some of the bigger artists like Buddy Guy, Joe Bonamassa or a Keb’ Mo’ have social media specialists to take care of that. You and I have spoken multiple times on Social Media and it always come across as genuine, a person knows it’s you they are talking to. That being said does your wife or anyone else help with the social media stuff? Not the actual conversations you have with folks but the other aspect like web page and such.
I do it all. I have some good friends that help with videos and music production – but otherwise it’s me. I like it that way. I appreciate talking to real people and in the case of DJs like yourself – I’m extremely grateful that y’all are playing our music. There’s a lot of great music that comes out everyday. So I try to personally chat / be available to anyone that’s supporting what we do because I want to support what they do. That’s how this thing works.
While we are talking about Social Media, you and I spoke a couple of weeks ago and you mentioned to me that you have a new live album in the works, Care to give us a release date for it?
We have a few albums available for preorder at our Bandcamp right now and one of them is a live album – Live at Green Auto from our December 06, 2024 show here in Vancouver. We were able to get some great sound off the board that night, had a rippin’ set of delta and hill co blues & my good friend Tyler McLeod shot video of the whole set (he and Jay also did Live in East Van).
We also have “Good Hope” and “JJ Hadley Songs The Blues” up for preorder. Both acoustic solo singer songwriter albums (Good Hope is with a resonator & the other more Country songs) all home demos but songs that have helped me through the last year in the wake of my fathers death.
Now if my math is right, you’ve done 3 live albums East Van, Cherry Ball and Live at Green Auto. Obviously the live setting is very different from the studio, less controlled more chances for chaos so what is it about recording live that fascinates you enough to keep drawing you back to that format?
Yeah – we always record live in the studio but recording the actual show live is always fun – there’s such an energy there because of the hype and the crowd – and in the case of Live at Green Auto – had a bunch of close friends and family there …
But we hardly ever play a song the same way twice. I love that about the blues, or at least the kind of blues I’m inspired by & immersed in. I call em the #DirtySouthBlues. Pandora Sessions was recorded that way, live off the floor and most of the songs we didn’t write first – we just recorded the first take and made them up on the spot.
Where was this one recorded? Why this particular venue? What about it screamed do a live Album here?
I love Green Auto – it’s something of an underground Vancouver venue – quite a popular one and I love what they’re about. I dig good people.
Is there any new material on the album ?
Oh yeah, Mississippi Mud, Hoot Owl Blues, Train I Ride, Po Black Mattie… some of these new songs I wrote at home in Mississippi while I was with my father last year – as I said, he was terminal w cancer and I went to see him out. So it’s real special to me for that reason.
Is this album just you and Jay or did you have a full band backing you on it?
Just me and Jay. Again really inspired by the duo blues acts that have come before us – Leo Bud Welch, RL Boyce etc.
Will you be touring behind the album?
We don’t tour. Don’t even play that many live shows. I play a few local bars in Vancouver and then when I go home I’ll ride out to Jimmy’s juke joint and play but that’s about it.
Finally Robert can we talk a bit about your equipment set up?
I’m a pretty simple man when it comes to gear, simply because I don’t know that much about it. I play an Epiphone 339 through a Union Tone Druid pedal and an old Harmony amp from late 60’s – it just sounds so nasty and I love it.
Robert I want to thank you sincerely for taking the time to sit down and do this interview with me. Best of luck with the new album and thank you for keeping that Bentonia vibe alive.
You can preorder “Live at Green Auto” and hear all of Robert Connely Farr’s albums on Bandcamp – here’s a link for you:
https://robertconnelyfarr.bandcamp.com/
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