Selwyn Birchwood Moves the Blues Forward

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He’s one of the most exciting, innovative, and expansive contemporary blues players on the scene today—even if he has some issue with the perception and label of the genre itself (more on that later). AL 5029 Credit: Record cover But on his upcoming studio album, Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues (Alligator), the 41-year-old singer/guitarist Selwyn Birchwood says he’s finally been able to transfer the sound in his head to the sound on the record. And he couldn’t be happier. “I’ve been struggling to have those sounds match as I write the music. I have a very detailed sound in my head, and this time it happened 100 percent. I’ve been searching for my own sound, and I feel confident saying that this is it and this is what I do,” he says over the phone from his home in Florida. “And that goes to the name of the album. It’s not Delta Blues or Grandpa Blues. And you’d be hard pressed to find a band that sounds like my band,” he says. Not surprisingly, Birchwood also has a firmer grip on the steering wheel as this is his first self-produced disc, further making sure that his vision of a blues also incorporates more contemporary sounds and themes. “I was really able to peel away all of the extra filters and gatekeeping on this record and put it onto the album. I’m really proud of adding different colors like strings and background vocals to give it a real depth and the three-dimensional sound I’m looking for,” he adds When the Houston Press last spoke with Birchwood in 2023 for his album The Exorcist, he talked at length about the importance that his version of the blues, while keeping with tradition, is neither chained to it nor mired in it. “We’ve been able to draw younger people to our shows,” he said then. “They love blues music if you don’t tell them it’s blues music!” Three years on, he still feels the same way. “I don’t remember telling you that but yeah, I agree 100 percent!” he says laughing. “Blues has a very specific connotation with younger audiences. The image in their head is just old people barefoot and in overalls on the front porch of a country shack. It’s a negative stereotype. Half of the blues industry wants to perpetuate that, and half wants to be more exploratory,” he says. “I’m somewhere in the middle. I want to honor the roots of this music, but I’m not going to get up there and sing about picking cotton. I don’t know anything about that and it’s a weird thing people have a nostalgia for. We have so many new and different kinds of blues, it has to evolve. As long as the soul is there it will work. And younger audiences love what we’re doing.” What Selwyn Birchwood is doing on Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues (on which he wrote all 10 songs) is running all over the blues playground on the rides of funk (“The Church of Electric Swamp Funkin’ Blues”), deep emotion and heartbreak (“Damaged Goods,” “Labour of Love,” “Soulmate”) and more uptempo material (“What I’ve Been Accused Of,” “Should’ve Never Gotten Out of Bed”). But where Birchwood really makes his mark—and brings the blues right up to 2026—is with his songs that address very contemporary issues. Whether it’s the preponderance of bloviating commentators on news TV shows and podcasts (“Talking Heads”) or the continuing battles over of race relations and what it means to be Black in today’s U.S.A. (“The Struggle is Real”). Selwyn Birchwood ontage Credit: Laura Carbone The latter of which also includes some of Birchwood’s biographical details, like being born with an umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. Or having his mother tell him that, because of his skin color, store proprietors will take an extra interest in watching him walk up and down their aisles. “I feel like music is supposed to say something and make you feel something. At the risk of sharing too much, I put my story and feelings out there about the current state of affairs,” he says. “We’ve been closing our shows with that, and people have been really latching on to it.” But the song that stands out here for both its humor and prescience is “All Hail the Algorithm.” His commentary on the overwhelming presence of the internet and social media in our lives includes lyrics like “Welcome to our digital hell/The whole wide world’s in a digital web/We traded our hard lives for hard drives/Integrated so deep/We can’t do anything/Without a screen.” The song also notes the eerie feeling when you’re talking about something in the privacy of your own home, and then see an ad for that very same thing pop up the next time you open a browser or app. And then it all comes around: “They say the best way/To enslave a man/You just got to convince him/To put the chains on his own hands.” To even give his listeners a bad case of digital PTSD, the song starts with the (to at least Gen X and earlier ears) the formerly familiar and distinctive scratchy sound of blips and bleeps and squonks that signaled trying to log onto the internet using a dial up phone line back in the days of AOL and Internet Explorer. “I’m super proud of that one and it shows where I want to go with the music. I put that dial up soundin there because I always thought it was cool and immediately identifiable,” he says. “But my drummer in my band now, he’s 26, and he didn’t know anything about dial up or that sound! Everyone has a screen in their face 24/7, but all our information is being harvested and given back to us. It feels like mind control sometimes.” He says he sees a lot of bent necks looking into their screens at his concerts and even feels nostalgic watching movies from the ‘90s and early 2000s where shots of crowds at shows and parties show an audience engaged with the performer. And not trying to watch it through a screen, talking crappy video that they’ll never actually watch while blocking others’ views of the stage. Selwyn Birchwood and his band—longtime collaborators Regi Oliver (saxophone/flutes) and Donald “Huff” Wright (bass), along with Henley Connor III (drums) and new keyboardist Mitch Peters are about to head out on a nationwide tour. Houston is unfortunately not on the itinerary. Finally, also in his 2023 talk with the Houston Press, Birchwood mentioned that it was seeing blues legend Buddy Guy perform live that really set him on the career path he wanted to take in life. Now 90 years old, Guy was just seen by millions of viewers around the world performing at the Academy Awards as part of the musical presentation from the movie Sinners (which he also appeared in). This summer, Guy will also headline the Buddy Guy Blues Festival Tour with Gary Clark, Jr., Jimmie Vaughan, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram, and Aly Venable with stop in Houston at the Woodlands Pavilion on August 29. Other bluesmen such as B.B. King, Robert Lockwood Jr. and David “Honeyboy” Edwards also performed well into their 80s and 90s. Bobby Rush, Charlie Musselwhite, and Taj Mahal are still around. So—no offense to players like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Paul and Ringo, and Willie Nelson—is there something about blues musicians in particular that make them want to never stop performing? “There’s a longevity there. It’s an obsession. You get into this music because you are absolutely passionate about it. And I don’t feel it’s that deep with some other genres,” Birchwood offers. “It’s not because you’re going to make a lot of money and get ahead and buy all these fancy and expensive cars. No one’s going to be against that, but that’s not the reason we’re on the stage. Somewhere there was a calling, and we chase that until we can’t. And sometimes, you even still keep going!” For more on Selwyn Birchwood, visit SelwynBirchwood.com The post Selwyn Birchwood Moves the Blues Forward appeared first on Houston Press.

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