For many years, James Brown was called “The Hardest-Working Man in Show Business.” These days, that title might go to guitarist Warren Haynes.
Haynes and his band Gov’t Mule will be in Houston for a show on Friday, October 28, at the 713 Music Hall in support of the band’s most recent release, Heavy Load Blues. But playing a steady series of gigs on the road is not all that Haynes is up to.
In addition to touring and recording with the Mule, Haynes runs the Evil Twin record label with his wife, Stefani Scamardo, who hosts a daily show on the SiriusXM JamOn channel. And since 1988, Haynes has produced the Christmas Jam, a gathering of musicians held in his hometown of Asheville, NC which has raised a ton of money for the local Habitat for Humanity program.
Haynes is all about the jam, able to comfortably slide into just about just about any musical setting. His improvisatory skills earned him gigs with the Allman Brothers and the Dead (a touring entity formed by surviving members of the Grateful Dead), and dozens of artists (including Billy Gibbons) have sat in at Gov’t Mule concerts. How does he account for his chameleonlike ability to fit in wherever he might find himself?
“It all goes back to my childhood,” Haynes says. “I liked so many different kinds of music. And I went through phases where I would study one type of music more than the others. Soul music was my first love, before I really discovered rock music. After hearing Hendrix and Cream and Johnny Winter and that kind of stuff, I started discovering B.B. King and Albert King and Freddie King and Howling Wolf and Muddy Waters and Elmore James.
“So I went down the blues path for a while,” he continues. “But I also love folk music and singer-songwriter music. I would go through these phases where I was immersed in something for a long period of time. It all kind of stuck with me, and I think it all adds up to what I do onstage and in recording. I just really love the opportunity to express myself in different ways.”
The natural audience for jam bands like Gov’t Mule might seem to be old hippies, but Haynes is encouraged by the sight of youngsters at his shows. “It’s cool that a lot of different age groups are represented. These days, we’re seeing a lot of 14-year-old kids who are discovering our music for the first time. And at the same time, they’re also discovering Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin and Hendrix for the first time. And what we’re hearing from these kids is that that music is affecting them the way it did us. It’s just great to hear,” Haynes says.
“When someone can really sing, it hits you instantly. You’re never going to be able to push a button that makes someone sound like Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding or Ray Charles or Mahalia Jackson. So when people experience that, it’s like a revelation.”
It’s not too much of a stretch to think that younger audience members are drawn by the thrill of live improvisation and the notion that it’s all a bit of a high-wire act. “When young folks these days experience live music that’s actually being played and sung in real time, it hits them in a different way than what they’ve been getting through the modern channels of pop music,” Haynes says.
He continues, “I’ve always maintained that, as it gets easier and easier to manipulate somebody’s voice to make it sound better than it is, when you hear someone live, and he or she opens their mouth and this beautiful sound comes out, when someone can really sing, it hits you instantly. You’re never going to be able to push a button that makes someone sound like Aretha Franklin or Otis Redding or Ray Charles or Mahalia Jackson. So when people experience that, it’s like a revelation.”
Haynes has jammed with so many musicians during the course of his career that he has some definite ideas regarding the ingredients for a successful musical collaboration. “Well, it’s a yin / yang sort of thing, where one balances out the other,” he explains. “When two or three or four or however many people come together in a musical sense, it’s not something that can be forced, and if it happens organically, it’s a beautiful thing.
“It usually happens when there’s the right amount of contrast and the right amount of common ground,” Haynes says. “If people are too similar, it might not offer anything new and exciting. If they’re too far apart, it might be too weird. But when there’s some unknown formula for mixing those things together, it can be beautiful.”
Gov’t Mule is known as a band that is unafraid of unplanned musical explorations. It is also known as a band that injects its own personality into the many cover tunes that dot their setlists. Taking their love of covers to its logical extreme, the Mule started to play a full set of covers by the same band at their annual Halloween shows. In years past, these Mule-O-Ween concerts, as they are now known, have featured songs from bands like the Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, and Black Sabbath. While Houston will miss out on Mule-O-Ween this time around, the Mule’s Halloween celebration will take place in New Orleans the night after the Houston show. (Hey, it’s within driving distance. Road trip?) Is Haynes willing to reveal what this year’s musical “costume” might be?
“We’re dropping hints,” Haynes says, with a bit of circumspection. “I think most of our hardcore fans have figured it out by now. We never come out and say what we’re going to do, but a lot of people figure it out between now and when it happens.”
A recent Facebook post contained a photo of a marquee advertising the appearance of Gov’t Mule, evidently second-billed below a puppet show. A bit of deduction might lead an intrepid fan to conclude that the band has been practicing “Hell Hole,” “Big Bottom” and “Stonehenge.” No doubt that this show will go to 11.
Gov’t Mule will play at the 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin, on Friday, October 28, at 8 p.m. with New Orleans brass band The Soul Rebels opening. Tickets $39.50 – $99.50. More information is available online here or at 832-204-6920.
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2022.
