ROBERT FINLEY – From cotton fields to Beverly Hills

Photo: Pertti Nurmi

Sharecropper’s Son was the opening “swamp” song that night, followed by Medicine Woman and Gospel Blues. The version of the Carpenters’ Make it with You slowed things down, and soon we hit the deepest moment of the night with the thrilling Nobody Wants to Be Lonely. After a “hobo” song named Livin’ out a Suitcase, we were treated to another truly soulful gem, the high-voiced Holy Wine. The speedy Get It While You Can ended the first half of the show.

 The venue was G Livelab in Tampere, Finland (https://glivelab.fi/tampere/info/), and the concert was sold out. The day was July the 9th in 2024, and it was the second gig for the 70-year-old Robert Finley and his entourage during his second visit to Finland. The night before they had performed in Kokkola and there was still Helsinki ahead. Robert was accompanied by his daughter, Christy Johnson, and a 3-piece U.K. band, consisting of Liam Spratt on lead guitar, Oliver Hopkins on bass guitar and Charlie Love on drums.

 During the second half of the show some of the highlights included the impassioned I Can Feel Your Pain, the uptempo and hooky What Goes Around (Comes Around) and the rocking Sneakin’ Around. For her solo part Christy Johnson had chosen two songs from the classic soul era: the emotional I’d Rather Go Blind and the funky Take Me to the River. Robert took over on the next funky number called You Got It (and I Need It), and the two joined forces on one more deep ballad, Souled out on You. The jolly Make Me Feel Alright concluded the close-to-two-hour show.

Photo: Pertti Nurmi

HEAVY TOURING

 Robert’s first visit to Finland took place almost a year ago, when he performed at the Rauma Blues Festival (https://www.soulexpress.net/robertfinley2023.htm). Robert: “We came to that festival, and everybody was coming out saying ‘please come back, we’d like to have you back.’ So, I told my promoter about the response we’re getting, and now we’re here.”

 Late last year after Europe, Robert still toured the U.S. Now this spring he has visited many European countries, and after this summer tour returns to the U.S. for more gigs and comes back to Europe by the end of this year. That’s quite a schedule! Robert: “Get it while you can, while the getting is good” (laughing). “I pretty much get the same response and same vibes wherever we go. I think it has a lot to do with what you put into it. What comes from the heart goes to the heart. If you’re happy, it makes people happy just to see you happy. I see it as a nonstop avenue for myself. As I say this has put me ‘from cotton fields to Beverly Hills’, and most people would have been satisfied with just that, but I feel like if you’re ever satisfied, then you have no purpose. There are so many places that I haven’t seen, so I look forward to going to new places and meeting new people as much as possible.”

 “When I get some time off-stage and when I’m not on the road, I kind of like to have just some quiet time. I’ll find out what social media is saying, what people are saying, and that keeps you more prepared to go back. Each time you go to a city, they are expecting more than the first time and something new. You’re like a broken record, if you keep playing the same thing over and over. I try to be unpredictable at all times. Even the band that travels with me, they never know what I’m going to do.”

Photo: Pertti Nurmi

FAVOURITE SONGS ON STAGE

 Robert Finley still tours on his last year’s Black Bayou release (EES 00386;https://easyeyesound.com), so many songs on stage come from that album, but there are some other firm favourites from earlier albums that he cannot ignore. Robert: “I think the most heart-warming and churchy song is Souled out on You. It made number one in France in 2021… then the song Age Don’t Mean a Thing – we don’t do that much - and still a song from the Black Bayou would be the one that says Nobody Wants to Be Lonely. That makes people think twice, if they got elderly in a nursing home. It makes them go and see them. I always say ‘we all are going to get old unless we die young’, so getting old should be something looking forward to and not like a punishment for living so long” (laughing), a reward rather than a life sentence.”

 The Black Bayou CD contains many fascinating songs. Among the uptempo tracks there are the fervent Sneakin’ sround, the poppy and playful Miss Kitty, the storming Waste of Time and two bouncy numbers, Gospel Blues and What Goes Around (Comes Around). The bluesy Livin’ out a Suitcase and the highly emotional and even inspirational Nobody Wants to Be Lonely take the tempo down, and similarly Lucky Day is another downtempo, story-telling country song. The half-spoken Alligator Bait tells an interesting story. Robert: “The Alligator Bait was a fantasy really, a thing from my imagination. It wasn’t real to me, but in a way it was real, because I remember my dad and uncle sitting around talking about their childhood, and it was more like what they had experienced. There would be enough people with guns and they didn’t feel like they were in danger, if the alligator moved. They just needed to make noise in the water, and the alligator would think it was dead fish and they would always come to where they heard the flopping in the water.”

Photo: Pertti Nurmi

NEXT RECORDINGS

 Robert: “We’re working on the next album. I have a studio at home, where a local band and me are putting it all together, so when we take it to Easy Eye Sound, it won’t take as much studio time as it normally would. We want to be able to just go in and drop the album and not have to work on the music and stuff so much.”

 “And we’re hoping to have my daughter’s – if not an album – her first single anyway. My grandson has been doing his thing on YouTube and social media, so hopefully I can do a family album. We have three generations on the Black Bayou – me, my daughter and my granddaughter. My two grandsons won’t probably be able to do touring with me, because they can’t drop everything and go as much as I can. So, I’m basically trying to pave the way for them and pass the torch.”

 “In my case people say I started it at such a late age, but everything happens for a reason. To be honest, if it had happened 30 or 40 years ago, I may not even be sitting here, because I wasn’t mentally prepared for this type of success. Too much of anything isn’t good for anybody. Young people don’t take it out, they just spur of the moment sometimes. When you’re at my age and you’ve had nothing before, you just watch it coming and nothing excites enough to worry about. Some people, when they have a lot of success and get pads on the back, they think they’re better than everybody else. They want to move up in the sky and look down on everybody. But there’s nobody to catch you, when you’re falling down, so if you got a lot of real fans – you you’re real, too – they can help you when you fall” (laughing).

RESPECT

 Robert: “I don’t have to be home to run my studio. I just need to be always sure that it’s engineered properly. I have friends that will run it and they are able to work in the studio while I’m on the road. But I don’t plan to do anything really other than just to record voices and send them out to promoters and see if I can get a hit. It’s all about being in the right place at the right time in this business. I know a lot of people that are super-great talented, but they’re only known in the local town they live in.”

 “I started singing in a gospel quartet group, when I was 12 years old, so I don’t have a stage fright. In waiting for opportunities, I’m more excited than nervous. I’m like a horse in a stall - ‘let me out, let me run this race, I think I can win it’. I try to keep that type of attitude, but the most important thing is that all of the fans know that without them I couldn’t survive in this business any minute, and that’s why it’s so important that you take your time to tell them ‘thank you’ sometimes. Just a few words of thank you and a smile goes a long way. Everywhere you go, it’s only up to you, if they want you back or not. It doesn’t matter, if it’s only ten people or a show for ten thousand people, those ten deserve your best. If those ten think enough of you to introduce you to their families, share those moments with their family, they deserve your best.”

https://robertfinleyofficial.com/

(Interview conducted on July the 9th in 2024; acknowledgements to Robert Finley, Christy Johnson; Pertti Nurmi; Robban Hagnäs at DP Agency and at G Livelab in Tampere: Annamaija Saarela, Jaani Haapasalo and Tuulia Korpela with a warm hand).

© Heikki Suosalo