Both Sides Of The Gun

Combining shuddering, groove-laden funky soul and folky, handcrafted acoustics, singer/songwriter Ben Harper cultivated a cult following during the course of the '90s that gained full fruition toward the end of the decade. Harper combined elements of classic singer/songwriters, blues revivalists, Jimi Hendrix, and '90s jam bands like Blues Traveler, Hootie & the Blowfish, and Phish, which meant that he was embraced by critics and college kids alike. Though he never had a hit album, his body of work sold consistently and he toured constantly, building a solid, dedicated fan base.

A native of California, Harper grew up listening to blues, folk, soul, R&B, and reggae. As a child, he started playing guitar, and began to perform regularly as a preteen. During his adolescence, he began playing acoustic slide guitar, which would eventually become his signature instrument. After steady gigging in the Los Angeles area, Harper scored a deal with Virgin Records in 1992. He released his debut album, Welcome to the Cruel World, two years later to positive reviews.

Released in 1995, the politically-heavy Fight for Your Mind made for a strong sophomore effort, an obvious growth in musical experimentation and individual declamation. Harper's third album, 1997's The Will to Live, pushed his blues-oriented alternative folk into the middle mainstream, becoming a mainstay at college radio and making inroads at adult alternative radio. Recorded over two years of touring in support of Fight for Your Mind, The Will to Live introduced the Innocent Criminals, Harper's supporting band. The Innocent Criminals -- who are bassist Juan Nelson, drummer Dean Butterworth, and percussionist David Leach -- solidified Harper's musical rhythms and emotional diversity.

Aside from working on his own material, Ben Harper has built a strong rapport with other artists, playing guest spots on records by Beth Orton, John Lee Hooker, and Government Mule. He played 1997's and 1999's Tibetan Freedom Concerts, and opened for R.E.M., Radiohead, Metallica, Pearl Jam, and the Fugees. Harper's career gained momentum throughout 1998-1999. His most successful album thus far, 1999's Burn to Shine blended Harper's fondness of '20s jazz compositions and urban beatboxing, resulting in a clever and passionate collection of songs. "Steal My Kisses" and "Suzie Blue" were radio favorites, landing him two headlining world tours and an opening spot on the Dave Matthews Band's summer trek of 2000. In spring 2001, Harper issued Live from Mars, a double disc of live electric and acoustic material spanning the previous year's tour and including covers of material by Led Zeppelin, the Verve, and Marvin Gaye.

When it came to recording his fifth studio effort, Harper went back to his drawing board of life's pleasure and pain. He'd circled the world countless times and naturally, he brashly sang about it on the worldbeat-inspired Diamonds On the Inside, which appeared in March 2003. After a European tour withthe Blind Boys of Alabama in 2004, the two acts entered the studio together and laid down ten tracks in two different sessions at Capitol Records basement stuidios. The resulting collaborative album issued under both names, There Will Be a Light, was released in September of 2004.

After seven albums and 12 years in the game, it can stop being said that Ben Harper is hard to categorize, because at this point, the fact that he always incorporates diverse elements — from folk to hard rock to funk — into his music and makes something very much his own is a given. He's practically created a genre. So maybe that's why it's so surprising that Both Sides of the Gun, a two-disc album, has little of that very thing that makes him so unique. Instead, he chooses to show off the range of his musical interests, and ends up with something closer to a compilation than a Ben Harper album.

The softer, acoustically based disc is full of pretty love songs and sweetly strummed guitars, and though Harper has done this before and kept his own style intact (in "Two Hands of a Prayer" and "When She Believes," for example), here he comes off sounding a bit boring. He hasn't forgotten himself completely: both "Never Leave Lonely Alone" and "Crying Won't Help You Now" are good songs, sounding strongly of him while also experimenting with other styles (Latin/French and gospel, respectively), but almost all the other tracks could have been pulled off any run-of-the-mill singer/songwriter album from the past ten years. Things improve slightly on the other, louder, disc ("Please Don't Talk About Murder While I'm Eating" is all electric blues, complete with a distorted slide guitar solo, and "Serve Your Soul" is the most Harper-ish of everything, blending folk guitar, pure rock, raw blues, and socially conscious lyrics into one eight-minute masterpiece), but there's still that sampler-record feeling there. "Engraved Invitation" and "Get It Like You Like It" are heavily influenced by the Rolling Stones, "Both Sides of the Gun" alludes to Curtis Mayfield and James Brown, and "Better Way" is practically a tribute (at least musically) to Prince's "7." Harper has always borrowed from other artists, but he's also always added enough of himself to make it not quite so...blatant. It's not that he isn't able to perform such a diverse selection: there are plenty of excellent cuts and most of the album is quite good.

Harper is a fantastically talented musician, and he has really developed his voice since Diamonds on the Inside and is unafraid to do things with it, going from a croon to a scream and always sounding great. But why he's copying other people's styles instead of building on his own is both odd and disappointing, because he's always been able to experiment before while also preserving his individuality. If in Both Sides of the Gun Harper is trying to show his audience what a wide variety of music he can cover, he certainly accomplishes that. But if he's trying to create an album that is really about him, he doesn't quite deliver. Ben Harper is in there, don't worry, but he can be a little hard to find.