MAGAZINE FIX

August 28, 1998
Rolling Stone Online

"Blues prodigy Jonny Lang, citing a viral infection in his throat, has bowed out of his stint on the B.B. King Blues Music Festival, leaving tour promoters scrambling to fill his space. Lang was scheduled to debut at the festival in mid-September.

A spokesman for the festival, which began Aug. 7 and runs through Sept. 27, said any one of ten artists -- among them George Thorogood and Keb' Mo' -- may join King, Dr. John, Susan Tedeschi and a rotating cast of players for the remainder of the tour. He added that the Neville Brothers, who appeared on the first half of the festival, may return to complete the tour.

Lang apparently became ill while touring with Buddy Guy earlier this summer, and now doctors have instructed him to take the road not traveled. The seventeen-year-old guitar slinger is scheduled to tour Europe this fall following the Oct. 20 release of his sophomore album, Wander This World."

ARI BENDERSKY (Aug. 28, 1998)

May 28, 1998
Rolling Stone's 30th Anniversary Special
Q&A with Jonny

"Q- When you sing "Good Morning Little School Girl," how young a schoolgirl are you imagining, anyway?

J- Well, I don't know. I thought it was just a cool song - I didn't have an age bracket in mind, really.

Q- But you can't sing like a dirty old man yet - unless we're talking about an eleven-year-old schoolgirl or something.

J- [pauses] Right. I'm trying to get myself out of some deep water there.

Q- Was it great and scary to open for Rolling Stones recently?

J- Oh, man, it was a trip. It was surreal, because our first gig with them was in Hawaii, in Honolulu at the Aloha Stadium, so it was just crazy 'cause it can't get better than that. We all kind of had to just stop, look around and take it all in. The show was just amazing.

Q- Since they, too, started out as teenagers playing the blues, did the Stones have good advice for you?

J- Well, I had laryngitis in Hawaii, and I was talking to Mick - or squeaking to Mick - and he was so helpful. He got, like, his assistant to call his personal doctor or whatever and get a prescription for this stuff, and it was great.

Q- Mick Jagger got you drugs!

J- Well, legal drugs.

Q- Do you get frustrated with purists questioning your right to sing the blues?

J- There's a huge initiation process, but it's music - it's for everybody, as far as I'm concerned. There are people who'll say, "No, you can't play; you don't have the right." Well, it's like, "What do you mean I can't?" I am, you know.

Q- What was the first album you ever bought?

J- I don't even remember.

Q- Come on, you're seventeen - it couldn't have been that long ago!

J- The first album I personally purchased . . . it had to be like, Nirvana. No, it was Jane's Addiction.

Q- Was there blues stuff around your house?

J- Not really. More Motown, Otis Redding, Gladys Knight kind of stuff.

Q- You toured as an opening act with one of your blues heroes, B.B. King. What sort of attitude do you get from the older blues artist?

J- Everybody who's been an influence who I've met - Buddy Guy and B.B. King and Luther Allison and all those guys - has been really supportive and happy to have young people carrying it on. To them it doesn't matter what color the person who's carrying it on is. If young kids don't have the right to play, how does the art form survive? So they were supportive - or they appeared to be, anyway.

Q- Does it bother you to be marketed in a way that capitalizes on the fact that you're sexier looking than, say, Johnny Winter?

J- Well, no. I think that to have to market music to sell it in the first place is lame. I don't pay attention. I would never go to the record company and say, "Take a really gorgeous shot of me and, like , airbrush it and make me look flawless." That's the last thing I would ever do. I would think that would be bogus.

Q- Your first video, for "Lie to Me," was pretty bluesy, but the second one, for "Missing Your Love," sort of made you seem like Hanson with sadder songs.

J- I thought the video fit the song well, and I don't think anyone was going for a sellout thing there. It was just . . . I had my girlfriend in there, who is like, my best friend also, and it was really fun.

Q- You mention having fun and being happy. Is it fair to say you don't feel that a good bluesman must be miserable?

J- Definitely. If playing music makes you sad, depressed and drunk, and you die when you're thirty, then why do it? That's, like, folklore or something. B.B. King was never sad. I mean, I'm sure he was, but he wasn't depressed to be playing music. Buddy Guy loves to play.

Q- Who were your formative influences?

J- Albert Collins and B.B. King are probably my biggest influences, guitar-playingwise. Musically, I think all around , Stevie Wonder is probably my biggest influence. I never get star-stuck or nervous, but if I met Stevie Wonder, I would freak out.

Q- Was playing with B.B. King or any of the other blues greats frightening?

J- I wouldn't say playing with those guys is intimidating. That would mean my frame of mind would be competition, and that's not it at all. Playing with B.B. blew my mind, and I wasn't even concentrating on playing anything. I just had the good fortune of standing three feet away, watching him play.

Q- You've already taken blues music to some unusual places - like a Disney Special. You figure even Mickey gets the blues?

J- That sounds like a question Disney would have asked me! Yeah, it seems maybe I am reaching a younger audience that wouldn't have been exposed. When I see kids my age - I'm calling them kids - down front at shows, listening to our music with their eyes shut and waving their heads, it's like they're honestly getting this. And that's really cool because it proves I'm not some freak of nature that appreciates the blues."

-David Wild

More coming soon.....

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