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BEN HARPER
releases
eagerley awaited album
 BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE

+ New single
“NEED TO KNOW BASIS”
available now

official video out now watch HERE 

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(Photo Credit: Michael Halsband)

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3x GRAMMY® Award-winning singer-songwriter/musician/producer Ben Harper releases his much- anticipated new album BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE (CHRYSALIS RECORDS) along with an official music video for the new single “Need To Know Basis” – which features exclusive behind-the-scenes footage shot earlier this month at the Lucca Summer Festival in Italy. The video is available at YouTube HERE

Produced by Harper and the esteemed Sheldon Gomberg, “Need To Know Basis” marks the latest single from Harper’s fiercely soulful new album, BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE, out today.  The album is available HERE

“Need To Know Basis” showcases the distinctive sound of the Clavinet, performed by legendary keyboardist Larry Goldings (James Taylor, John Mayer, Steve Gadd). “It’s kind of the unsung hero of soul music,” Harper says. “It was made famous by the intro to Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition,” which was probably the first song my dad ever played for me.  I brought Larry in and we had an absolute blast. ‘Need To Know Basis’ is about how hard it is for some people to say I love you, and how people can be waiting to hear that from them.  The bass is accompanied by a low-end shadow guitar playing along, which was something I learned from Al Anderson from The Wailers.”

LISTEN to BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE

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BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE was first heralded last month with the premiere of “We Need To Talk About It,” available now at all DSPs and streaming services. An official lyric video is streaming via YouTube.

Propelled by Harper’s blisteringly funky guitar, “We Need To Talk About It”  defiantly addresses the wounds of slavery through a sharp-edged call-and-response with gospel-fueled backing vocals and pounding rhythms augmented by the distinctive sound of the African talking drum. The track was met by immediate acclaim from such publications as Rolling Stone, which wrote, “‘We Need to Talk About It’ boasts a potent blend of gospel, funk, and blues, with Harper singing back-and-forth with a choir over a steady groove of rumbling percussion and wobbling guitar licks. Towards the end of the song, Harper’s clear-eyed lyrics – ‘How does a ghost forgive… How are we supposed to live/With 12 million taken/Not one single reparation’ – are punctuated with a fierce reply from the choir: ‘We need to talk about it.’”

Harper – joined by his longtime band, The Innocent Criminals – will herald BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE with an epic world tour highlighted by North American and European headline dates, festival performances, US shows alongside Jack Johnson, and a 10-night run supporting his recent collaborator Harry Styles at Los Angeles, CA’s Kia Forum. Additional headline dates will be announced. For updates and ticket information, please visit HERE

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BEN HARPER &
THE INNOCENT CRIMINALS
World Tour 2022:

JULY

25 – Madrid, Spain – Noches del Botánico
28 – Carcassonne, France – Festival de Carcassonne
29 – Gignac, France – Le Festival Ecaussysteme à Gignac
31 – Colmar, France – Foire aux Vins d’Alsace

AUGUST

2 – Palmanova, Italy – Piazza Grande
3 – San Mauro Pascoli, Italy – Acieloaperto Festival
4 – Rome, Italy – Cavea Auditorium Parco Della Musica
6 – Taormina, Italy – Teatro Antico di Taormina
9 – Riola Sardo, Italy – Parco dei Suoni
11 – Brescia, Italy – Festa di Radio Onda d’Urto
26 – Trois-Rivières, QC, Canada – Trois-Rivières En Blues

SEPTEMBER

16 – Victoria, BC – Rifflandia Festival *
18 – Saratoga, CA – Mountain Winery
20 – Eugene, OR – Cuthbert Amphitheater
21 – Bend, OR – Clear Summer Nights
22 – Troutdale, OR – McMenamins Edgefield
24 – George, WA – Gorge Amphitheatre ^

OCTOBER

6 – Ojai, CA – Libbey Bowl
7 – Chula Vista, CA – North Island Credit Union Amphitheatre ^
23 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
24 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
26 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
28 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
29 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
31 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †

NOVEMBER

2 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
4 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
5 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
7 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
9 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
11 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
12 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
14 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †
15 – Inglewood, CA – Kia Forum †

* Festival Performance

^ w/Jack Johnson

†  w/Harry Styles

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BEN HARPER
BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE 
Track List:

Below Sea Level
We Need to Talk About It
Where Did We Go Wrong
Problem Child
Need to Know Basis
It Ain’t No Use
More Than Love
Smile at the Mention
Honey, Honey
Knew the Day Was Comin’
Maybe I Can’t

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A work largely inspired by the loss of a longtime friend and the lingering influence of a mercurial and charismatic father, BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE sees Harper performing the majority of the instruments on his own, spanning guitar, bass, drums and an eclectic assortment of percussions including a plastic toy snare. His 17th studio LP – and first since 2020’s instrumental WINTER IS FOR LOVERS – and the first non-instrumental solo album of new songs since 2016. The new album is further fueled by Harper’s signature lap steel, supercharged through a powerful Dumble amplifier creating a truly unruly tone that Harper describes as “a sort of a merging of Robert Johnson and Jimi Hendrix.”

“It was like I was moving forward and venturing into places I had never been before,” he says. “Taking everything I’ve learned from every other record and kind of setting fire to it all and starting over. And I knew the sounds I was hearing in my head were so unorthodox that I had to do most of it myself.”

Applying the inventiveness of hip-hop to longstanding paradigms of soul, blues and jazz, spinning it all forward into a reconfiguration of a new black Americana, BLOODLINE MAINTENANCE continues Harper’s long history as one of his generation’s most potent protest singers. Persecuted by local authorities for being a communist, his grandfather moved his family west where their music store, the Folk Music Center and Museum in Claremont, CA, proved a vital hub in a thriving Southern California folk scene. There Harper learned guitar as a child, playing his first official gig at the age of 12. By the time he was 21, he was touring with blues legend Taj Mahal. The years that followed have seen Harper amass international critical applause and a worldwide fan following, winning three GRAMMY® Awards (out of seven total nominations) for his own genre-traversing body of work while also producing acclaimed albums by Mavis Staples, Rickie Lee Jones, The Blind Boys of Alabama, Natalie Maines, Ziggy Marley, and others. An inveterate collaborator, Harper has also recorded with a diverse span of artists ranging from John Lee Hooker, Charlie Musselwhite, and Jack Johnson to Ringo Starr, Keith Richards and, most recently, Harry Styles, contributing his signature guitar work to the latter superstar’s chart-topping new album, HARRY’S HOUSE.

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Follow BEN HARPER
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AMNPLIFY – DB