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arly in our interview, I push him to talk about learning songs from his grandparents. His Louisiana Creole grandmother (from north west Louisiana, he says, “Leadbelly country”) was a large influence on Paxton, but he doesn’t take the bait. He says that his upbring- ing is nothing special, but then later in the interview he elaborates a bit on that. “Where I was raised a lot of people were raised by their grandparents. So a lot of people from my neighbourhood, from the area I was born in, these songs are not a foreign thing. They just learned them.”
Coming out of South Central Los Angeles, Paxton grew up in a transplanted Southern household in a small neighbourhood that kept to a rural way of life. That may account for his Southern accent, or the love he has for old rural music. It’s only one part of his story though. The other part comes from his wide-reaching taste in music and, ultimately, the internet.
I ask him where he gets his music and his inspirations and his blunt response is “by any means necessary”. That means collecting old 78s or vinyl, which he’s known for (I ask him how many 78s he has and he replies “maybe 100 worth listening to… and about that many not worth listening to”), but it also means trading mp3s online or just Googling deep to find something of interest.
Talking about the impact of the internet on musical taste, he says “A lot of people [today] have more access to things that they feel is good. When I was young the best you could do was to ask somebody ‘do you have any old music,’ and lord knows what would you get. I had everything from Marvin Gaye to Gladys Knight. Nobody knew what I meant in those days and now you can Google it.”
Another source of his music comes from elder baby boomer folk revivalists who’ve taken him under their wing, from Los Angeles rag- time pianist Brad Kay, who was one of Paxton’s early influences, to New York country blues icon Andy Cohen, or 78rpm record collector Joe Bussard. Paxton’s an omnivorous musical collector and by his own admission he draws no distinction between any of his many sources for new music.
Throughout the interview, it’s hard to tell with Paxton what’s
real and what’s a story. In writing this piece I referred to various other printed interviews to substantiate, but in the end, as I look back over my notes, I wonder if it isn’t maybe better to not know for sure. He’s got a great story and incredible talent and that should be more than enough.
www.blindboypaxton.com F
Photo: Bill Steber
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