Album Review: Ben & Ellen Harper – ‘Childhood Home’

Album Review: Ben & Ellen Harper – ‘Childhood Home’

This is the single most understated album Ben Harper has released since ‘Welcome To The Cruel World’, exactly 20 years ago. And in many more ways, this is a return to his roots.

His maternal grandparents established The Folk Music Center and Museum in Claremont, California in the late 1950s. His mother Ellen turned it into a musical hub which attracted the likes of Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. It is the environment in which Ben grew up, and ‘Childhood Home’ is mostly made of memories from that time and reflections on childhood and family life.

In many respects then, it is a lovely album with no ambition other than that of having you sit back on your sofa with your bedroom slippers on while the soft crackling fire soothes your mind. And if you have any slight weakness for beautiful melodies and Harper’s masterful guitar playing, you will enjoy it a lot.

The melodies are very strong, and Ben and Ellen’s voices make a powerful and charming duo, at times even recalling the complicity between Johnny and June Carter Cash.

‘A House Is A Home’ is prime Ben Harper, with a simple melody anchored in folk and blues traditions and typically hopeful and inspiring lyrics. “A house is a home where you spend your whole life running to and from, and if the life that you live is not the life you choose, make your child a home and start anew”, he chants. However, from ‘Heavy Hearted World’ onwards, it keeps getting better and better.

‘Farmer’s Daughter’, one of Ellen’s own compositions, is a highlight, with the banjo making it one of the most traditional, country offerings on the record. And because it really keeps getting better, you cannot imagine just how good the last three songs are.

‘Break Your Heart’ could have easily blended in with Bob Dylan and The Band’s compositions on ‘The Basement Tapes’, and compliments don’t get any better than that.

‘Learn It All Again Tomorrow’ is especially devastating. Not that it is very different in style from the rest of the album. There is simply something in the melody and Ben’s heartfelt delivery that gives it a little something the others don’t quite have. “Yes, I think we have a deal”, he sings.

‘How Could We Not Believe’ has a dreamy, haunted feel about it which we hadn’t heard since ‘Pleasure and Pain’. “So beautiful we had to close our eyes”, Ben sings and he couldn’t have said anything truer.

‘Childhood Home’ is out on 2nd May via Prestige Folklore.

by Brice Detruche