Beth Hart’s bio to this point in her 20-plus-year career is very nearly a blues cliché. A youthful beginning, doing great work while toiling in obscurity, struggling with alcohol and substances intended to keep her centered and grounded. It’s a boilerplate blues story, told many times with slight variations. Thankfully, Hart’s recent triumphs have counterbalanced her ancient travails. Last December, Hart took the stage at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington, D.C., along with guitar icon Jeff Beck, and performed Etta James’ classic “I’d Rather Go Blind” to celebrate Kennedy Center honoree and blues legend Buddy Guy. Hart’s scorchingly soulful vocals and Beck’s sinewy guitar lines brought Guy and the audience to their feet; that performance has been added to the commercial pressing of Bang Bang Boom Boom (Provogue/Mascot), Hart’s powerfully diverse new album. Hart will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on her.
Hart: I love painting even though I’m not any good at it. And I’m not being humble either; I suck! But, I just love it. Choosing different sizes and shapes of canvas. Getting lots and lots of different colors of oils or acrylics. Putting on the radio, getting a big ashtray, and go. I’ll go for hours and hours in my own world, and by the time I’m through I’m covered in paint, but I had the best time. It’s so relaxing and meditative. Pushing the paint with the brush across whatever I’m working on is filled with freedom and innocence. I feel like a little girl when I paint. Full of wonder and surprise and in my own little special place. You don’t have to be good at something to have a great time doing it.
Video after the jump.
