Six Degrees of Raul Midon
The Elixir® Strings Interview With Raul Midon

In the tongue-in-cheek game Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, competitors try to find the shortest chain of performers that link selected random actors to the game’s namesake. The challenge shows that the ubiquitous Bacon has appeared with just about everybody and is, at most, only a person or two away from everyone else. Play a Latin music version of the game, and you’ll no doubt be playing Six Degrees of Raul Midon. That’s because the blind-since-birth, New Mexico-born singer-songwriter-guitarist has sung or played with very nearly every Latin icon possible. From Christina Aguilera and Shakira to Marc Anthony and Julio Iglesias, Midon’s credits are a name dropper’s paradise. In fact, his resume is so peppered with musical luminaries that it would seem to automatically guarantee a flood of record company execs begging for a record he could call his own. Not so. In fact, Midon’s move to New York City in 2002 to establish himself as a solo artist very nearly ended in failure. Fortunately for the rest of us, Midon hung on through ugly West Village bar gigs and industry indifference, and honed his thoroughly individual percussive acoustic R&B sound to the point where it could no longer be ignored. The result was a contract with Manhattan Records, studio sessions with legendary producer Arif Mardin, and one of 2005’s breakout releases, the major label debut “State of Mind,” a record Entertainment Weekly said was a “supple blend of soul crooner, folk bard, and Latin sonero (that) melts our cynicism.” Recently, we spoke with Midon about how it all went down and where it’s all headed from here.

Tell us about how you discovered the guitar.

I was born in New Mexico and grew up with all kinds of music. I probably played my first guitar when I was about four years old. It was a little guitar almost like a requinto. But it was a regular guitar. I think it was just around [the house]. If there had been another instrument around, I probably would have picked up that. I was into music, and the guitar was part of that. I was also into rhythm, playing hand drums, bongos, congas and that sort of thing, really really early.

Did you find that being sightless affected the learning process for you?

I think so. I don’t think being blind is an advantage as far as playing the guitar. As a matter of fact I think it’s a disadvantage. Because one of the things that I had to do a lot of was what we call target practice. You know, practice making big jumps from the first fret to the twelfth fret. So you know maybe having those dots on the fretboard helps a little bit. I had to learn the guitar by feel. I’m not of the opinion that being sightless helps you hear music any better, I just don’t think that’s true. I think what happens is when you’re blind you have less options. So if you’re musical and you’re blind then you’re going to tend to go toward music as, “Well, this is something I can do” as opposed to a lot of things that you can’t do when you’re blind. It may help in terms of focus because you have less distractions. So maybe sitting in your room all day playing guitar is a little more natural for a blind child, let’s say, than it would be for somebody [for whom] there’s all this other stuff to do out there. You can be skateboarding or whatever. But I don’t think it makes you a better musician. You know, people think , “Oh, you can just hear better.” Most of the best musicians I know are all perfectly sighted.

Tell us about your solo record, “State of Mind,” how did that come about?

I was a back-up singer, and I always sort of kept up my guitar playing. I used to live in Miami and so I would play restaurants and bars. My profession for awhile was as a back-up singer. But I always supplemented that with playing gigs. I started out [with] covers and as I would get more secure in the gig, I would start to put my own songs in there. To get the gig playing at a bar in Key Largo or whatever, you have to talk about all the covers that you know, and then once you get there, they don’t really care what you play.

So you had a dual career path?

Yeah. And what I always say and what was true was I gradually began to realize that my hobby was my art, my original music. And my profession was sort of being a catch-all musician for whoever would hire me, and I really kind of wanted to reverse that. That’s why I ended up moving to NYC. I said, you know, I’ve got to make or break. If I don’t do this, I’m going to wonder how it would have went.
Take us from moving to New York to “Okay, now I’m going to do a solo record.”

How did that happen?

Well, the first year in New York was pretty hard. You know, you move up here and all of this stuff that you’ve done really doesn’t count for anything. I mean, I had been in Shakira’s band for a couple of years. I had done countless appearances on Julio Iglesias records, and Enrique [Iglesias] records, and all kinds of records, and it didn’t really matter much here. Nobody really cared. It wasn’t like I was getting calls to do back-up singing.

Did that surprise you?

It did a little bit. I had worked with some producers here, [who] I won’t mention, but some big producers who are based here as well as in Miami. And I thought, “Oh yeah, they’re gonna call me.” No.

So how did you end up with a solo deal?

Well, you know, I came here to pursue my art. I was very clear about that. I didn’t come here to try to get any gig I could. It happens to so many musicians. You move up here to New York, and you’ve got these high rents, you’ve got this high cost of living, and you end up doing whatever you have to do just to be able to play music. If I’m going to play a club date or a wedding, I’d rather live in Miami. It’s better weather. It’s less cost of living. It’s an easier lifestyle. I didn’t come up here to play weddings. So I had a gig in the West Village playing in between [sets by] this Top 40 band for about a year and a half. All I did was play my originals. Some people saw me there and eventually I started playing at Joe’s Pub. At the time, I didn’t realize how cool a gig that was. Joe’s Pub, it sounds just like a bar. I got sort of a monthly kind of a residency. It really was a great thing for me. Bill Bragin, who books it, took an interest and said, “You know, we’re going to hire you.” So there was a place for people to go and hear me play that wasn’t like the Bitter End, that was a little classier, a little better audience, a little better sound.

A little more focused on you as opposed to your just being another act in a long string of acts.

Exactly. Totally focused. I started out opening for people and stuff, but people go to Joe’s Pub to actually listen to the music, and that’s the whole focus. So that happened, and you know I started to get some attention. I also started working with Little Louis Vega, who is a dance DJ. Very well regarded in the club world, the dance world, and so it helped me pay the bills. I went all over the world with him, and we made a record. So all of that kind of kept me busy. Didn’t make me a whole lot of money, but I was surviving. About a year after I’d moved to New York, this producer came back stage at Joe’s Pub and said, “How would you like to play Carnegie Hall?” And I said, “Yeah, some day I would like to.” And he said, “How about next month?” I said, “Really?! What would I do, something with the orchestra?” He said, “No. I’d like you to just play solo in a show that I’m producing called the ‘Movie Music of Spike Lee.’” It was 2003, and so I did that, and I was the nobody. You know, there was Angie Stone and Bruce Hornsby and Cassandra Wilson, and of course Terence [Blanchard] and Spike and the orchestra, and all this stuff.

So I did this, and I got a standing ovation, and they wrote about it in the New York Times, and blah blah blah, and so there it was, a year after I moved to New York, I played a show in Carnegie Hall. And immediately after that I went to my gig in the West Village. Only in New York, can you go from Carnegie Hall, take a cab over to this dive in the West Village, and play. And it was funny because the guy that introduced me said, “Alright you guys better shut up because he just came from Carnegie Hall.”

So that attention resulted in the solo record?

It started the whole thing. Really the real attention came when I played for Arif Mardin, and it wasn’t “Oh, maybe…” He was immediately, “Let’s make a record.” And luckily for me, Arif had a great track record. If Arif wanted to make a record, then we were going to make a record. So that started it all.

Had you done much recording before, or was your work mostly live on stage?

No, I had recorded. I had done a ton of back-up singing. I had been in the studio a lot. I had recorded demos. I actually recorded a whole record that I financed called “Blind to Reality” that I recorded and sold on the gigs.

So you were used to the process?

Well, I was, but I think that I really found my artistic identity on “State of Mind” because it was the first time that I had worked with a producer who actually was interested in trying to make a record of what I sounded like as opposed to some sort of an idea of what’s going to get them the notoriety. I had worked with a lot of producers, and I had a very low opinion of them because there’s a lot of bull crap and a lot of politics that goes down in the music business with producers. You know, they’re trying to get their next gig just like everybody else. Arif wasn’t. He had had as much success as you can have as a producer. So he was interested in making my record. And that was so refreshing.

Having made “Blind to Reality” and now doing something that’s a little more “big league,” that’s got some sponsorship behind it, did you find that the two recording processes differed? Did you learn things doing the first that carried over into the second and did the second record teach you things that might have made recording the first a different experience?

Well, the first [record] was my first real stepping out as “Hey, I am Raul Midon, an original artist.” Very important to have made that first record because it showed everybody and me that I could do it. That I had material. That we could get it together and follow it through and get the money. All of that. The first record, I sort of produced it myself. Working with Arif and Joe [Mardin] I learned to trust people who had been doing this for a long time. So if they say, “Well, let’s try something,” to say, “Okay. I’m willing to go along with it. I’m not sure I agree with it, but let’s see what happens.” And nine times out of ten, it ended up being a great idea. Because I knew that it was pure in motive. It wasn’t like, “We gotta get this guy to make a commercial record.” It wasn’t motivated by that. It was motivated by their experience and their wish to make as good a record as possible.

So I sort of learned to work with a team that I trusted and I learned that that’s what I needed to have. If I’m going to work with a team, it needs to be a team that I trust, and if that’s not there, it doesn’t matter what the names, how big they are, how much status they have. It doesn’t work.

To my ears, the record is an acoustic oriented R&B album. And that acoustic element is an anomaly in today’s R&B scene.

Absolutely.

Was there any pressure to “electrify” it, to add more current sounds?

Post [recording], there was. There were certain elements within the record label, not really within the record label directly, but more within EMI, and people that were going to the radio and so forth. They said, “Hey, you know… If we could only do this and that. If we could have this mix or that mix. Then we could…” What I’ve learned from that is that I think you still have to make the record you want to make. And what we’re doing with the second record, is this record is deeper lyrically. There’s more different kinds of things. It’s still very acoustic, but there are some things that we’re going to do. We’re not closed to doing mixes, but you have to make the record you want to make. And I kind of learned that whatever anybody says, you have to be the one that is accountable for the record. Because what’s great about “State of Mind,” and why I feel so great about it, is I can say, “Yes I wanted to do it.” And for people who don’t like it or didn’t get it, I can’t say, and it’s a great thing to not have to say, “Well, I did that because the record company wanted me to do that. If I had things my way, I would have done this and that.” That’s the worse thing that can happen to an artist. I am totally responsible for what’s on that record, and I’m very proud of it, and the same thing is going to be true of the second record.

Though I’m hearing that you’re going to mix it up a little bit?

Yeah, but the thing is, we’re going to do it. What record companies are very fond of doing is you get the record done and they say, “Okay, we’re going to bring in blah-blah-blah at the last minute because they know how to get a record on the radio.” No. We’re not doing that. I listen to radio every day. I know what plays on the radio and what doesn’t. And luckily I have people, who, thank God the first record sold enough copies, that they believe in me, and they’re willing to let me do what I want to do. That is so uncommon these days in any kind of a major label setting.

Do you have favorite song on “State of Mind?”

You know, I don’t. I like it all. I always enjoy [the song] “State of Mind.” I came up with “State of Mind” at a particularly hard time in the first year of my New York life. So I enjoy “State of Mind.” It really, in a metaphorical way, kind of came from the ashes at a certain point. I started writing it when I had already called up my former apartment in Miami and said, “I’m leaving. I can’t do this anymore.” I was literally on the verge of giving up, and that’s when I started writing “State of Mind.”
“ Sitting in the Middle” is about Donnie Hathaway. Is he a big influence for you?
Absolutely. What’s even more sort of cosmic is that Arif was Donnie Hathaway’s producer. So it was sort of the completion of a connection there that all these years later, here I am working with the guy who, along with Jerry Wexler and the people at Atlantic, produced Donnie’s records.

Who else do you count among your influences?

There’s so many. There really are. Obviously Stevie [Wonder], but then there are people like Thelonius Monk and Charlie Parker, and that whole thing. Also B.B. King, and there’s the whole Latin thing. Los Muñequitos de Matanzas. Argentine folk music. People like Benny More. Celia Cruz. There’s so many.

I’m tickled that Nora Jones is so successful because, first of all, she’s on our label, so that helps! But also I love the fact that she’s successful because of what she does. Plain and simple. It’s not that all about other things. About her marriages and her dates and all the other crap that goes on. It’s about her and the way she plays the piano. I love the fact that, you know, Nora Jones doesn’t even have to sing. If you hear that piano, you know it’s Nora Jones. That’s somebody with an artistic identity.

And then probably John Mayer. A guy that’s young and very successful. It’s about good music. And he’s done very well for himself.

Tell us about your experiences with Elixir® Strings.

Well, I remember the first time I got Elixirs, I had had a particularly good gig, and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to splurge. I’m going to buy some of these strings and try them out. And I was like, “Wow!” I was very happy with the results. I use a lot of harmonics and use a lot of sounds out of the guitar, and so the Elixirs are really good in that regard. They keep giving after playing them for awhile. The way I play, strings start to lose their brightness literally after the first playing.

Why is that? What about your playing style that does this?

I don’t know actually! But that’s the main reason why I like the Elixirs so much–because they do retain that sound, and it allows me to do the things I do consistently and have that sound. On something like “State of Mind,” there’s a lot of harmonics and a lot of different things going on, and if you’re playing on dead strings, you’re not going to hear it.

How would you describe your playing style?

I would say it’s really an attempt to play drums and guitar at the same time. I’ve always been interested in drumming and rhythm. Mostly hand drumming, not so much trap, although I did play some trap sets. But really I’ve always been interested in hand drumming. I didn’t come up with the style that everybody knows until I moved to New York, and I’d been playing guitar for awhile. I found myself playing a lot of solo. And when you’re playing solo, unless you’re at the Living Room or some singer-songwriter gig, most people are not going to pay attention if you’re just sitting there strumming and singing about your feelings. Unfortunately, people don’t pay attention anymore. They need more.

So that sort of forced you to change your style a little bit?

It did. It kind of made me become a sort of warrior of music. I’m sitting here in this place in the West Village, where I used to play, and these people are drunk and drinking liquor from paper cups, and I’m like, you know… doing flashy things just to get them to pay attention. But still musical. It wasn’t gimmicks. I didn’t think of it consciously in a way. I remember when I came up with a way to play reggae and have the beat going on and have also the upbeat going on at the same time. It would always get people’s attention.

You’re working on a sophomore release. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?

It’s coming great. I can’t tell exactly when it will be out, but it goes a little deeper lyrically. There’s a little more irony in it than there is on “State of Mind.” It leans a little more heavily on my Argentine background so there’s some real traditional Argentine instruments on it like charango and bombo. Most of the songs were written during the time that I was recording the record. So it’s completely current. There’s a lot more irony! It’s a lot closer to a record that Randy Newman would have made. I wouldn’t put myself on the level of Randy Newman, but you know…

What else does 2007 hold for you?

Well, it’ll be the year that I made this record. I’ve been pretty much holed up here making the record. I’ve tried to create the space for myself to make the record and not to be on the road and try to make a record at the same time. That wouldn’t work for me. We’re getting to the end of that process. So I’m going to start going back out on the road again. Hopefully in April or May, somewhere in there, I’ll be doing something in the New York area. Maybe in the East Coast area. In June, I’ll probably be doing some sort of a tour. Probably go to Europe in July. And then the record comes out and the whole thing starts over again.