Childhood Home Ben Harper & Ellen Harper

• 1 A House Is A Home 02:43
• 2 City Of Dreams 03:42
• 3 Born To Love You 03:30
• 4 Heavyhearted World 02:57
• 5 Farmer’s Daughter 03:14
• 6 Memories Of Gold 03:47
• 7 Altar Of Love 03:21
• 8 Break Your Heart 03:41
• 9 Learn It All Again Tomorrow 03:03
• 10 How Could We Not Believe 03:46
• Total Runtime 33:44

Info for Childhood Home

Ben Harper and his mother Ellen have collaborated to create Childhood Home an absorbing, deeply personal collection of original songs.

The album's source can be directly traced to the pair's highly unusual musical heritage. In 1958, Ben Harper's maternal grandparents established The Folk Music Center and Museum in Claremont, California. It was there, amid guitars, banjos, tablas, ukuleles and all manner of instruments from around the world, that a distinctively musical family took shape. Ellen Harper, a talented multi-instrumentalist in her own right, ... encouraged her family to use the store (which she still operates) as a musical laboratory. The center was a magnet for up-and-comers such as Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Taj Mahal, who became extended family members, providing master classes in creativity and philosophy, all of which the young Ben Harper soaked up like a sponge.

The tender, artfully crafted story sketches on Childhood Home are laced with an undercurrent of love, wistfulness and, sometimes, pain. 'A house is a home even when there's ghosts / Even when you gotta run from the ones who love you most,' Ben sings on the album opener 'A House Is A Home.' On 'Memories of Gold,' truthfulness cuts through sweet nostalgia: 'In the winter she wants to be dancer / In springtime she wants to be a scribe /In summer she wants to be a painter / Come autumn the mother of a child.' Likewise, the sacrifice and despair of domestic life is devotedly delivered on Ellen Harper's 'Altar of Love': 'He always works late, determines his own fate / He's found his true match; he's found his soul mate / Sorry he says, sorry he feels / Can't help himself, he fell head over heels / And now she's another wife and a mother / Sacrificed on the alter of love.'

Ben Harper produced Childhood Home 'like early Elvis,' he told Rolling Stone, after he and Charlie Musselwhite won the 'Best Blues Album' GRAMMY Award for last year's critically acclaimed Get Up! (Stax/Concord). 'Not one thing is plugged in. It's all acoustic. I think they're going to call it 'Americana,' but it's soul, California, folk rock, American.'

Ben Harper, Weissenborn slide guitar, guitar, autoharp, dulcimer, vocals
Ellen Harper, guitar, banjo, vocals
Jason Mozersky, guitar
Jesse Ingalls, upright bass, keyboards
Jimmy Paxon, drums

Recorded and Mixed by Ethan Allen at The Machine Shop, Santa Monica, CA.
Mastered by Gavin Lurssen at Lurssen Mastering, Los Angeles, CA.
Co-produced by Ethan Allen, Jason Mozersky, Jesse Ingalls, Jimmy Paxson
Produced by Ben Harper

No biography found.

Booklet for Childhood Home