Blues musician Tab Benoit combines activism, musical soul

Blues musician Tab Benoit combines activism, musical soul
August 6, 2010
By Nicole Inglis
Steamboat Today

teamboat Springs — Tab Benoit is always the same person.

He’s the same when he peers out from under stage lights in smoky New Orleans jazz clubs, crooning thick blues stories that could come only from witnessing tragedy firsthand.

And he’s the same when he’s flying helicopters across the Gulf of Mexico, watching as the Louisiana wetlands he’s held so close to his heart are lapped up by the slow-moving darkness of the Gulf Coast oil spill.

The blues guitarist said he hasn’t written new music in a while because he hasn’t been in a comfortable place. With New Orleans devastated by Hurricane Katrina, and now threatened by the oil spill, a longing for change comes through in the gritty blues music he’s played for 20 years.

“Everything influences your music, I guess,” Benoit said. “I try to stay open to my feelings and let it happen.”

Benoit will play at Ghost Ranch Saloon at 9 p.m. today. Tickets are $20 at the door. The show takes place almost four months after the largest marine oil spill in history threatened Louisiana’s wetlands, but Benoit’s campaign on behalf of the delicate flora and fauna began in 2003, well before any hint of the pending disaster.

Benoit began “Voice of the Wetlands,” a nonprofit organization that promotes awareness education and outreach about the constant loss of the wetlands.


When he thinks about how Louisiana is losing its wetlands at the rate of 1 acre per hour, his feelings are the same whether or not he’s on stage.

“They’re both the same,” Benoit said about his dual roles. “It’s the same guy with the same feelings. I’m looking at things and my heart is feeling certain things. The only difference is I don’t have a guitar or a microphone.

“I think music is just a part of that. It’s an extension of your heart. And whatever my heart feels it’s what I’m gonna be playing.”

Before he was a professional musician, Benoit was a pilot for an oil company, scouting rig locations from the air.

He began to see things he didn’t like, and he turned to his guitar for an outlet.

“I was thinking, ‘Man, music is looking better all the time,’” he said. “Here’s a way I can change the things I see going wrong and maybe help, maybe have people feel better about the things going on and encourage them to fight for the change.”

Many of the problems he sees in the wetlands are indicative of a larger flaw in the human condition, he said.

“If you had to find a common denominator, it’s the same problem,” he said. “It’s greedy people in charge of things. Greedy with powers to affect the way we live.”

He said people are meant to be activists and encourages them to use their voice and call — not e-mail — government representatives and be engaged at local meetings.

But he said his music isn’t activist music.

“You can’t take it literally,” he said about his songs. “I’m not writing literal songs about things that go wrong. I don’t like protest music or protest bands. This is about, ‘Hey people, you got more power than you think.’ That’s what I am trying to get at. They’re not using that inner strength to make changes they really want.

“I’m just one person that happens to be a musician, but everyone has ways of doing the same things I’m doing.”