Quick-Fire Quips is a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the State of Alabama!
Today, Alabama Public Radio host Baillee Majors talks with Birmingham musician, contemporary jazz guitarist and youngest person ever inducted into the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame—Eric Essix.
He was also just named the recipient of the Distinguished Artist Award, the highest arts honor given by the Alabama State Council on the Arts.
Baillee: Hey, Eric, how are you?
Eric: Hey, Baillee, I'm doing great. How are you?
Baillee: I'm doing great. Excited to chat today.
Eric: Same here.
Baillee: Tell me about the instrument that you play.
Eric: I play guitar, and I'm usually considered to be a jazz artist, but I like to think that I'm more of a blues artist that has jazz sensibilities.
Baillee: Oh, I like that.
Eric: I come from the church, as my background as a musician. I started off playing in church and just really started to gravitate towards blues and rock music and then eventually kind of added jazz to the palette.
Baillee: How long have you been playing?
Eric: I started playing when I was 10 years old, so I've been playing for now 56 years.
Baillee: I read that you're self-taught.
Eric: I originally was self-taught, and later on I took some courses in music theory over at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. I was later accepted to Berklee College of Music on scholarship, and I wound up graduating from Berklee.
Baillee: So you have an album coming out next Spring. Can you give a little teaser on what people might expect?
Eric: Sure, absolutely. I am so excited about this record. I'm a person who is really driven by my faith and my spirituality, and this is the first time I've ever done a record that is leading with that.
I'm almost feeling like I'm channeling the music, you know, from above. So, the name of the record is "Things Above," and it comes from a scripture in Colossians where it says, "Set your affections on things above, not on things on the earth."
This music kind of has a relaxed kind of vibe, a reflective, meditative kind of vibe to it—still instrumental, and you could call it jazz, but it's just coming from a different place. I'm really excited about it.
Baillee: Now the introductions are done. Let's get you warmed up to answer the questionnaire, and to do that, I want you to say Quick-Fire Quips three times fast.
Eric: Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips, Quick-Fire Quips.
Baillee: Here's the first question. What comes to mind when you hear Alabama?
Eric: Southern, layback. Good people, good food.
Baillee: Describe Alabama in one word.
Eric: Soulful.
Baillee: What a hidden gem in Birmingham that more people should know about?
Eric: Birmingham's such a big food town, and most people who aren't from here don't really know that. I would say that's the hidden gem, just in a general sense.
The other thing, if I have to pick out one specific thing, I would say the Civil Rights Institute, because everyone who goes there leaves there changed in some way.
Baillee: What is your favorite thing about living in Alabama?
Eric: Oh man, I love the pace of life here! I lived in Boston and spent my time in New York, and it's just so fast-paced up there.
It's like my whole spirit just relaxed when I got back home, because of the pace of life there is so, so fast. I love the—I won't say slow— I'll say relaxed pace here.
Baillee: What is a bad stereotype, or something that people get wrong about Alabama?
Eric: Oh man, I hear this all the time, living in Boston and living in Florida and Tennessee. People think that we're a country in Alabama, and that we're backwoods, and that we're basically uncivilized here. And I'm like, y'all, Birmingham is like a major metropolitan city!
Baillee: What is your favorite getaway spot in Alabama?
Eric: Oh, that's easy. Oak Mountain State Park is like my absolute favorite place. Me and my wife, that's our go-to place when we want to just... relax and lounge out, take a picnic lunch, walk the trails. It's our favorite place to go to just kind of hang out.
Then one of my favorite places is becoming Huntsville, Alabama. I love Huntsville... It's just becoming such a progressive town with so much stuff to do.
Baillee: Let's talk a little bit more about music. You have 29 full albums out. What inspires your music?
Eric: Well, I have to say, over the past 38 years that I've been recording, it's mostly inspiration from life experience. And if I have to say that I'm good at anything as an artist, I'm good at finishing product projects. If I start something, I'm going to finish it, and so I think that has been one of the reasons, or one of the things that has inspired me to make so much music.
I was talking to a friend of mine, and we were talking about making records, and he summed it up perfectly: We have this music inside of us, and when it kind of bubbles up, we have to get it out.
The inspiration comes from just a need to always create, and so I find myself always getting to a point where I'm imagining all this music, and I've been singing in my phone and playing little clips of music in my phone, and at some point I just got to get it out, so that's probably the one thing that's motivated me most in recording music.
Baillee: You are known for your signature red Gibson guitar. Is that something that you still play?
Eric: Yes, the original one is now on exhibit at the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame here in Birmingham. During COVID, I donated that instrument to the Jazz Hall, but I replaced it with another instrument that is a red Gibson, different model, but it's red. I've kind of been known for the red guitar, so I'm trying to keep up the tradition.
Baillee: The red guitar—was that just a personal choice? You just really like the color red, or is there symbolic meaning behind it?
Eric: Actually, red is my favorite color. When I found this red guitar, it just spoke to me immediately. And so, over the years, I've just been connected with that red guitar, and when I decided to get another one, I opted for the cherry red.
Baillee: Do any of your guitars have names, or is it just strictly business?
Eric: Yes, they all have names, but I didn't name any of them.
The first red guitar was Big Red, named by my bass player, Sean Michael Ray, and the second one he named Big Red 2.0.
Baillee: I love that!
Eric: A really good friend of mine, Rob Bacon, who plays with Chaka Khan and tons of other famous musicians—Raphael Saadiq—saw another Gibson that I own, which is a dream guitar for me, a Gibson L-5 jazz guitar, and he named that one Esther.
Baillee: Big Red, Big Red 2.0 and Esther! I love it.
(Baillee and Eric laugh)
So, on your website, there's a big section talking about the music tribute Dedication. Can you tell me more about that?
Eric: For the past several years I've been working with UAB Alys Stephens Center's ArtPlay, and we go to schools in the rural areas of the state of Alabama. Recently, we've been going to schools that are closer to Birmingham and Jefferson County, Blount County and some surrounding counties.
And what we do is we go into the schools with a full band and a vocalist. We pick eight iconic African Americans who have made a difference in not just Alabama, but in the world—in civil rights and sports. We talk about people who have made a difference in medicine, and astronauts, and just all kinds of stuff, and we do songs dedicated to those individuals.
Before we do the song, we show a three-minute video clip that's kind of like a biography of that person, so the students get a little bit of education, and then the songs that we pick are always like fun songs. We do "Girl on Fire," the Alicia Keys song, and kids go nuts.
We've been doing that for maybe the year before COVID, but I've been doing stuff in the schools before Dedication since like 1993.
We've done over 150 schools around the state of Alabama in rural areas and around here in Jefferson County.
Baillee: Can you talk about the benefit of this musical storytelling?
Eric: We started doing the education part of Dedication... to just educate kids about some things that maybe they haven't gotten or don't know about and haven't been taught in their schools.
I think the benefit is they get to see that people from Alabama can do things that... are recognized by folks from all over the world. And we tell these kids, "Hey, you know, these people came from Alabama. Look at what they did, you can do this, too."
Baillee: Tell me about the Eric Essex Move Trio.
Eric: Oh man! That was probably my favorite period of my musical journey. So, Move Trio was myself on guitar.
Kelvin Wooten, who's a Grammy-winning artist and has performed and produced music for... J. Cole, H.E.R., Raphael Saadiq, Mary J. Blige, Earth, Wind & Fire, Isley Brothers. I mean, the list goes on and on of people he's worked with and produced on keyboards, and then he plays bass with his left hand on keyboard, so he's doing double duty. It's amazing. I don't know how he does it.
James "PJ" Spraggins is the drummer in that band, and man, we did more touring and more international touring with that group than any other group that I've ever worked with, and it was the most challenging for me.
We did one album together. People were always amazed that so much music could come from three people! It was just really fun, and we did a tour of Europe together, a West Coast tour, and it's just a whole lot of fun working with those guys.
Baillee: It seems to give a lot of fond memories with Kelvin and PJ. Who was the best person to sit next to you on a road trip when you guys were touring?
Eric: Oh man—either one of those guys would just be awesome! The thing about my bands, we were all just such good friends and have been for so long.
(Eric and Baillee laugh)
I'll have to pick Kelvin, because I've known Kelvin longer than PJ—but PJ and I also have some amazing conversations when we sit down and talk to one another.
Kelvin and I have more history. I've known him for 27 years now... and he's also been on just about every album that I've done, so I would say him, just because we've got a whole lot of history.
But PJ is my boy, too, and we can sit down, chop it up as well!
(Eric and Baillee laugh)
Baillee: Overarching in your career, who is the person you've most enjoyed sharing the stage with?
Eric: I'm gonna have to say everybody!
My band—they've been with me so long. I can't really say one person. The only thing I can say is, I've been with Sean Michael Ray on the bass, and Kelley O'Neal on the saxophone, for the longest.
They were in my original band, starting in 1988, so I'm just really blessed to have them still wanting to put up with me and play some of the same songs over and over again for such a long period of time.
Baillee: Is there someone that you've not been able to perform with that you really would like
Eric: I had to pick one person, even though I've played with him briefly, I would love to play with him more. His name is Marcus Miller.
Baillee: Speaking of music— if there was an alien invasion, what are three albums that you would give to the aliens to represent Earth?
Eric: Wow, that's a great question!
(Eric and Baillee laugh)
I'd give that alien Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.
I would give them Earth, Wind & Fire's double album Faces, which is another pivotal record for me.
I would have to say—this is gonna sound crazy, but I would have to say Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album.
Baillee: On the topic of aliens, do you have any superstitions or irrational fears?
Eric: I have one that, that I don't think I've ever said this out loud, but in this era of social media and life experience—life experiences, too, where we see people that, that take a tumble, may fall—it doesn't have to be a person that's on stage, or you know, performing, and they fall. It could be just anything in life.
I don't laugh because, I'm on stage all the time, and I just don't want that to happen to me!
Baillee: Yeah, yeah, I get that! So, do you have any guilty pleasures?
Eric: Oh, sweets. It's so funny, everybody that knows me knows—anything sweet, like ice cream, cookies, you know, pastries, beverages, sweet beverages—all that stuff, those are my guilty pleasures.
And if we talk about like television stuff, I'm like a big binge-watcher of television series, and I'm a comic book, comic book nerd from the '60s.
I'm into like all the Marvel stuff, and I just finished like the new Daredevil series, and just started on the new Punisher series. I'm like into all that stuff, and people would probably not know that unless you know me very well.
Baillee: Tell me something on your bucket list.
Eric: Two places that are on my bucket list that I've never been in my travels, and I've had opportunities, and for whatever reason.
Japan is one that is on my bucket list. I want to go to Tokyo, and I just really want to experience the culture and the people, so that's high on my bucket list, as well as South Africa. I've never been to Africa before.
Baillee: Next question, what is some life advice that someone has given you that you've never forgotten?
Eric: When I was a younger musician, I ran a show at Stanford University, and we opened up for a musician who has now become a very, very good friend, but at the time we had never met... He's a legendary saxophone player in the jazz world, his name's Kirk Whalum, and I was just,
A few weeks later, after meeting him, I sent him an email, and I said to him, you know, "I feel like I've been working at this for so many years, and my career hasn't taken off, and I'm wondering why. What am I doing wrong?"
And at that time, Kirk was on top of the world, and his star was rising, he was really, really popular... He simply said, you know, "Everything happens in God's time, and God's timing is perfect," and I never forgot that, and I never from that point on questioned, "Why am I not where I think I should be?"
I realized that I am where I should be, and that whatever happens happens in God's time. So that's probably the most valuable advice I've ever gotten.
Baillee: Here is the last question. What does Alabama need?
Eric: Man, we need more unity. We need more love, we need more understanding between all of the people here. There is a lot already, but we need more, and I think that there's a lot of division in our world and in our country and in our state.
We just need more love, togetherness, unity, and understanding of each other as individuals. We're all God's children, we're all human beings, we're all people first and foremost, and we have to remember that and show love for one another.
Baillee: That's it for today's Quick-Fire Quips, a questionnaire where we get to know people who stand out in the state of Alabama. That was Birmingham musician and contemporary jazz guitarist Eric Essix. I'm your host, Baillee Majors. Find us at APR.org for more Quick-Fire Quips!
