Ranky Tanky honors Gullah culture with Grammy-nominated album

Clay Ross: Thank you so much. Yeah, we’re super honored.

Clay Ross: If ever a regional roots group could have rock star status, it would be because of these guys. I don’t know what you think, Kev, are you surprised?

Kevin Hamilton: Yeah, I mean, I’m surprised. But at the same time, though, we all go way back and we’ve had that kind of response, even locally in town where when we play gigs, you know, it’s usually a celebration.

Kevin Hamilton: Well, Gullah as a term, there are different theories about the actual term. They would say that it descends from Angola. But then also, there’s a tribe called the Gullah that was also speculated to be the origin of the slaves that came from Africa.

Clay Ross: Yeah, Gullah is essentially the music and culture, the way of life, of the descendants of formerly enslaved Africans in America. It’s a very unique and distinct African American culture, an African diaspora culture in the Americas. Because of the relative isolation of the islands, the culture has really survived and thrived in a very distinct way. So it’s a real heartland of American music and it’s become an informant to all styles of American music — from rock’n’roll to jazz to blues to bluegrass — all of these styles can trace influences to the African American experience and the overall African American experience can track trace roots to Gullah.

Clay Ross: It’s probably a little bit of both. Would you say, Kevin?

Kevin Hamilton: Yeah, especially now more so. There are different societies that do keep traditions alive. As [it’s been] coming onto the scene, there’s been more attention paid to it. I guess the best way to look at it, honestly, is in the churches of the south, that’s really where you see it most of it.

Kevin Hamilton: A little bit of both, I think. When Clay brought the idea to the band, coming from playing together and also from our backgrounds, it’s so inherent in what we do anyway that I think the first question we asked was: Why? Why do you want to? Because we were already doing it. Clay in his travels with protestant bands, he was able to see the cultural impact of different types of music being put in different parts of the world. He saw that people didn’t really know about where we came from and he saw the beauty in what we do, and his idea was to bring us together and play, maybe, 10 shows a year and have a little showcase. But then also on top of that, it was conscious and unconscious. We’re going to do it anyway because that’s how we play and how we interact. But at the same time, it became a mission, once you saw the reaction of people and how people wanted to share their stories with us. It was kind of hand-in-hand, it’s the best answer I can give.

Clay Ross: Yeah, I also think that there is an inherent integrity that happens when we play together and the values that we all strive for and that we all hold. I think that because the people that are involved in this project are among the most respected artists in our community and they work very hard to champion everything that they do in music with very strong integrity, it is going to happen by default that we’re going to honor this music and the culture of the descendants that are in this band with integrity. And even as close as I am to it, as a disciple of the music and not a descendant of the culture, I brush up against it sometimes and I find myself maybe offering some ideas that aren’t OK with everybody. And everybody makes it clear, it’s in love, but yeah, that’s not going to work, because that’s maybe not how we do it in the culture.

Kevin Hamilton: I do. But the running joke in the band is actually that while I have that background, I was raised Catholic. So, there is a part of it, when I play and interact with other guys in the band like Quentin and Charlton, I get it, we have a connection that way. But I wasn’t necessarily raised with all of the songs in the hymns. I heard it more like second-hand through other sources, but I don’t go to church that way.

Kevin Hamilton: It’s a little bit of both. Take a tune like “Stand by me,” there are definitely things that are with this Gullah, you know, the clap, the actual rhythm, the accents, even the title of the tune, and I can trace that back to just certain things I’ve heard growing up. It’s almost like a vernacular speech like talking to my grandmother or something, there’s just a certain rhythm to it.

Clay Ross: Big time. Honestly, that’s what brought me to the idea of wanting to do this project. It was a journey. It’s this huge circuitous journey in my life, in music. And when Quentin and I play these rhythms, and Kevin, it’s like a wonderful synergy happens. It’s beautiful.

Clay Ross: Yeah. I think that the core rhythm that you’ll hear — and you hear this in so many cultures — you hear it in Argentinian tango, you hear it in Brazilian Baiao, you hear it in music in Morocco as well, all the way in the far East, and it’s just a simple syncopated beat. You know, you could hear a style of music called Coco from Brazil. It’s a shared human language.

Kevin Hamilton: Yeah, yeah. On one side, in fact, it gets to a point where we can’t have enough shows, really. On one side, you have an older crowd, people that are into cultural artists, that kind of thing. But also, we played recently in a [music] festival — it was a huge, young crowd and they were just as enthusiastic.

Clay Ross: Thanks, Marco, we are big fans. Thanks for having us. Thank you.