"I try to make people have a trip though my music. The goal is to make them stop thinking about all the alienating stuff in their lives, and just start feeling what’s really there instead of making life projections. Simply put, to give them vacations away from their brain."

Amaury Faivre: Americana Experiences 

Harmonica player, guitarist and singer, Amaury Faivre is an acoustic blues artist, with a 25-year career, more than 1000 concerts, around ten countries and 3 continents. Born in Besançon, France, he first blew into his father's harmonica at the age of 8 and it was only natural that he became passionate about the origins of the blues. He thus escaped the Spice Girls of his adolescence with cassettes of Robert Johnson, Lightning' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker... He then learned jazz and its harmony which would make him a complete improviser. He then began playing guitar and singing, and especially the chromatic harmonica which has since been a major element of his musical personality. His career was launched with a Public Prize at the Jeunesses Musicales de France at the age of 15, and he joined many regional blues, jazz, rock and French song groups. After a degree in Musicology in Besançon and two years of studying jazz guitar at the University of Montreal, he returned to Europe and settled in Geneva. He then founded the duo Electric Hat with Jean Rigo, singer of Les Infidèles, on a repertoire ranging from blues to soul, including rock n'roll and swing. He also began a collaboration with Geneva guitarist Yves Staubitz in the electric blues band Amaury Faivre & the Broken Harps with whom he recorded the album Ol' Days Feel in 2012. Later, Yves followed him into the acoustic band Amaury Faivre Duo. It was with this duo that Amaury discovered a passion and a certain talent for composition, which would lead them to their victory in 2017 of the Swiss Blues Challenge.                           (Amaury Faivre / Photo © by Thierry Wakx)

This prize allowed them to represent Switzerland at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis where they obtained a superb place in the semi-final, and they finished fourth at the European Blues Challenge in Norway. After having been seen alongside an electric blues band, an acoustic duo or a symphony orchestra, he built in the middle of a global pandemic the One Man Blues Show that he is now presenting solo. With this in mind, he released the album 2020, a return to his first very roots folk-blues influences, for which he did not hesitate to grab the banjo and mandolin or hit a cavernous stompbox! His new release "My Americana" (2024) is a road trip crisscrossing the roads of the United States, a tribute to this typically American style of music that mixes blues, bluegrass and classic rock. Amaury Faivre is the emotion of the blues, the freedom of jazz and the energy of punk, a rare mastery of the harmonica which allows him to offer an intense and moving, surprising and sincere show.

Interview by Michael Limnios                  Archive: Amaury Faivre, 2021 interview

What characterize your music philosophy? What's the balance in music between technical skills and soul/emotions?

My relation with composition is based on improvisation. Every song I write comes from a musical idea that was discovered while improvising with my guitar or harmonica. I then develop this idea to make it grow into a song. So I would say the first impulse comes from an emotion, and skill and knowledge comes further at the stage of putting together the ideas. As to playing skills, like a woodworker always sharpens his tool before working, technical skill is your tool to express what you feel like expressing in your music.

Currently you’ve one release with American Roots music. How did that relationship come about? Do you have any interesting stories about the making of the new album "My Americana"?

Americana music always appealed to me even before I knew it was a true genre with a name. I always played and composed mixing Blues, Country or Rock music, and so it was very natural to me to write an album with all these influences.

After the release of my solo album 2020, one thing I knew is that I wanted to record a new one with a full rhythm section. I looked in my drawer and found 5 or 6 old songs of mine that never found a place in the former albums, especially because they required this heavier orchestration. So, I took them as a base for the album, and found out they had this American Roots music connection between one another. I composed the rest of the album, and it naturally got named «My Americana».

"So, the music revelation I hope for would be that people realize that the best way to be moved is through the simplicity of a small venue and not in big stadiums with huge impersonal sounds and lightings. But I am not sure it is going this way…" (Amaury Faivre / Photo © by Yannick Perrin)

What has made you laugh and what touched you from your road trip crisscrossing the roads of the United State?

I first learnt to speak English as a teenager by listening to the 20’s to 40’s acoustic Mississippi blues singers, so my English accent was a bit strange back then. The road trip I did started from Montreal in Canada, all the way down to New Orleans, through Chicago, Saint-Louis, Memphis, and the way back through Nashville, Washington and New York. The funny thing is that the deeper into the south we drove, the easier it was for the locals to understand my accent!

In your opinion, what is the biggest music revolution which can be realized today? What do you think the major changes will be in near or far future of the world?

I am not very optimistic as to the future of music, especially one of recorded music. I always have been a true lover of acoustic music, and I see the part of acoustic instruments in the industry grow smaller and smaller each year. I find it sad because the frail sound of acoustic instruments is a direct path to one’s heart and emotions. Its imperfections make a bridge with the smallness of our lives. It’s to me the exact opposite of the powerful, clean and perfect electronic sounds you can find in modern music.

So, the music revelation I hope for would be that people realize that the best way to be moved is through the simplicity of a small venue and not in big stadiums with huge impersonal sounds and lightings. But I am not sure it is going this way…

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music paths?

My greatest learning is through playing one day after another. Improvising is a good way to progress all along your life. I try not to plan my shows too much, so that there is always a place for new and unpredicted things to happen. I love this impression of floating over the crowd, like a sailor who looks around to discover where he has to go. It forces me to discern what the audience needs to hear and what I need to do to make the best of the situation.

What do you hope people continue to take away from your songs/music? What musicians have continued to inspire you and your music and lyrics?

I try to make people have a trip though my music. The goal is to make them stop thinking about all the alienating stuff in their lives, and just start feeling what’s really there instead of making life projections. Simply put, to give them vacations away from their brain.

"Americana music always appealed to me even before I knew it was a true genre with a name. I always played and composed mixing Blues, Country or Rock music, and so it was very natural to me to write an album with all these influences."

(Amaury Faivre / Photo © by Christophe Losberger)

What were the reasons that you started "One Man Band" researches and experiments? What has been the hardest obstacle for you to overcome as a person and as artist and has this helped you become a better One Man Band performer/musician?

Funny thing, I started the solo project on demand from concert organizers. It was not planned at all, and I found out that I liked it very much, that the freedom it gave me offered me the opportunity to be very true to my own musicality. The hardest obstacle I encounter so far has been, as for many people, the 2020 pandemic crisis, because of the lack of work during three long years. But it was at this moment I launched my One Man Blues Show, so good thing is I had plenty of times to prepare for it!

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