Erika Luckett – A Soul That Feeds World Music

“Carlos Santana was just down the hall,” Erika Luckett said, “It was good energy.” Luckett was just finishing up her latest album at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley, California. The Grammy award winning and Academy award nominated singer/songwriter is truly a world wonder. Her roots follow the latitudes of the globe, and her rhythms originate from the heart of the Amazon to Mexico City, and to Paris, and many points in between.

Luckett will perform in Door County at 7:30 on July 21 at the Junction Center (3433 Junction Road outside of Jacksonport; $8 at the door. 920.823.3763 for information).

Born in Mexico City, her family moved to Columbia when she was four years old. From there they moved to Brazil, then Venezuela as her father followed jobs in the agricultural industry. “We moved to a portal city in the Amazon Basin,” Luckett said. “The Panare Indians would come up to me in loin cloths and beaded necklaces and sewn baskets. I was 13; it was an amazing experience.” Luckett experience the collision of cultures, the modern and primitive. “There we were with TVs and VCRs and it was up against this ancient way of being.” Luckett has an innate sense to listen, and the jungle was an early inspiration to her. She heard and learned different languages, and found the similarities and contrasts in people and places.

“When you walk through the world with your eyes and ears open, everything comes in and influences and absorbed into your subconciousness,” Luckett said. This bundle of experience is now translated to others through her own style of world music. Her influences are to numerable to count, and she dare not try. “To unstitch the different elements is a laborious task; what ever phrasing you heard feeds into your ears and expands what your music is. Everything becomes an influence.” And she just doesn’t dwell on her influences, she doesn’t have to; her music is like water, like air, like nourishment – it is necessary and rich and alive. “What is it like to walk down a hot dusty street and eat fresh mangos? That comes out in the music.” Her ear takes in the polyrythmic sounds from her equatorial visits, and incorporates the rich human and animal percussive sounds from her jungle moments. These are contrasted with what she calls the openness of European music. “In France I was introduced to so much West African music. And So much of the music that came to South America was from Africa. A lot of the Algerian and Moraccan melodies translate interweave into the whole scene in Paris expressing the universiality of people.”

Her career may seem like a blur: bands and albums, travel and experience. She earned a degree in film scores from Boston’s School of Music Berekely, and delved into the soundtrack side of the film industry. “I enjoyed that, but ultimately it became clear that writing music for films has a certain kind of isolation,” she said. “I recognized I love having the chance to create a live experience, the circuit created between artist and audience. It is unique and powerful.”

Luckett is a wonderful solo musical ambassador. Her poly-linguistic talent enriches her performances. “I think the way I’ve experienced language is that it is just another instrument, one with an inherent cadence and timbre to it.” She tours America right now, and half expected the larger cities to be more accepting of her blend of English, French and Spanish words. She was surprised to find that the smaller, off the beaten track places were hungry for the diversity she offers. “I’ve noticed it’s received all over. People enjoy being brought into this other world without having to leave their home or the theater.”

Her audiences go with her; they have the familiarity of the English, but then willingly go with her into the other languages as she sings styled songs that may only be understood through the rhythms and melodies. “You realize that if you’re expressing it in other languages it all still works. As humans we want the same things – we want to be loved and love.”