Bruno Blum (born October 4, 1957, Vichy, France) is a French singer songwriter, guitar player, music producer and musicologist sometimes nicknamed "Doc Reggae". He is mostly known for his work in the reggae, Caribbean music, rock music and African musics fields, and also works as a cartoon and comic book artist, illustrator, visual artist, photographer, video director, writer, journalist, music historian, interpreter and speaker.
An eclectic character On the back cover of his extensive Electric Dandy Lou Reed biography, his publisher introduced him in the following words: "A musician and producer, illustrator and speaker, and a legendary music journalist for Best Magazine, Bruno Blum lived in London during the reggae-punk years." Originally renowned as the enfant terrible of French rock critics based in London in 1977–1982, Bruno Blum started out in teenage punk group Private Vices in London in 1977–81. He gradually embodied an adventurer-musician globe-trotter figure, a free-spirited, astute lyric writer and a remarkable guitar player,Hear Bruno Blum playing Sweet Little Fifteen and watch him play Vent du Sud : as well as a historian of English-speaking popular music, photographer and skilled graphic artist. A fully bilingual (English-French) vegan and ecologist, he has lived without drugs or alcohol for over twenty years. In the "Human Race" CD booklet, a Blum production, noted American reggae historian Roger Steffens described him as "a virtuosic polymath" and concluded: "An artist, producer, director, archivist, musician as well as author of and contributor to dozens of books [including 'Jamaïque, sur la piste du reggae,' where Blum tells his own account of his musical adventures in Jamaica], Doc Reggae stands supreme among France's reggae chroniclers in his perceptive observations and the impressive variety of his accomplishments, not the least of which can be found on the album you now hold."
Musician As a teenage bass player with Private Vices he was part of the late 1970s London punk movement and was later the first French musician to record and release dub music, as well as afrobeat. He has released several French songs albums (including the classic reggae album Nuage d'Éthiopie) in a wide variety of styles. "Viens Fumer un P'tit Joint à la Maison," a reggae pastiche of the drinking hit song "Viens Boire un P'tit Coup à la Maison" obtained over four million views on YouTube. His versions of Bob Marley's "War" also adapted in French as "Guerre," was another couple of hits. A Blum-produced version of "War" featuring a duet between Haile Selassie and Bob Marley reached number one in British magazine Black Echoes charts in April 1998 and remains an enduring reggae classic. Blum is known, among other things, for his work with the press-acclaimed Asmara All Stars and on Serge Gainsbourg's two studio reggae albums, which he has produced new mixes of, as well as dub and deejay versions in 2003. He also produced a definitive mix of Serge Gainsbourg's Gainsbourg Et Cætera Palace live album in 2006. In 2015 two "Super DeLuxe" triple CD sets were released in the form of books: Gainsbourg and the Revolutionaries (Gainsbourg's three reggae albums in the Blum mixes form, including 8 previously unreleased tracks) and Gainsbourg in Dub, which contains 50 previously unreleased dubs. As a producer he mixed eight Bob Marley & The Wailers tracks included on the Freedom Time album. He also released his own dub work, much of it done in Jamaica, on his Sophisticated Love album by Dub De Luxe. First and foremost a singer-songwriter in the French tradition, Blum also performs steadily with his rock/soul/blues and reggae bands as a singer and lead guitar player.
His work often includes a touch of humor, and his art complements his Jamaica, Nigeria and USA-inspired music. Influenced by the electric, genuine analog sound and militant spirit of the 1970s, his wide array of works melt into a coherent whole, where different styles are approached in true eclectic fashion. Alternatively playing blues, dub (which he often mixes himself on analog sound boards), rock, jazz, afrobeat, reggae, etc. His French ("Guerre") and English versions of Bob Marley's "War" recorded with the Wailers gave him some international exposure and recognition.
He also created Human Race Records, a vinyl record label in Jamaica. According to Roger Steffens in the Human Race anthology booklet notes, he is an "independent polymath thriving on passion" and always funded his own recordings, which put forward his individual, idiosyncratic lyric style.
He occasionally records "updated" pastiches of well-known songs in both English and French, including I Feel-Like-I'm-A-Fixin'-To-Die Rag,Watch the video of Bruno Blum's 'updated' version of "I Feel-Like-I'm-A-Fixin'-To-Die Rag": the Viens fumer un p'tit joint à la maison hit and satirical songs such as "Ça Bouge (sur la place Rouge)". His own French songs output often displays puzzling double-entendre lyrics. In 2015, he formed Cabaret Végane, the first all-vegan group, releasing an album of mostly original songs the following year and playing several shows in Paris, singing with female singer Joy Gross, who stars in 'Clémentine est végane,' a hit music video on Facebook; (also in English as 'Clementine Is a Vegan'). Following the demise of the record industry, Bruno Blum was also one of the first French musicians to release most of his output on brunoblum.bandcamp.com, where most of his recordings can be heard.
Writer, musicologist Besides his extensive work as a lyric writer, Blum has completed a master's degree in music, musicology, creation and society and speaks worldwide on the history of reggae music, African musics and other rock and blues culture-related subjects as well as veganism. His reggae lectures come with his reggae photography exhibition. In 2013 he was awarded a Prix Coup de Cœur de l'Académie Charles Cros for his 3CD set and booklet for Jamaica Folk, Trance, Possession - Roots of Rastafari 1939–1961, and in 2021 a Prix Coup de Cœur Musiques du Monde de l'Académie Charles Cros for his Les Musiques des Caraïbes set.
Written in a lively style, several of his books on music history give him an authority status in the French-speaking world. These include Lou Reed, Bob Marley and John Lennon biographies, best-seller Le Reggae, a fully illustrated Jamaican travel journal autobiography and a major contribution to best-selling Le Dictionnaire du Rock. His bilingual English-French documented music reissues (he runs three series of documented CD box sets for Frémeaux & Associés for which he wrote substantial, informative ethnomusicologic booklets) have become scholar references. Major Bob Marley & the Wailers reissues with U.S. partner Roger Steffens have also given him some international recognition. He is often working as an interpreter, has published many translations and texts in English, including English versions of his many Frémeaux & Associés booklets, translated six books including Bruce Conforth's award-winning Robert Johnson biography and has also directed several documentaries for television. In addition, Blum has moved on and published two substantial surveys on societal issues: his book Shit! Tout Sur Le Cannabis includes an autobiographical chapter and the 2016 De Viandard à Végane is written in the form of an autobiography depicting his growing awareness of veganism through his musical career. Perhaps his most important effort in the musicology field is the book Les Musiques des Caraïbes, which extensively depicts the history of each Caribbean island's original music before the 1960s 'big mix.' Each chapter of the book is based on a CD box set booklet originally released by Frémeaux & Associés and later extended for the book purpose, which allows the reader to listen to each chapter's contents. Forewords by Roger Steffens and French ex-Minister of Justice of Guyane origin Christiane Taubira complement this major undertaking.
Illustrator, cartoonist, artist, photographer, filmmaker Blum has published many cartoons, illustrations and comic strips in several of his books, in U.K. comic books and newspapers as well as a long list of French magazines, including Best, Actuel, L'Environnement Magazine, Panda Magazine and Hara-Kiri. Perhaps his most significant work as a graphic artist is his 150-page Rock And Roll Comics album, a collection of his early comic strips, featuring a popular Motörhead story, done at a time when he played in a London punk rock group and was the London correspondent of French rock magazine Best. This "autobio-graphic novel" includes time period fiction stories, previously unpublished art and also features a substantial chapter of his rock photography.
A prolific artist, besides photography, illustration and comic strips, he has also always produced graphic work meant to be exhibited. He often draws a blurry line between plastic arts and comic strip, as in the "Don't Drink and Drive, Smoke and Fly" series (see picture above) where the story jumps out of the pages to become a series of pictures, before going back to its initial, former frame. He has also published illustrated travel books and many satiric cartoons.
As a reporter photographer he has accumulated archives published in several of his books alongside his illustrations. His photo exhibition "Jamaica on the Reggae Tracks" has been shown all over France since 2008. His 2007 book of the same name, Jamaïque sur la piste du reggae features a mix of his photographs, narrative and art. Blum is one of the few photographers who managed to take pictures of nearly all of the British new wave groups, including Buzzcocks, Sex Pistols, the Clash, and many US artists such as Iggy Pop, the Heartbreakers, Johnny Thunders, Devo, David Johansen and Patti Smith as well as several lesser-known groups, as shown in his Fils de Punk photo exhibition premiered at Stereolux in Nantes (France) in March–April 2017. In 2017, he publish an illustrated travel book, Carnets exceptionnels de mes voyages. He has also directed Tenor Saw's classic Ring the Alarm reggae video as well as other videos, and worked as a journalist/director for Tracks, an Arte TV channel show about music culture. His artwork can be seen in the video of his song "Papa Legba," which was directed by Pascal Le Gras (best known for his cover artwork for British post-punk group the Fall). The hit video Clémentine est végane (English version: Clementine Is a Vegan) features some of his art, as well as Le Gras', Mandryka and street artist Invader. He also published several independent animal rights cartoon books.Bruno Blum animal rights cartoons can be seen here: bruno-blum.com
Biography
Early life