DRH in The Commercial Appeal, 1990

BLACK GROUP CROSSES HARD ROCK'S RACIAL LINE

by Ron Wynn


Despite the high profile of such bands as Living Colour and the Bad Brains, black rock groups still are strangers in pop music.

But members of the Atlanta-based Follow for Now not only don't consider themselves a novelty, they don't want to spend time discussing racial issues.

''I didn't grow up thinking about color and music,'' said lead singer David Ryan Harris from Atlanta.

''My father liked jazz and my mother loved swamp blues; the first concert I ever went to see was Gino Vanelli. The music that we play is straight-ahead, burning rock; that's what we like and we didn't make any kind of attempt to make a statement by playing it.''

But in today's fragmented society, there's no way Follow for Now wouldn't be viewed as a curiosity. The group, which plays tonight at Six 1 Six, recently signed with Chrysalis Records, and have a debut album coming out next year.

They attracted national attention last year when they opened for Living Colour's Atlanta concert.

Guitarist Vernon Reid was so impressed that he became an unofficial spokesman for the band and has championed them in many national publications.

The band members are all in their early 20s. Besides Harris, other members are vocalist and guitarist Chris Tinsley, keyboardist Billy Fields, bassist Jamie Adams and drummer Enrique.

They've been playing together since 1988 and have profited by being part of the steadily growing Atlanta music scene.

Harris describes the band's sound as ''Sly Stone meets Black Sabbath,'' and a listen to their demo supports that description.

There are funk underpinnings and references, but overall what they play is high-voltage, boisterous rock with themes and messages that alternate between careful examinations of social problems and standard youth rebellion and teen angst.

While he says the group's primary audience at the moment is white males, Harris feels the band has gained a lot of converts in the black community.

''The reactions to our music are interesting from both black and white audiences. A lot of whites who first see us think we're going to do Kool and the Gang. Then, after they hear us, they're really impressed.

''We get asked a lot by blacks why we're doing music that has no connections to the black community. But if they listen carefully, they'll hear grooves and rhythms, they're just not the kind of things that black groups are supposed to play.

''I think that we're starting to break down some of the barriers that people put up because of race, and that's something we're happy about because we've never believed you had to be a certain color to like a certain kind of music.''

Just how much progress they've made reaching across the color line won't be clear until next year, when their LP comes out.

But Follow for Now deserves praise for making the attempt and refusing to accept the industry's definition of what they should record and how they should sound.


***Thanks to Furious Rose for submitting this interview.