"People like Howlin' Wolf, Bob Dylan, The Rolling Stones, John Lee Hooker, Nina Simone, Captain Beefheart - all of these artists were what I grew up listening to every day of my life. And there's a very healthy music scene in the west country of England, where I grew up"
About this Quote
Harvey isn’t name-dropping to decorate her taste; she’s building an origin story with teeth. The lineup is a map of bruised voices and unruly forms: Howlin’ Wolf and Hooker’s raw blues authority, Dylan’s literate bite, Nina Simone’s moral force, the Stones’ borrowed-and-supercharged swagger, Captain Beefheart’s art-damaged abrasion. Put together, it sketches a childhood soundtrack that prizes friction over polish. The subtext is clear: if her music feels stark, physical, occasionally confrontational, that isn’t a phase or a pose - it’s inheritance.
What makes the quote work is the way it collapses distance between “canon” and “local.” She invokes global icons, then pivots to the West Country scene, refusing the usual story that serious music only incubates in big-city mythologies like London, New York, or LA. That pivot is quietly political. It claims that a rural English upbringing can be porous to Black American blues, to avant-garde weirdness, to protest and poetics - and that those influences don’t arrive as museum pieces, but as daily sustenance.
There’s also a strategic humility in the phrasing: “grew up listening” rather than “was influenced by.” It frames her artistry as lived habit, not curated education. In a culture that loves to police authenticity - especially for a white British artist drawing from blues lineage - Harvey plants her credibility in attention and immersion, while nodding to community: a “healthy scene” that suggests she wasn’t just consuming music, she was being formed by it.
What makes the quote work is the way it collapses distance between “canon” and “local.” She invokes global icons, then pivots to the West Country scene, refusing the usual story that serious music only incubates in big-city mythologies like London, New York, or LA. That pivot is quietly political. It claims that a rural English upbringing can be porous to Black American blues, to avant-garde weirdness, to protest and poetics - and that those influences don’t arrive as museum pieces, but as daily sustenance.
There’s also a strategic humility in the phrasing: “grew up listening” rather than “was influenced by.” It frames her artistry as lived habit, not curated education. In a culture that loves to police authenticity - especially for a white British artist drawing from blues lineage - Harvey plants her credibility in attention and immersion, while nodding to community: a “healthy scene” that suggests she wasn’t just consuming music, she was being formed by it.
Quote Details
| Topic | Music |
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