Radical folkster Eric Bibb talks about sleeve art

FOLK, ROOTS and blues veteran Eric Bibb, whose "Black & White" is currently in the Cross Rhythms Top 10, gave an interview published in the April edition of Britain's Echoes magazine. The native New Yorker, who now lives in Stockholm, Sweden, spoke about the artwork on his latest album 'Ridin''. "It's a painting by a man named Eastman Johnson, who did it, I think, right in the middle of the American Civil War. It is a painting of a father, a mother and a child - African Americans fleeing bondage on horseback. It's a beautiful painting. It got me thinking about the Freedom Riders - y'know, those students from places like New York and Chicago who would risk their lives going to the South in the '60s to help people to register to vote and the painting is all that really; it's pushing ahead to achieve some kind of society where we are all free from systemic racism, abuse and exploitation."