BJ: Since I mentioned Prince a little earlier, when listening to your music I can see that Prince may have been an inspiration for a lot of your music. I can also sense a little bit of D’Angelo in there as well. What music acts have you heard people try to compare you to? Also who would you say would be your biggest influence with your music?
Dolphin: Thank you…those comparisons are humbling. When I was younger my parents were heavy into soul and blues – Al Green, ZZ Hill, Denise LaSalle, James Brown, Otis Redding, Fats Domino, and even Little Richard. Beyond their personal record collection I had to find out about funk, punk, rock, metal, and folk on my own. All these things had influence. I clearly remember spending hours just looking at the album covers. However, it wasn’t until I started meeting other musicians, artists, and people who thought like me that I learned about Coltrane, Hendrix, George Benson, Joy Division, the Beatles, Taj Mahal, Miles Davis etc.
I’m also a visual artist, painting and drawing, etc. Experiencing various forms in color and texture really inspired me to learn and try to create in various ways. I have always been more into older musicians like Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderly, Nick Drake, and Joni Mitchell – so I don’t draw much inspiration from most modern musicians, but Prince, QTip, Terence Trent Darby, David Bowie and Jay Dee aka Dilla were some of the biggest influences on me in terms of modern musicianship. I think many of the same older musicians have inspired us in common like Sly, Marvin, and James Brown and so on.
Dolphin’s “Electric Horsemen” Music Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOCZICmzKck
What’s interesting is that my biggest influences actually aren’t musical at all. Bruce Lee and his discipline made an impression on me at a very young age. I read his Art of Kung Fu and it changed my life. The same can be said about the Autobiography of Malcolm X as told to Alex Haley.
Two very early direct influences were Mr. Fields, a local numbers runner in our hood. He would take me along on his pick ups and one day he asked me “what do you want to do with your life” and I replied “music”. The next day he gave me my first instrument, a keyboard belonging to his son who had just passed. The other would be Dr. MacMillan, the band director for the jazz orchestra and marching band in high school. He allowed me to play bass for the ensemble despite the fact I couldn’t read music. He hired a bass player to play the parts with me. She would play with the Orchestra and I would sit in the back of the room and just listen., memorize the sections of the songs and then play them back. He turned me on to jazz, Be Bop, classical, etc. He would critique the songs I would record at home on a four track. Because of this arrangement he allowed me to use his practice rooms for most of my high school years, practicing piano, guitar, drums, and using it as rehearsal space for my bands. He was the first professional musician who ever took me seriously. Dr. MacMillan was arguably the first person who believed in me as an artist besides Mr. Fields. Talk about massive influence.
BJ: What’s next on your horizon?
Dolphin: My EP entitled Sunrooms is out now and can be found at Bamalovessoul.com. It will also be available at my website and blog – wardolphin.com. From there I have another 3 song release coming through FreshSelects.net. I was just featured on a new album by the electro-rock band Koala out of Antwerp/Brussels, Belgium which just came out in November and we are planning to record together again for their fourth release. Last year there were 5 one hour radio specials featuring my work on the BBC, CBC, and various internet radio shows and I plan to do a few more.
I will also be releasing several albums on vinyl exclusively through my website at wardolphin.com. Most of my followers are in Europe and Canada but hopefully I will introduce some of this work here in the states. I’ll be filming more this year various videos and a few films. I just finished a six song video set called “The Love War: 30 Mins of Light” and a short documentary to support my acoustic albums. The performances are live, shot in 16 mm supershot at the now defunct Punk Rock club The Hexagon. Both can be found at my website wardolphin.com/blogspot.
So far this year I’m wrapping up 4 new album projects which should be ready for release in just a few weeks. I have made over 20 albums available for free at wardolphin.com and album sales at my site have been good the last two years so this year who knows?
Dolphin has decided to give us an exclusive mix that we can share with all our readers. Click here to turn the page and listen to and then download some of his music for free.
