Singer/Songwriter
REV. TRUMAN GOINES
SOURLAND TROUBADOUR
(Rev. Truman Goines AKA: Seth Andrew - Bliggins & Goines), Songwriter, Singer, Pianist, Guitarist.
Rev. Truman Madison Goines, born Seth Andrew Grossman in 1955, played music as a child in the Sourland Mountain Region of central New Jersey, first taking piano and guitar lessons from the famed honky tonker, Harold "Ain't Done Yet" Simpson, at age 3. At 11 years old, guitar in hand, he left the Sourlands for New York City, where he lived under bridges in Central Park. Faced with finding a means to support himself, he was surprised at the numerous steel drum bands that played in the park on weekends and how well they did. He soon began building marimbas out of fallen oak branches, and discovered his propensity for perfect pitch, as he could look at a fallen limb and declare it "C#" just by looking at it. He soon rented hand-built marimbas to the music-lesson yuppies from Queens who descended on the park on weekends to make a little "pot" money, and later as he's says it" began messin' with the piano". His renown grew, and in 1964, was asked to join Lionel Hampton's traveling entourage as a vibe and piano tuner. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and Asia with Hampton, landing in Luang Prabang in 1971.
It was there he met, Xiang Ge Pton, she was Mao Tse Tung's first voice teacher. Pton was a vocalist, specializing in epiglottal throat singing. Goines and Pton fell deeply in love, and in 1973 Goines left Hampton to live with Pton at her monastery in Fu Shang. It is there we lose touch with him, and we term this period (1973- 1985) “The Lost Years”, as we can only assume it was there, under the tutelage of Pton, that Goines studied Zen Buddhism, erhu, and further developed his eclectic and spontaneous vocal style. He became ordained while in Fu Shang in 1984. He turned up in Paris in 1986 playing piano at the Trois Amigos, thickly involved with voodoo and a singer named Patty Foo. Although a political junkie, Foo recognized Seth's potential, and urged him to get a job and cut a CD. The result was "Rumble, Rattle, and Roll", which was recorded in New York City in 1987.
When Patty Foo died in an electrocution accident from an ungrounded microphone in 1987 shortly after the album was recorded, Goines finally took heed of his lost love's advice, got clean and bid adieu to Paris, returning first to New York City, and then to Lambertville, NJ, and in 2001 took a hiatus from the piano, and is now playing a shiny steel body (dobro) guitar. The Right Reverend took up his old moniker, Truman Madison Goines, and began performing in a duo with his old buddy, one Junior Bliggins. Bliggins, a freight-hopping anomaly out of the WPA, has mastered an almost forgotten style of tonsil flailing country harmonica that is reminiscent of the tony quake of Walter "Shaky Legs" Horton enmeshed with the throaty caterwauling of Jet Li. They've dubbed their music "Nuevo 'Fu Shang' Piedmont", and Reverend Goines (AKA: Seth Andrew) describes their music as a combination of New York/New Jersey urban folk and Fu Shang epiglottal coitis-bar country/mountain blues. Their eponymous CD, "The Legend of Bliggins & Goines, Vol.1" was released in 2005, and is followed by a “The Legend of Bliggins & Goines, Vol. 2” released in 2006. Rev. Goines is releasing a solo CD in 2007, “The Legend of Rev. Truman Goines” with a subtitle, "It Can't Hurt to Ask: Living and Loving in the Sourlands". You can learn more about the Rev. Goines and the duo, Bliggins & Goines at revtrumangoines.com, and www.bligginsandgoines.com, and get the CDs at cdbaby.com/bligginsandgoines.
According to Seth Andrew, AKA: Rev. Truman Goines, he is the son of a martial arts teacher and Egyptian royalty, his mother being the second of three children from the Farouk clan. His father, once a renowed Jin Shin Jitsu instructor, turned to crime late in life using his psychic prowess to initiate electronic transfers. He amassed a small fortune and took a job as Aikido instructor on a cruise ship before disappearing somewhere in the Aleutian Island chain in 1986. As Seth Andrew, Rev. Goines’ piano style is more moody than his dobro playing, but both are reminiscent of Professor Long Hair with a taste of traditional Chinese zither. He has also developed one of the more distinct and original vocal styles to appear from this rugged area, utilizing his epiglottal coitis-bar throat song to mimic birdcalls, dust storms and diesel engines heard on his various travels across the Piedmont. A voracious songwriter, Rev. Goines writes and performs songs about escaped scoundrels, loss and love, and other unpublished sagas of New York City, East Timor, and the New Jersey Sourlands.
Growing up amid the largest and last tract of old growth forest in New Jersey, Rev. Goines recalls the sound of the wind as it blew through the tall pines in late Autumn: "It was like your mama murmuring a lullaby." Goines captures the sounds of his youth in such tunes as "Rubies" and "Darling It Just Ain't So". By the age of 14, he was playing at "Hill Billy Hall" in Hopewell, New Jersey where he took the stage name, Truman Goines to avoid being discovered by a bevy of old girlfriends who claimed him to be the father of their children. Says Goines of this phenomena "It jus' could be... I really don't know...". He later picked up gigs throughout the region playing guitar, erhu, tenor guitar, and piano. Influenced by Dr. John, Dave Van Ronk, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Josh White, Jr. Bliggins, Brownie McGhee, Blind Blake, Rev. Gary Davis, William Moore, Willie Walker, Curley Weaver, Blind Willie McTell, Granpa Jones, One-String Frank, Eldridge Cleaver, Sally Fields, Totie Fields, Tootsie, Squeeky Frome, Jack Daniels, Fess Parker, Oprah, Captain Nemo, Vic Morrow, Edie Gorme, Vladimer Putin and Leonard Nimoy, he merges the urban tang with the Piedmont style integrating urban folk, soul and jazz idioms of the region. He remains an enigma, a national treasure and someone with soul and wisdom to just about make your day.
Goines, on his way home late one night after drinking at Hillbilly Hall in East Amwell, sees what he thinks is a meteor streak across the sky and land at the Poor Farm, digging a 500 yard long trench in the field behind the house. Goines investigates, and finds a small kid wrapped in an indestructible blanket, wailing on the harmonica. He picks the kid up, and delivers him to the Lianas, who bring him up as their own. He grows up faster than other kids, and is soon Goines' age. Goines dubs him "Bliggins" after William Bligh, a British naval officer that Goines once did a book report on. His adopted parents named him Bob, Jr. after the pop.