Joe Camelleri Says The Black Sorrows' New LPs Honours Icons That Have Passed

"Nick [Smith] and I have been writing songs for the next record," begins the ever-affable Joe Camilleri, The Black Sorrows' frontman. He is explaining the genesis of their latest release, two vinyl LPs, Endless Sleep (Chapter 46) and Endless Sleep (Chapter 47), collections of covers by artists as diverse as Hank Williams and John Coltrane, Mink DeVille and Ray Charles, Warren Zevon and Mississippi Fred McDowell. The common thread is that they've all passed on — hence the albums' titles.

"We had more than enough songs to make another original album," he continues, "but it didn't feel right. Not that the songs were bad — they're not — [last year's album] Certified Blue was quite a successful record from an independent point of view and served me well, but the new songs didn't yet feel like a body of work. So making Endless Sleep made me think about other things, which then gave me the opportunity to go, 'Ah, this is how we're going to go about making this record.' But then I felt quite strongly about the Endless Sleep project. It was just a small idea — the people that I chose have gone to God's orchard."

"Really, all I wanted to do was just record a few songs that had some value."

So rather than make a big deal of the Endless Sleep recordings, Camilleri opted to release them as limited edition vinyl albums, in the spirit of the original records he fell in love with, growing up in the 1960s, as well as some from his contemporaries.

"Really, all I wanted to do was just record a few songs that had some value, not even the songs themselves so much but the inspiration that some of these people that are no longer with us have given not only me but thousands and thousands of listeners, millions of listeners, the joy of having music in their lives. I didn't necessarily pick all my favourite artists. I love the singing of Otis Redding and Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye; Curtis Mayfield's my favourite. I just went, this sounds kind of attractive to me; this meant something to me when I was in the studio. If I'd gone in there on a different day I would have chosen different songs.

"There are so many songs that become part of your DNA. So when I first went in I did a JJ Cale song, Devil In Disguise, a Captain Beefheart song, Too Much Time, and a Skip James. They're poles apart but I've always loved them. With Lou Reed's Dirty Blvd, I just always heard it on the radio. And there are better songs than those in their catalogues but they were the ones in my head, and I like that. I like the fact that this is real. I'm not trying to mine their stuff to 'make a hit record'. I want to write my own songs to have a hit record, thank you very much. So I thought just do the things that are valuable to me — don't overthink it — and it was heartfelt."