In the wake of the Cuban Revolution in the ’50s, foreign music (and Western rock in particular) was blocked from radio and TV by President Fidel Castro for its subversive influence. Up until U.S.-Cuban relations thawed last year, musicians wanting to tour Cuba were pretty much SOL, aside from a few rare exceptions.
Audioslave made history in 2005 as one of the first American bands to play Cuba after the revolution, and in March, The Rolling Stones became the first major international band to perform there following the loosened restrictions. But technically, the laws haven’t changed. General tourism is still off-limits, and even though license applications to the Treasury are no longer required, the old system’s rules still apply, and travel is only permitted when related to specific purposes — including family visits, journalistic activity, professional research and meetings, educational activities, religious activities, and public performances.
That’s likely why the rock ‘n’ roll floodgates haven’t really burst open, though a few indie acts have begun trickling through.
Among those is Tampa's One Trip Little.
Local musician Justin Little started the project as an outlet for material that didn’t quite fit within the driving punk ‘n’ roll aesthetic of his main band, Redliners. “I always write on acoustic, it’s always been my starting point,” he says. “And I was writing these songs that were a lot more lyrical, that were more like storytelling songs. It was kind of a return to the stuff I was doing in college, in North Carolina.”
He’s referencing his formative years in Greenville, where his family settled after leaving Dunedin and where he soaked up rural folk sounds while tooling around the scene and playing house parties with artists like the Avett Brothers (then an indie-rock group known as “Nemo”). “They’d pull out the banjos and do bluegrass sets,” he says.
He dove into the Tampa Bay scene upon his return here in 2001, answering a Creative Loafing want ad for a bassist. “But I showed up with a guitar and got the gig anyway,” he laughs. That band eventually lost a member and became The Redliners in 2003, still together but mostly inactive at present. He also played in the Dead Popes and struck up a musical partnership with upright bass player Gary Knaggs, the only other “official” member of One Trip Little.
With One Trip Little, he plies vintage-hued, gospel-dosed country-roots with upbeat Western swing appeal, his finely pitched vocals reaching twangy baritone lows in the 10 tracks on just-released debut full-length Cheap Bibles. He credits Johnny Cash with turning him on to gospel music via box-set offering My Mother’s Hymn Book. “Initially, I was like, ‘This has got to be the most boring record of the set,’ but as I familiarized myself with these old, old songs, I really started to love them; they just resonated with me, they stuck in my gut.” One of these tracks, “Do Lord,” appears on Cheap Bibles.
One Trip Little is more a project than a fully realized band, which gives Justin the flexibility and freedom to perform in various lineup configurations, or to book shows and tour on his own when no other musicians are available. “Anyone is welcome if they can hold it down,” he says, and the odd guests appear on Cheap Bibles, though he’ll be doing the solo singer-songwriter thing when he heads down to Cuba later this month.
The trip was booked as an educational tour by The Art Institute; Justin was invited to join by girlfriend/AI staffer Liza Stephens. Curious about the Cuban music scene, he did some research and eventually initiated dialogue with a Cuban hardcore band, Arrabio. “We started exchanging ideas and they put me in touch with a cultural exchange organization down there.”
Justin says the organization was extremely amenable to hosting a show while he was in Cuba this June. Of all the things he was told before going down there, certain travel requirements were stressed. The most important? “You have to provide a day-by-day itinerary to the Cuban government, and if you don’t stick to the itinerary, you’re breaking the law,” he explains. “You have to journal your time there, and you have to keep all your receipts, at least five years.”
He’ll be performing at a cultural center in Trinidad on June 24, with Arrabio. “It’s definitely an adventure, but also a little scary. I’m not sure what to expect. I’ve heard the people are nice, but you can’t find a whole lot of info on places because the internet is heavily regulated and it’s hard to communicate via email because of the language barrier.”
He’s looking forward to performing for a Cuban audience and seeing what kind of response he’ll get in a place where English isn’t the first language — or even known much at all by the general public. “I’m wondering how they’ll receive it, if they’ll pick up on the energy level and that’s enough to convey the spirit of the song, or if they’ll see it as a novelty. I’m interested … to see if they’re interested. They might not be,” he laughs.
He’s also excited about the prospect of visiting Cuba before it changes too much. “I think it’s important to go down now, before it’s just open tourism and becomes super commercialized. I think this is the last chance to see Cuba as it was.”
This article appears in Jun 9-16, 2016.