Lazer Lloyd calls himself a blues therapist. That’s how strongly the Israeli guitarist believes in the curative power of the blues.
“Everyone, whether they know it or not, has a broken heart,” says Lloyd, 47. “The blues is a combination of stepping into this total brokenness, this desperation, and at the same time being in a state of joy.”
Lloyd will bring his Israeli-flavored blues to San Francisco with debut Bay Area performances 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23 at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco.
His music really is Israeli-flavored: Besides the fact that he resembles a bearded, fedora-topped Hassid, his original blues tunes often feature an unusual guitar tuning close to the Phrygian mode that typifies Middle Eastern music.
“For me, the first blues singer is King David,” says Lloyd, who lives in Beit Shemesh. “In the Psalms, he’s singing the blues: His sons are trying to kill him; he’s got women problems.”
Modern-day Israelis get it, too. Most nights, Lloyd performs in clubs and concert halls in Israel. When the Connecticut native moved to Israel in 1994, he found next to no blues scene, but in the years since, blues has become an Israeli club staple.
Though he married an Israeli woman, fathered five children and speaks fluent Hebrew, Lloyd found he just couldn’t sing the blues in anything other than the King’s English.
B.B. King, that is.
Over the years, Lloyd has appeared on Israeli television, recorded several albums and toured extensively across Europe, Russia and North America. He never knows just what he’ll play in any given concert. Instead, he decides on the spur of the moment.
“Anything that’s 1-4-5 and has a deep groove works for me,” he says, referring to standard blues chord changes. “My moods change, and each groove does something different. I can’t be someone who plays just Chicago blues or Texas blues all night. It gets boring.”
Born Lloyd Blumen and raised in a secular Jewish household, Lloyd first heard blues on his father’s record player. As a teen, he formed his own band, inspired by heroes such as B.B. King and Buddy Guy. Later he worked as a studio musician in New York and Nashville, but he strived for something more artistically meaningful.
One night in 1994, Lloyd landed a gig playing with the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, a progenitor of the Jewish Renewal movement and a prolific Jewish music composer. Carlebach invited Lloyd to play with him in Israel. “I just fell in love” with the Jewish state, he recalls.
Not long after that visit, Lloyd decided to make Israel his permanent home. At first he struggled, to the point of pawning his guitars. But over time he found his way, musically and spiritually.
“[After making aliyah] I got into the Hassidic teachings,” he says. “I didn’t want shallow hippyism. I wanted to fix my soul internal.”
Lloyd joined the seminal Israeli jam band Reva L’Sheva and played with them for a decade before going off on his own. He mastered every style — from the acoustic Delta blues of Mississippi John Hurt to the electric big city sound of Muddy Waters.
In his travels, he met many great bluesmen, and found commonalities between them and the Hassidic masters who taught him the ways of Judaism.
“I hung out with old blues guys in Chicago,” he says, “and there’s a real humility there, something you see when you hang out with the holy people.”
Lloyd’s upcoming gig near S.F.’s Union Square will be his first in the Bay Area. He’s looking forward to it, as well as shows in Carmichael (near Sacramento), Los Angeles and Seattle.
But he will be most happy to return to his homeland, which he believes is the perfect place to play the blues.
“Israel is the center of the world’s pain,” he says, “so you’re really in tune to it. You see before your eyes the center of fate. After 2,000 years here we are, the Jewish people in the land of Israel.”
Lazer Lloyd performs at 7 and 9 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 23, at Biscuits and Blues, 401 Mason St., S.F. $20. (415) 292-2583 or www.biscuitsandblues.com