Ben & Ellen Harper On World Cafe

XPN

Published May 9, 2014 at 4:05 PM MDT

Ben Harper and his mother, Ellen Harper.

In honor of Mother's Day, World Cafe welcomes singer Ben Harper and his mother Ellen, who've just released an album together titled Childhood Home.

Alongside his band The Innocent Criminals, Ben Harper has been making powerful, blues-influenced rock records since 1992. The most recent, Get Up! — which he recorded with harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite — won the 2014 Grammy Award for Best Blues Album.

His mother, Ellen Harper, has been singing and writing all her life. Her own parents opened the Claremont Folk Music Center and Museum in California in 1958; she and Ben practically grew up there. Ellen Harper now manages the folk-music mecca.