Peter Wolf fans are getting a treat this month, with Peter on the road for eight shows in 12 days. Dennis and I caught him at the Blue Ocean Music Hall in Salisbury on Sunday night. Last time we saw him was in May last year up in Portland, Maine, and I suppose that was the last time I gave him a listen. So it was good to dust off Midnight Souvenirs and Sleepless last week and squeeze them into the Van rotation, getting prepped for the show. Tonight I've got a Peter Wolf mix going on YouTube. You've gotta love YouTube. I think for my next vacation, I am going to take a week off and just watch YouTube. Some of the Peter Wolf videos they have up there are classics. Check out "Come As You Are"for starters, then "Lights Out"-- you'll get an idea of the energy this guy has.
And he brings it all to the stage. A dancing fool, with all the right moves, across the stage and down into the audience for a couple of songs for the ladies. He's got some seriously dedicated fans and they are in full participation mode all night long. Most of them go back to the J Geils days and could sing you every word coming out of Peter's mouth. Too funny ... about halfway through the show, Peter's in locomotion with "Wastin' Time" when all of a sudden, a transformer blows and everything goes dead up on stage. No problem; he turns to the audience and they sing the song through to the end. These guys know their stuff.
It took about half an hour, but they got the band hooked up to auxilliary power and away we went for the second half of the show. I don't know the song, I wish I did, but early in the second set, there was an instrumental featuring the pedal steel and double bass - a nice tribute to both of them. Great band - with Duke Levine on guitar, and on piano, Kenny White, who was also the opening act. Stellar pianist - his hands were a blur in the flourishes - and a captivating song stylist. White produced Peter's last three records, and when they're playing together up on stage, it's easy to see why it works. A big recommend for Kenny White.
As for Peter, he was his typical charged self. From "Must Have Got Lost" and "Love Stinks" to"Riverside Drive," "Nothing But The Wheel" and last year's "Tragedy,"he touched down on points throughout his career. It was an especially nice treat to hear "Women Are Lonely" from 1990's Up To No Good. Altogether, a superb show. Wish you were there!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
tab benoit
I've got to thank Robbie for this one. I think he might have seen Tab at the New Orleans Jazz Festival. Tab's from New Orleans, just another local, as he joked to us on Sunday night. Once again, kudos to Tupelo Music Hall for doing it right one more time.
Tab was in top form - it was like the young Bob Dylan, who would regale his audience with tales between songs. Stories about Buddy Guy ("isn't it cool that he's got two names that mean the same thing - hey, buddy, hey, guy") and courvoisier, crappy fish, and moose horns. We got it all. I don't suppose we came for the stories, but they went down so well, followed by huge swaths of blues guitar. It was a great night of music.
Three member band - Corey Duplechin on bass, Doug Gay on drums, and Tab Benoit on three different guitars. I think all of them were Fender Stratocasters. Maybe a thinline. But I'm out of my league here. All I know is they produced some great bayou blues all night long. All that was missing was a harp. The first song in was an RnB number, and it seemed like these guys were picking up where James Hunter left off a couple of weeks ago in the same room, taking it a few notches higher.
His guitar reminds me of Albert King and his voice is like Otis Redding. Or at least it was tonight. He even sang "These Arms of Mine," and it was a bit uncanny really. That was well into the set, though. The table had been well set.
Before tonight, I didn't know a thing about Tab Benoit except for a one night crash course on YouTube last week. Fat lot of good it did me ... when he called out for requests, do you think I could remember the one song I'd had on repeat - it had New Orleans or Louisiana in the title, but I drew a blank, and basically hoped he'd sing it anyways, without any prompts from me. (No such luck.)
He's got real style on the guitar - very tasty - no gimmicks, just straight away. Born and bred, his songs are set deep in the bayou - I was going to say very earthy, but I guess the term in Cajun country is "swampy." He was definitely swampy. "Sac au Lait Fishing" and "We Make A Good Gumbo" - how more swampy can you get? He traveled up through the delta and beyond in "The Blues Is Here To Stay," where he namechecks just about everybody from Elmore James and Bobby Blue Bland to Stevie Ray and T Bone Walker. In the end, it was just straight blues all night long.
One thing is sure, I'll be timing my visit to New Orleans when Tab Benoit is there.
The song I couldn't remember? "New Orleans Ladies," just for the ladies.
Tab was in top form - it was like the young Bob Dylan, who would regale his audience with tales between songs. Stories about Buddy Guy ("isn't it cool that he's got two names that mean the same thing - hey, buddy, hey, guy") and courvoisier, crappy fish, and moose horns. We got it all. I don't suppose we came for the stories, but they went down so well, followed by huge swaths of blues guitar. It was a great night of music.
Three member band - Corey Duplechin on bass, Doug Gay on drums, and Tab Benoit on three different guitars. I think all of them were Fender Stratocasters. Maybe a thinline. But I'm out of my league here. All I know is they produced some great bayou blues all night long. All that was missing was a harp. The first song in was an RnB number, and it seemed like these guys were picking up where James Hunter left off a couple of weeks ago in the same room, taking it a few notches higher.
His guitar reminds me of Albert King and his voice is like Otis Redding. Or at least it was tonight. He even sang "These Arms of Mine," and it was a bit uncanny really. That was well into the set, though. The table had been well set.
Before tonight, I didn't know a thing about Tab Benoit except for a one night crash course on YouTube last week. Fat lot of good it did me ... when he called out for requests, do you think I could remember the one song I'd had on repeat - it had New Orleans or Louisiana in the title, but I drew a blank, and basically hoped he'd sing it anyways, without any prompts from me. (No such luck.)
He's got real style on the guitar - very tasty - no gimmicks, just straight away. Born and bred, his songs are set deep in the bayou - I was going to say very earthy, but I guess the term in Cajun country is "swampy." He was definitely swampy. "Sac au Lait Fishing" and "We Make A Good Gumbo" - how more swampy can you get? He traveled up through the delta and beyond in "The Blues Is Here To Stay," where he namechecks just about everybody from Elmore James and Bobby Blue Bland to Stevie Ray and T Bone Walker. In the end, it was just straight blues all night long.
One thing is sure, I'll be timing my visit to New Orleans when Tab Benoit is there.
The song I couldn't remember? "New Orleans Ladies," just for the ladies.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
james hunter
Kudos to the folks at Tupelo Music Hall for booking James Hunter on Saturday night. There was a time back in 2006 when I saw a lot of him - when he was touring People Gonna Talk. That summer I was going to more James Hunter shows than Van Morrison shows. The energy coming from the stage was simply immense. And unless absolutely forbidden by law, I was up there dancing from the first note every night. I like my R'n'B Sam Cooke style.
I knew all that going in on Saturday night and intentionally bought general admission tickets, which would put me firm up against the back wall with an open aisle in front of me. But when Celeste and I got there, it turned out they'd upgraded us to seats in the second to last row. It was good for the opening act, Jesse Dee, who hails from south of Boston. He put on a good set, crafting these stories in definitely what was a unique voice. But he was a sit-down kind of guy.
As soon as James came on - with a band consisting of a B3, an upright bass, James on guitar, and a tenor and a baritone sax (yum) - and started in on "She's Got A Way," I was up and at 'em, but did have the courtesy to exit my seat and go stand at the back of the room. (Thanks, to Dave, who offered me a barstool during my dancing intermissions.)
You don't want to blow the roof off in a place like the Tupelo - it's a small room - but even so, it was a bit of a toned-down affair. Perhaps more from necessity than anything else - James' voice was this side of shot, and really, the only songs he sounded comfortable on were on the slower, more poppy tunes he referred to as "new songs." I think one was called "Your Love Is Like A Gold Mine" and another "Minute By Minute." A couple of others that might have been called "One More" Time" and "I'm Going Nowhere" and the requisite 12-bar blues, "Think." And if there's going to be a hit single, it'll be "One Way Love." Add a handful of songs from People Gonna Talk and another handful from The Hard Way and throw in the "5" Royales' "Baby Don't
Do It" and you've got yourself a whole lot of brass. Altogether a solid night of good-time rhythm and blues. To start the encore, the band got to stretch it out in a nice long jazz instrumental, which featured the two brass at the end blowing those familiar notes from "All Through Crying," as James hustled up the aisle toward the stage. He closed with "Talking 'Bout My Love," and I swear on my mother's grave, I am certain someone threw a pair of pink panties at James at the end of the show. Those R'n'B singers will get them every time.
That's a picture I got taken with James in 2008, when Dan H and I caught him out back of the Casino Ballroom on his smoke break.
I was checking out James' website, and I'll leave you with a goodie ... if you go to the Music page, you'll get a list of his three albums, and beneath that, Bonus Tracks. That's the one to click on. It's an eclectic mix of James at his, well, most eclectic.
I knew all that going in on Saturday night and intentionally bought general admission tickets, which would put me firm up against the back wall with an open aisle in front of me. But when Celeste and I got there, it turned out they'd upgraded us to seats in the second to last row. It was good for the opening act, Jesse Dee, who hails from south of Boston. He put on a good set, crafting these stories in definitely what was a unique voice. But he was a sit-down kind of guy.
As soon as James came on - with a band consisting of a B3, an upright bass, James on guitar, and a tenor and a baritone sax (yum) - and started in on "She's Got A Way," I was up and at 'em, but did have the courtesy to exit my seat and go stand at the back of the room. (Thanks, to Dave, who offered me a barstool during my dancing intermissions.)
You don't want to blow the roof off in a place like the Tupelo - it's a small room - but even so, it was a bit of a toned-down affair. Perhaps more from necessity than anything else - James' voice was this side of shot, and really, the only songs he sounded comfortable on were on the slower, more poppy tunes he referred to as "new songs." I think one was called "Your Love Is Like A Gold Mine" and another "Minute By Minute." A couple of others that might have been called "One More" Time" and "I'm Going Nowhere" and the requisite 12-bar blues, "Think." And if there's going to be a hit single, it'll be "One Way Love." Add a handful of songs from People Gonna Talk and another handful from The Hard Way and throw in the "5" Royales' "Baby Don't
Do It" and you've got yourself a whole lot of brass. Altogether a solid night of good-time rhythm and blues. To start the encore, the band got to stretch it out in a nice long jazz instrumental, which featured the two brass at the end blowing those familiar notes from "All Through Crying," as James hustled up the aisle toward the stage. He closed with "Talking 'Bout My Love," and I swear on my mother's grave, I am certain someone threw a pair of pink panties at James at the end of the show. Those R'n'B singers will get them every time.That's a picture I got taken with James in 2008, when Dan H and I caught him out back of the Casino Ballroom on his smoke break.
I was checking out James' website, and I'll leave you with a goodie ... if you go to the Music page, you'll get a list of his three albums, and beneath that, Bonus Tracks. That's the one to click on. It's an eclectic mix of James at his, well, most eclectic.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
