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.

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.

johnny winter

It was a full house at the Tupelo Music Hall on Friday night to see Johnny Winter. And among the crowd were some adoring fans. He's the kind of guy who gets introduced as "the legendary..." and I wanted to check him out at least once in my life. Dennis and I arrived as the first song was under way, so I missed his entrance. He was sat in his chair, where he remained all night, just playing the blues. My brother Scott saw him about five years ago, and he'd mentioned that Johnny's guitar playing was a shadow of its former self and he'd had a virtuoso guitarist on stage who carried the load. Whomever the virtuoso was, he's gone now - nowadays the band consists of rhythm, bass, drums, and Johnny on guitar, and while there was no blowing the roof off the hall, it was a good, solid performance, short on the flourishes and long on the memories.

Not that I have any Johnny Winter memories to speak of, but judging from the response of the people in the audience, he was playing to theirs, with their favorites from over the years. Among them were "Red House," "Maybelline," Johnny B. Goode," "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl," "Got My Mojo Working," and two Dylan tunes - "It's All Over Now" and "Highway 61 Revisited."

While sixth row seats are good seats most nights, for a Johnny Winter show, it meant spending the night mostly staring at the black hat on his head. But whenever the sea of heads parted and I could see his face, he always had the same bemused look on it, eyes straight ahead, not registering on anything or anyone, just looking straight out in from of him, while his guitar did all the talking. It wasn't a long set, maybe 80 minutes. Not a lot of talking, just playing. They took about a 30-second on-stage break - as the drummer said - consider this the intermission, where we'd go out and have a pee, but it's so damn cold outside, we're staying in. And then on into the last two songs of the night. He stood up and took a bow before walking off under his own steam.

I'm glad I got to see him - there are so many artists that I've neglected over the years, and it's fun playing catch-up. Here's a recent video of him - with the same band as Friday night - playing "Highway 61 Revisited." Get your mojo working.

ronnie earl & the broadcasters

So guess where I was this Saturday night? Back at the Tupelo Music Hall, to see Ronnie Earl & The Broadcasters this time. And was I ever in for a treat.

I had a seat in the back again, just like for John Sebastian - where there is a row of barstools along the back wall, on either side of the concession stand, that serves as General Admission. In such a small room, if you're not in the first six rows (basically the front half), you might as well be in the back on barstools, a head taller than all the rest. The seat might be hard, but the view is excellent at 13 rows back.

[This picture is hanging on the wall in the rotunda where artists sell their wares and patrons line up to use the facilities]

I fixed the seat problem by folding my overcoat in half and then in quarters, which was excellent use of coat - once I got up there. You should have seen me hoisting myself off the ground backward and trying to land on top of the coat - it was like trying to do the high jump.

Anyways, I'm sitting on my perch, with loads of time to spare - it's 7:30 and the show's not set to go for another half hour. I get my camera out and take a few shots, to see if I've got the right setting figured out. It turns out I don't, so it's amateur photo night again.

The music coming over the speakers is all good blues; I recognize I'll Take Care of You, which always reminds me of James Brown and It's A Man's, Man's, Man's World because of Van, but this must be Bobby Bland singing. I didn't look where the speakers are, but they're obviously not near me, because as the hall starts to fill up, people noise drowns out the music. But it's fun to people watch, and the first thing I notice is it's not the younger generation spending their doubloons and driving to Londonderry to see their favorite guitar hero. No, this is your more mature crowd - the kind that needs a soft cushion under her behind. I'm neither the youngest or the oldest, but there is probably not much more than 10 years' difference among the lot of us.

And with nothing else to do, my mind wanders to the first time I saw Ronnie Earl. Dennis and I went to see him at the House of Blues, back when it was still in Cambridge, at least 10 years ago. This must have been Dennis's idea, because I'd never heard of him. I didn't follow him after that, but for that one night, I can't tell you just how perfect it was. All night long, all he did was play the guitar, and he had me under his spell. So cool, so smooth, a real master of the guitar.

At one point, I kid you not, I was standing there - it was a standing room only gig - swaying to the music, eyes closed, just so into the blues...and at some point, I opened my eyes and there was Ronnie standing right in front of me, wailing away on the guitar. I thought for a second that I must have gravitated to the stage; then I thought, no. he's gravitated to me. It was certainly a moment in time. And it sets the stage for tonight.

And if you've only got the time to listen to one Ronnie Earl song today, click on him playing some soft, slow blues - it's from a recent show - he's wearing the same outfit, same players in the band, and it's one of the songs he played last night (it might be "Miracle" but don't quote me). In the band, there's Jim Mouradian on bass, Lorne Entress on drums, and Dave Limina on piano, playing a Yamaha. When it wasn't Ronnie's turn, it was Dave's, and, boy, he could stomp it out. There was one song, I think this is the one he said was a Bessie Smith tune, where Dave and Ronnie were mixing it up some - a little piano-guitar jam, that was a real pleasure to listen to.

I didn't recognize one song all night - there must have been a good smattering of covers, because every once in a while he'd say, "Here's one of ours"and I wouldn't recognize that one either. For me it was strictly 90 minutes of blues uninteruptus, and apparently that's all I need. There were a couple of times I had to close my eyes and get in between the spaces of the music, but no luck this time in opening my eyes to see Ronnie Earl's nose hairs - the guitar cord doesn't make it this far back in the room.

He's out of Boston, and I see on his website that his upcoming shows are all in New England.I suspect he's a local wonder. I see he's a W.C. Handy Award winner, and that comes as no surprise - he plays with such soul, and he's got such good tone. Talking about W.C. Handy Award winners, last week, just by sheer luck, I got to see T.J. Wheeler for a short set at Strange Brew up in Manchester. It could be that every Sunday night they have a blues jam, but I think this was a special treat to have T.J. Wheeler on hand. I'm not sure he gets out to play gigs much; it looks like he's more into music education in the schools, but it was a delight to listen to him play guitar for five or six songs, much of it New Orleans - some Louis Armstrong, Zydeco, that Dr. John feel.

john sebastian

All week long it's been the same thing - in random acts of kindness, little bits like oh darling be home soon or did you ever have to make up your mind or it's like trying to tell a stranger about rock 'n' roll or some other Lovin' Spoonful song. I've been in my little John Sebastian love-fest - ever since Saturday night, when I saw him up at the Tupelo Music Hall. It was such a good-time night. His voice is completely shot, but the cool thing is, when he's doing all the Spoonful songs, it's more of a group hug moment with everyone singing, or at least I was. And I've been singing ever since.

John Sebastian and the Lovin' Spoonful - forever identified in my mind with the Summer of Love - the Spoonful and Jefferson Airplane - that's about all this 13-year-old girl knew about the Summer of Love. I was more of a Jim Morrison girl, but the Spoonful had a string of hits, all great songs. And we got to hear many of them on Saturday night.

Think Ray Davies and his black book, telling his story through his songs. John is a fine storyteller, disarmingly genuine, whether it's the story of his mother sending him to "commie" camp here in New Hampshire when he was 16 - serving as an introduction to A Younger Girl Keeps Rolling Across My Mind or the one about Mississippi John Hurt giving John a lesson on the guitar, which served as a lead into Lovin' You.

Every song had its story, and they were invariably quite funny, and I had no idea he could pick like he does. Interspersed with the Spoonful hits and Zally stories, he did a lot of songs from Satisfied, the album he did with David Grisman in 2007. It's good-time jug band music and Saturday night was basically sitting in with John while he picked the night away.

[That's John on the left in the photo, signing his CD for a fan]

And it's not all just fun. It's a learning experience too - for instance, I learned where they got the name Lovin' Spoonful tonight - from the lyrics of Coffee Blues, which is one of the songs from Satisfied. And he told a funny story of his days in the Village, taking a young Italian beauty out on a first date, taking her to see the Kweskin Jug Band, which featured a young Geoff Muldaur - and there went Maria D'Amato - young girl falls for the guitar player in the band, leaving John in the lurch. Which leads him to sing Passing Fantasy, also from Satisfied. Nowadays Maria Muldaur, John and David are playing dates. Seeing just a third of the trio makes me think the the three of them together would make for a fun evening. But I don't see anything listed on his site for any upcoming dates, either with them or solo. So it's catch as catch can.

I found a video on YouTube of a relatively recent John playing guitar. It comes in four parts, and it's all good, but you'd get the idea in Part 1.

jesse colin young

It must be synchronicity.

I've recently discovered a little radio station on the Web - the site is boomerradio.com (can you believe it??) and one of the streams they run is called Acoustic Cafe. It's not exactly a great station, but it is pretty mellow, and good for them, there's always some obscurish Van that gets played. Tonight it was End of the Land. Anyways, I was getting tired of all that mellowness (one too many James Taylor, I think) and was going to switch to some live Van. As I was standing up to turn off the speakers, out of who knows where, Darkness, Darkness starts to play.

Remember late '60s, Darkness, Darkness from the Youngbloods? Jesse Colin Young? You know - the c'mon people now, smile on your brother, everybody get together, try to love one another right now Jesse Colin Young.

It's got to be at least 30 years, closer to 40 more like, that the Youngbloods and Jesse Colin Young fell off my radar. Until last night. In Londonderry, New Hampshire, at the Tupelo Music Hall (the owner is a Van fan I'm told).

And it was all very peace and love-like. And mellow. Me and the Acoustic Cafe and Jesse - all being mellow. Five in the band, including Jesse, on lead guitar, and his wife, Connie, on violin and percussion. I didn't catch the names of the guys on bass, drums and rhythm. I sense the guy on rhythm has been with Jesse for a long time. He plays a good guitar. And a very intense young man on bass. Probably my only complaint of the night is that the violin was too high in the mix during the quieter songs. There seemed to be only two ways to play the violin: loud and louder, so it was a bit of a distraction during some of the contemplative songs in the first set.

Altogether a great show, with songs from all along the way - or so it seemed - he introduced one song, it might have been Four in the Morning, as something from before the Youngbloods, and he did some Youngbloods songs, and some Hawaiian songs, and a couple of songs that were new, and songs like Ride the Wind and Bring Him Home, which I am guessing are from the middle period.

It's Jesse's birthday (69th) on Monday, November 22, and the rhythm guy led us in a rousing Happy Birthday song in Jesse's favor, two days early. We didn't get to sing again until late in the second set on Get Together c'mon people now, smile on your brother... We comported ourselves admirably on both.

There might have been others but the covers I recognized were two of the interesting highlights of the night. The first was John Lennon's Imagine and Marvin Gaye's What's Going On? Jesse sang the Lennon lyrics, and rhythm guy and Connie sang the Marvin Gaye part, trading one song off the other - and it was absolutely delightful. Then third song into the second set, Jesse picked up his (as he informed the blind among us) eight-string ukulele to do Somewhere Over the Rainbow, with Jesse namechecking Israel Kamakawiwo'ole, a Hawaiian musician who had a major hit with the song. The reference went right over my head, but Celeste told me afterward who he was talking about. And here I was thinking Judy Garland. It was a great song, a little bit reggae - very nice rendition. Nothing like a good ukulele player. He kept it for La Bamba and then a song he sang in Hawaiian. Later he said, the words to that are "The spirit of the land shall be brought forth in righteousness." Now, I don't know what that means, but it sure does sound warm and fuzzy, doesn't it?

Then it was back to his guitar, and the volume picked up for something he described as a Youngbloods song, but I didn't recognize it - one of their minor hits, I guess - he said it was the only time they got into the whole funk/soul thing - and giving the bass player an opportunity to be really intense. Then a 12-bar blues in T-Bone Shuffle, taking us to the sing-a-long Get Together - even Celeste knew this one - and ending with Darkness, Darkness. A well-crafted second set. Beginning the set with what he called "a new one," it was just Jesse and Connie on stage, doing a sweet song that might have been called Love Goes On. Then another new one, called Cruising at Sunset. The three ukulele songs worked like a charm, and then it just got progressively faster and louder and more intense (in a mellow kind of way), right up to Get Together, ending with the navel-gazing Darkness, Darkness.

This was the last night of the tour, so if you missed him this time around, you'll have to wait for the next time. In the meantime, you can go to his website and buy some of his coffee. From his coffee farm in Hawaii.

If Jesse Colin Young had been in Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young, he would have been the Graham Nash part - not a lot of depth to his voice, and what little there was has diminished over the years. Time will do that. It's not most people whose voices get better with time, right, Bob?

It turns out that Bob was playing 30 minutes down the road in Lowell on Saturday night and, if you can believe it, I stood Mr. Dylan up to see Mr. Young. I can see Bob anytime, but how often does Jesse Colin Young come to my hometown?

Talking about old white guys, John Sebastian is coming to Tupelo Music Hall next weekend. The show is sold out, but we'll see what happens.

joe bonamassa

I've had an email from Beach Blast sitting in my inbox since October 5, announcing two shows to close out the Casino Ballroom season for this year. Saturday night, Joe Bonamassa, and Sunday night, Darius Rucker. I could skip Rucker, but Joe Bonamassa, he I should definitely see. But I didn't rush to get tickets, because they're General Admission, and the show wasn't until November. And then the email started to sink through my Inbox. A couple of weeks later Beach Blast reminded me about the show, and the same thought - no rush, it's not till November. Let's see if I can rustle someone up who might like to go. And it's exactly there that I completely lost thought of it. Until last Friday. I was on my way up to Manchester to a party at Brian's. Well, almost on my way. I was just heating up a cup of coffee to take in the car. And while it was heating up, I thought I'd catch up on Van-L. About three posts in, there is one from Colleen, who for some reason - it seemed random to me - wrote a wonderful story about Joe - what a fan! The coffee bings, I finish reading her post, not enough time to click on the links. While I'm driving up to Manchester, I'm thinking, right, Joe Bonamassa, it's November. Geez, I hope he hasn't come and gone. Then I'd really be mad! (Sometime last month, Van fan Brian from Virginia wrote to say he was going to see Nick Lowe that night, with Johnny Scott on guitar, and had I seen them when they were in Boston the other night? No, I had NOT seem them. I was so mad. I can't express how mad I was. And feeling very pathetic. )

Sort of long story short - Matt looked it up on his gizmo phone and the show was Saturday night (phew, I haven't missed it) but, oh, it's sold out. And the very short of that is that Celeste agreed, without even knowing who Joe Bonamassa even was, that she'd go with me to Hampton Beach and see if we couldn't get ourselves a pair.

And the very, very short of that is we did - we got tickets fairly quickly, from two different gentlemen whose wives couldn't make it, so loads of time to go sit in the only other establishment open in Hampton Beach, in the summer it's a three-level restaurant/bar and they don't need me to plug it, it's always packed. As it is tonight ... the only place in town to sit down until the doors open at 6. [This is the sign we were flashing about outside the venue. Borrowed from a dad and his son, who had been using it to get themselves some tix's, and when they got their tix's, they let us use it. It worked, apostrophes and all.]

They're not very sensitive about cameras and other devices, and since I've got mine, I make a nuisance of myself with our seatmates, Robyn and Dan, who seem equally as glad as me to be here tonight. A lot of people love Joe Bonamassa. The show starts promptly at 8. A sure sign that you're getting nostalgic - everything reminds you of something. About three songs in, I'm sitting there with my eyes closed, soaking up Joe playing guitar, doing the foot stomping, seat dancing stuff I do when someone plays the blues. It's all good, and I think back to all those times, lying on the floor, in the dark, headphones on, listening to the guitars, mostly Eric's, Blind Faith, Cream. It's all coming back to me. Nothing but the blues.

If you thought this was going to be a review of the show, it's right about here that you learn this is nothing of the sort. I didn't know any of the songs, save a really lovely version of Bird on a Wire as the first of his two-song encore. Apparently I'm not alone. I asked around - what was the name of that song? Or that song? And no one knew. I think they just don't care. All they're there for is the guitar solos. I don't blame them.

I had half expected him to blow the roof off the place, but he didn't - he was merely spectacular, very smooth, very clean, and sometimes he'd pull everything from the note and you could feel it crying, he was that good. I absolutely loved every minute of it ... I just wish I could tell you what I heard. If you're a Joe fan, you'll just have to imagine it.

It was two hours of one song after the next. There were a couple of spots where he stopped to talk - once to tell the story of how the last time he was at the Ballroom was 21 years ago with Buddy Guy (or was it B.B. King?) Imagine that. He would have been about twelve 21 years ago. But mostly it was him just playing. Switching guitars after every song. Some of the best moments of the show were when he was on stage on his own. He doesn't really need anybody else.

Maybe somebody can help me. On the last song of the night he was playing a guitar that looked like it was out of the Jetsons, shaped like this: >--- . What kind of guitar is that?

According to his website, http://jbonamassa.com, it looks like Joe is constantly on tour. If you haven't caught him yet, and you like your guitar heroes, then Joe's your man. It's that simple.





These are part of a mural behind one of the bars at the Casino Ballroom. Nosey, is that you?