San Francisco Blues Part 2

This is the same weekend as the Great Southern Blues & Rockabilly Festival in Narooma that my friend Big T is attending for the first time. I have to say that, apart from the headliners, Narooma’s line-up is probably as strong as the San Francisco Blues Festival: Renee Geyer, Bakelite Radio, Tex Perkins, Watermelon Slim, Lynwood Slim, Kyla Brox, Rod Piazza, Bill Kirchen, Ash Grunwald, Dave Hole, Chain, The Backsliders and more.  A weekend ticket to Narooma is $210 and daily tickets for Saturday and Sunday are $115 – a lot more than San Francisco’s blues event but they do have to pay the transport costs for the international artists.

San Francisco’s second and final day featured James Hunter, Joe Louis Walker & Sugar Pie DeSanto as well as John Hammond, Charlie Musselwhite and Allen Toussaint. For US$35 (advance) that represents excellent value and you would have to think it is probably too cheap! There was a rumour sweeping the festival at the end of the day that this could be the last one at the Great Meadow site – or maybe the final one of all. They definitely need a bigger crowd but I think, with the right publicity and line-up, they could get at least another couple of thousand there. I was surprised last year at how few people were there to see Little Richard.

These thoughts were excercising my mind even before I heard the rumours. As I surveyed the festival site I wondered just how they could keep up the standard of line-up and maintain such a comfortable environment. The answer is that they cannot unless they get a few more major soponsors.

I arrived early to find all the people from Saturday ensconced in the same positions. It was as if they had been there all night. ‘Did you go home?’ asked one chap. The Blues Guitar Women showdown was interesting, Ron Hacker & The Hacksaws were workmanlike (talk about damning with faint praise), the Blues Farm Revue went up a notch when the colourful Carter Brothers made an appearance and there was a strong tribute to Little Walter (featuring Gary Smith, Paul Durkett, Joe Filisko and former Little Walter associate Craig Horton).

For the third time this trip I saw James Hunter and his band and he has not failed to impress on any occasion. Hunter’s voice is uncannily soulful for a white English lad and his stage repartee amusing (‘This song calls for a lot of severe jiggling about.’).

John Hammond opened the final set acoustically. Since his album of Tom Waits’ covers, Wicked Grin, his career seems to have gained a new lease of life. His brief performance featured several songs from his latest, excelltn album, Push Comes To Shove.

Hammond was followed by Allen Toussaint solo at the piano who did the usual selection but finished with a really unusual song that showed his brilliance as a piano player. He opened with ‘There’s A Party Going On’ and followed it with his usual medley (‘A Certain Girl,’ ‘Mother In Law,’ Fortune Teller’ and ‘Working In A Coalmine’). Then we were treated to ‘get Out Of My Life Woman,’ ‘Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky’ and ‘Brickyard Blues.’ Then he chose to cover Paul Simon’s ‘American Tune,’ which might have seemed surprising until you realise that Tousaint worked on the album (There Goes Rhymin’ Simon) on which it originally appeared. He introduced it by saying that he did not write it but wish he had. The set closed with ‘What Is Success.’  The encore was a dazzling instrumental which traced Toussaint’s career and his facility in just about any style – from classical to boogie woogie to New Orleans – amusingly he kept returning to ‘Chopsticks.’

Like John Hammond, Charlie Musselwhite also seems to have gained a new lease of life with his latest band and his Delta Hardware album is one of his best ever. Charlie’s band is red hot and his set here was powerful. There were two selections from his latest album and ‘Strange Land’ which appeared on his very first album forty years ago.

Then Hammond and Tousaint joined Musselwhite and his band on stage for  a finale of ‘Yes We Can,’ ‘Push Comes To Shove’ and ‘Christo Redemptor’ (a song that also appaered on his first album).