Stripping it down to the raw nerves: Buddy Guy, "My Time After A While"

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cifLehBXQ8w

:toast:

[latebloomer]

1. He's coming to my town next month

and we are gonna see him!

Last year they converted an old movie theater in our smallish town into a concert venue, and have been getting all kinds of good acts- this will be my first time there and I'm psyched!

Saw him during the last millenium, with Junior Wells.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

2. Definitely, go see him...

...I saw him at one of the last shows at the Circle Star Theatre in San Carlos before it closed down. He was on the bill with Dr. John, The Fabulous Thunderbirds (post-Jimmy Vaughn) and BB King. He opened with "Sweet Home Chicago" and the notes just RIPPED through the air. He also played "Strange Brew" by Cream.

:toast:

[latebloomer]

3. Sounds like quite a show!

I heard him and Junior Wells in the 70s in a hole-in-the-wall blues club in Cambridge, Mass, where I also heard Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Hubert Sumlin, Roomful of Blues, Jimmie Vaughn and the Thunderbirds, Luther Johnson, Bonnie Raitt, and more, plus a lot of local musicians.

What a place. They paved it and put up a parking lot. :cry:

[Kat45]

5. Which club?

First I thought you were talking about Jonathan Swifts, but that's not a parking lot. Swifts was a tiny, smoke-filled club in Harvard Square where I was fortunate to see a lot of the great bluesmen play: Buddy Guy & Junior Wells, Willie Dixon, Son Seals, Albert Collins, John Lee Hooker--and I'm sure I'm forgetting some.

[latebloomer]

7. Oh, I meant to put that in!

It was the Speakeasy, on Norfolk St, off Mass Ave in Central Square.

Jonathan Swifts sounds vaguely familiar, but maybe it was after my time- I left Cambridge in 1983.

[Kat45]

8. It was the eighties when I went to Swifts, but I don't remember how early in the decade it was there

I remember hearing of the Speakeasy but I never went there. Probably was before my serious clubbing days. :shrug:

[latebloomer]

9. Was Swifts a bit past Harvard Square, on the left side of Mass Ave?

If so, I remember eating there.

[Kat45]

11. No. Swift's was smack in the middle of Harvard Square,

on JFK St (formerly called Boylston St., IIRC). Walking up from the subway/Out of Town kiosk, it was on the left side of JFK. Tiny club, in the basement.

[latebloomer]

12. After my time, I think

[abq e streeter]

10. Went to a blues bar in Cambridge called the Cantab Club(???) in '86;

the only time I've been on the east coast since I was a kid, and the only blues club I went to on that trip, so therefore the only blues club I've ever been to anywhere east of Chicago ...Little Joe Cook and The Thrillers were the house band. It was a jam night and I was ready to go up and show em what the white kid could do, but after hearing about a half dozen incredible singers/musicians get up and blow away anything I was capable of at that point in my alleged career, I stayed put and drank my beer. Joe Cook was real nice though, and still have some business cards he gave me. I'm insanely jealous by the way , that you got to see Little Walter; I was 16 or 17 when he died and wasn't even hardly aware of blues yet ( was a total soul music freak from a very young age though). Started learning harp about a year after he died and got turned onto him by a guy named Bumblebee Bob, from Chicago Slim's band. Fortunate to have seen Junior many, many times, and had the privilege ( an understatement) of opening for him once in maybe about '94 when my dear, beloved friend, the late Sam Franklin from The Albert Collins Band asked me to form a backup band for him specifically for that show. Buddy wasn't on that gig; actually most of the times I saw Junior, he had Buddy's brother Phil playing with him...( no slouch on the guitar either).

[latebloomer]

13. The Cantab Lounge!

What a dive that was. That was the sort of place you dragged into for an hour before last call. Smelly and a lot of sad-looking regulars at the bar.

They did have some GOOD music there, but not all the time.

A rockabilly guy named Sleepy LaBeef played there sometimes- he was fun! And George Thorogood gave me the eye as he was leaving and I was arriving one night- hmm, wish I'd gotten there earlier.

Cool that you opened for Junior Wells!!

[abq e streeter]

14. The music was incredible the night I was there right around Labor day in '86

easy to remember exactly when because its the only time I've been to Boston and it was Sept '86. The friend I was visiting worked at an art gallery not far from Fenway Park, and we tried like hell to get to a game on the Friday night and Saturday afternoon during that week...Couldn't even get scalped tickets. I still remember it was Oil Can Boyd and Roger Clemens pitching those 2 games and the Red Sox won em both ( as a long time Cub fan, I had a soft spot in my heart for the equally, at that time, long suffering Red Sox fans)...Anyway, back to the Cantab; one of the people there kept drunkenly telling me and my friend that he was James Brown's cousin. We of course thought, yeah ,sure... After he got up to sing, I gotta tell you, its possible. He, and everyone that got up to play or sing were freakin great. And Sleepy La Beef; yeah ,I've seen him a couple of times out here ; I love rockabilly...And I've been extremely fortunate to have opened for several blues greats just from being a medium size fish in a somewhat small pond....Junior, Albert Collins, Willie Dixon ( a sweetheart of a guy, as was Johnny Clyde Copeland), Taj Mahal, Delbert McClinton,among others...

[Kat45]

4. Great! I just hope he doesn't have the kid with him, or at least

doesn't bring him out too early in the show. There's a white kid, about 10 I think, who plays some pretty good guitar who Buddy has taken under his wing. The last two times I saw him, he brought the kid out during the show to play with him, which was fine, but then he showcased the kid for the rest of the show. It wouldn't be bad if it was just for a couple of songs, but not for the amount of time he's had him out. I'd rather being hearing more of Buddy.

[Amerigo Vespucci]

6. Quinn Sullivan

...YouTube has a clip of him playing "Strange Brew" with Buddy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fo4GhyBzFa8

I hear ya...great of Buddy to help the kid, but...