A big thanks to all those who came down for the second all acoustic jam at the Green Note last night and helped make it such a great evening - specifically Charles, Martin and Dave who provided most of the accompaniment for the night and to Helen for looking after the sound and the door.
Professor Forristal and I kicked things off with some guitar and piano versions of Howlin' Wolf's Shake It For Me, the gospel standard Walk With Me, and Save That Money, a current favorite of mine originally by Rufus Thomas. We were then joined by Steve Van Deller on mandolin and tore through a couple of Mississippi Sheiks tunes and a tasty original of Steve's, for which he swapped to a Puerto Rican cuatro - surely a first for a blues jam!
Matt Milton provided some dark and wryly humorous originals and a great reworking of the Leadbelly classic In The Pines on guitar and banjo, making the most of the ambiance and the rapt audience. Then Dan Raza played and dropped in a great versions of Hank William's I Saw The Light and Leadbelly's infamous Goodnight Irene. You wait years for some Leadbelly songs and then two show up at once. I might bring my twelve-string next month... Anyway, it showed how versatile and broad the scope of the new acoustic jam can be.
Graham Hinton, good friend and long-time supporter of the GN jam barely had chance to take his coat off before we pushed him on stage. He was joined by holidaying scandinavian Jacob on harmonica who had walked past, saw there was a jam and dashed off to buy a harp especially for the evening. I then accompanied Graham on my National for a tasty Robert Johnson tune and - I think - a Spencer Davis Group number!
Down to two guitars on stage now, which allowed Lane Hines to do his idiosyncratic selection of delta blues, invoking Son House and Bukka White with his free-flowing style and haunting voice. I tried to keep up on slide while thinking we sounded as good as a recently unearthed Paramount 78 record...
The night rolled on and most people made it back on stage for another number or two. We romped our way through Charley Patton's mercurial Screamin' and Hollering The Blues to end the night and it was immensly gratifying how many people made a point to say how much they had enjoyed listening to everyone who played.
So far so good then. Next month Mark Harrison will be back from holiday and we shall continue to welcome players and listeners who are disposed to this sort of sublime mix of bluesy music. It was wonderful having banjos, mandolins and harmonicas plunking, chiming and tootling along respectively to such a consistently high standard; and with the piano too, it was definitely the vibe we were after. It would be nice to hear some violin or accordian, or even a washboard...
See you next time - on the 9th September.
David Atkinson
PS - I'm toying with the idea of introducing a theme song - probably based on Big Bill Broonzy's tune Saturday Night Rub.
PS - I'm toying with the idea of introducing a theme song - probably based on Big Bill Broonzy's tune Saturday Night Rub.
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