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Harry Manx in Concert (live performance)
January 20th, 2006
Soap Box, Wilmington, North Carolina
Deep respect for and enjoyment of the music of Harry Manx led this critic to urge many friends to attend this show. I didn’t know at the time that I was understating its appeal. Billed as a Harry Manx performance, advance publicity did not mention his bandstand partner, Southside Steve Marriner, regarded as one of Canada’s top blues harmonica players. That Marriner distinguished himself 1/20 by providing beautiful tone, judicious instrument and effect choices and comprehensive backing accompaniment proves that he is worthy of all the praise he’s receiving on two continents (soon to be three, with an Australian tour alongside Manx coming up) and a consummate professional with the unique ability to support his front man and suppress his own ability and likely desire to cut loose a time or two during each show. This ability is rare in popular music, even in the top tiers; the best known sideman in rock, Keith Richards, has always had to step forward a time or two during every show.
It was, however, by billing and by Marriner’s own sideman role fulfillment, a Harry Manx concert. The Manx sound has been summed up as “Mysticssippi,” a blend of Eastern music and blues combining soft, narrative, soulful song selection, slide guitar, some flashy additions like banjo and cigar box guitar and his trademark mohan veena, an obscure guitar / sitar hybrid. It is a sweet, expressive sound.
Hard listeners, excited, showed up early. Most walked to the edge of the stage before going to the bar to inspect the instruments. The Manx arsenal included two acoustic guitars, one quite fat bodied, an electric guitar, the mohan veena, a banjo and the cigar box guitar he’d shared the previous night backstage in DC with Bruce Springsteen. An EQ pedal and one other arcane stomp box sat on the floor in front of Manx’s stool. Steve Marriner’s area included a box of diatonic 10-hole harmonicas, at least one chromatic, and what appeared to be a Line 6 effects pod. Marriner switched back and forth between his stand mic and a Green Bullet. All stage mics and instruments went directly into a Mackie mixer on stage, which sent one signal to the house sound man, whose primary task was, then, getting volume right. He did so, anonymously contributing a great deal to the show’s quality.
Local press announced a 6:00 start time, though online promotion from Manx’s own team listed 7:30. The first song, “Baby, Please Don’t Go,” played lap slide style with some nice call and response string stings and sung softly, actually kicked off at 7:08. The duo kept a lot of balls in the air throughout the show. Marriner’s choice of harps to accompany Manx’s switching among stringed instruments was fascinating ... chromatic with mohan veena, etc. Manx’s feather light slide work was effective both as to sound and to the sense of reverence for the sound and instruments he displayed while playing. Reverence was also evident in the crowd, which was hushed, silent, and in complete consensus that this was a concert rather than a bar act. The rare reward Manx gave his audience was taking the perfect music from inside one’s head and putting it out on a bandstand. Unforgettable.
Watermelon Slim
Watermelon Slim and the Workers
Northern Blues Music NBM0032
Bill Homans, aka “Watermelon Slim,” was grabbing the attention of jaded critics before this record, and this record is a big step forward. He's taken his previously outstanding sound, and plugged it in, filled it with higher octane fuel, put it on steroids or [insert your own analogy for expanding the power of something here].
Basically, he sounds like a mush-mouthed cracker singing and playing the blues. At first listen, one thinks, “21st Century Ronnie Hawkins,” “21st Century Jerry Lee Lewis” or “21st Century Billy C. Riley,” but he tacks some elements onto their basic bandstand strategy. First, those ol' boys just thought they were being unabashedly, stereotypically trailer trash when they wore coonskin caps on stage and married their underage cousins, but they couldn't hold a used corncob candle to Watermelon Slim's song, “Dumpster Blues,” in which, from the viewpoint of the dump truck driver, he sings, “This load is rotten, smells like the devil's bottom hole / I got to dump this at the landfill, to save my dispatcher's soul.”
Second, the rockabilly rednecks of the '50s were promoting some of the questionable outcomes of the Tennessee Valley Authority bringing electricity to the rural South; they misused their amplifiers, hitting upon the happily primal rock and roll sounds of feedback, distortion and grunge when their original purpose was just to turn up to the level of heavy-handed, self-taught drummers. Slim finds a delicate pocket for his harmonica that's as barbaric as anything on record, but still sends out discernible single notes at need, and, man, can he play ferocious harp ... like Howlin' Wolf if he'd actually picked up technique and style as well as just rudiments when he got those Mississippi saxophone lessons from his brother in-law, Rice Miller(Sonny Boy Williamson 2).
Third, Watermelon Slim can write lyrics and music. These aren't just bleary memories of whiskey-burned synapse firings from some guys with half the vocabulary of Koko the gorilla; these are picaresque, Faulkner-esque tales of life on the dirt road written by Koko the gorilla.
Stirring these general elements together, “Watermelon Slim and the Workers” serves up a fourteen-course (14 cuts) meal that will be equally filling and tasty to hardcore blues fans, followers of Southern Culture on the Skids and everyone in between. If this record doesn't make it, it won't be because the artist, the studio sidemen, the engineers, the label and this critic haven't done everything in their power to let potential listeners know how good Watermelon Slim is.
Mojo Collins
Slide On Oughta Hear
Jomo Music
Mojo Collins is the Mad Max of East Coast blues performers. He can honestly be described as tough, unique, compassionate, resourceful, observant, expressive, savvy, sincere, honorable and legendary, and the list of adjectives goes on from there. Despite numerous awards and recognitions bestowed on him over the years, he's not wealthy and globally famous, in this reviewer's eyes, for two general reasons. One is luck, the single most important factor in any arts career, and the other is that he doesn't accept his own stature; he doesn't know how much larger than Life he is, day to day.
Well, that's a bad thing because it keeps him writing songs from a down and out perspective when his audience expects him, based on his performance and his reputation, to see life from an Olympian viewpoint. Well, that's also a good thing because it keeps him trying new strategies to reach his own, private definition of success, and we listeners benefit. He transcends specific styles, meaning that he is one of those rare musicians who achieves what he attempts. The result is that serious Mojo Collins record collectors can find over two dozen distinct facets and phases of Mojo Collins on over two dozen variously styled records dating back to the '60s, and each will hit whatever nail he's trying to hit squarely and firmly on the head.
This particular release is enjoying very broad attention, with radio play, fan mail and sales coming in from all over the world. It isn't that it's better than his other records, but that slide guitar is associated with the blues, Mojo Collins is associated with the blues, and people are receptive to simple concepts and connections like that.
In short, it's a wonderful, warm, rewarding record, as are his others, but, being closer to the center of the blues bell curve than some of his other releases, it might be a better starting point for new fans and a more comfortable one for his old friends than some of the others. This critic's advice is simply this: Work on that Mojo Collins record collection.
Rev. Billy C. Wirtz
Sermon From Bethlehem
Blind Pig Records BPCD 5101
A new release by Rev. Billy C. Wirtz gets this reviewer so whomped up on tongue-in-cheek ig'nunt cracker with the blues hokum and seriously adept piano work that, well, I just don't know whether to choke my VCR or program my chicken to record Matlock. Okay, that's funny ... about a fifth as funny as any signature Wirtz lyric line.
You see, this guy is hilarious. The irony is that his music is based in blues, and it's the blues part of it that keeps him from being acknowledged as one of the country's top ten comics. Not that he gives a testicular tithe ... to do otherwise would require him to play comedy clubs instead of bars, and he pounds away at those bars, touring constantly.
Over the years, he’s been increasingly recognized as a standout pianist as well as a great comic. That may be what’s made him wax a bit more serious at times on this record, making insightful and poignant statements about the human condition. Alternatively, it may be that, in conservative times such as those we find ourselves in today, comics are more inclined to make such statements, anyway. A third possibility is that Wirtz, technically, is a blues artist, and blues does not ever completely forget its responsibility to those who feel it.
“The Visitor” is an oddity on this record, a song that, on its own merit, without any required reliance on the Rev. Wirtz persona, belongs near the top of folk and country charts. It takes the structure of Red Sovine’s “Ballad of Big Joe and Phantom 309,” probably most familiar to blues fans as covered by Tom Waits in the ‘70s, and uses it to tell the story of a terminal patient whose biggest regret is that she never had a chance to see Elvis Presley, so a close friend hires an Elvis impersonator to perform at her bedside on her dying day. “The King” shows up, does everything one would hope Elvis would do, and leaves. Everyone is amazed and drained, and then there’s a knock at the door, and the Elvis impersonator comes in, apologizing for being late.
Thus, it is both a thorough and a broad Rev. Billy C. Wirtz release, rewarding on more than the usual number of levels.
Jimmy Thackery
The Essential Jimmy Thackery
Blind Pig Records BPCD 8008
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's Jimmy Thackery, formerly of the Nighthawks, and he's a fine guitarist with an okay voice and pretty good taste in music. There's a little bit of Stevie Ray Vaughn Texas Trouble in his vocals and lyrical subject matter, and this is his current label's idea of a greatest hits collection. If you're nuts about him, then please know this anthology is available and go for it.
Damn this critic for being a purist if you wish, but I think there are better CDs out there. He's way white ... just another loud rock guitarist who favors loose, traditional song arrangements and more or less earthy topics, so he's in the blues bins.
In yawning over this release, I intend disrespect to the dead end, sterile, gray area hybrid of blues rock, not to the artist, whom I respect and enjoy. I sincerely hope some new element can wring new opportunities from this subgenre of modern American music. If it does, Jimmy Thackery will be the star of something I can work up enthusiasm for. He certainly has the drive and ability to do so.
Tom Hunter
Here I Go Again
FS Music FSM31232
I’m sorry, but I have to take this opportunity (again) to suggest that God has no place on a blues record. Mr. Hunter, your Bible will tell you that “to everything, there is a season,” and God has no more business in a blues CD J card bread and butter note than Little Richard has in a church. I know this, because I’ve seen him there, and I’ve seen a congregation otherwise perfectly content with the sacred offer to overflow the collection plate if he’ll just do “Tutti Frutti,” and there’s no good to be had from that. Other than that, this is an excellent record, a showcase for a soulful singer and keyboard player doing two originals and ten covers, the latter ranging from the work of Doc Pomus to Ray Charles to Spencer Williams to Billy Joel, the former showing that Hunter himself knows how to write songs.
He’s ready to break national. Look him up online and find out more.
Bob Brozman
Blues Reflex
Ruf Records
www.rufrecords.de
He's really built a unique, world sound from pre-WWII slide guitar roots. The slide owns it, but it doesn't own the slide. He's one of those musicians for whom the instrument doesn't matter. He's just doing great work, introspective regarding other human beings but epitomizing Public Display of Affection with his guitars.
It's an odd collection of instruments. With the exception of drums on three of the 13 tracks by drummer Greg Graber, Brozman plays everything – National Baritone Tricone guitar, Rocket Hawaiian guitar, cajon, duff bendir, Chinese temple blocks, Bear Creek Baritone seven-string Hawaiian guitar, baglama; the list goes on. One is to infer from this, not that this record is a sideshow act for freak axes, but that Brozman's current sound and instrument choices are the result of long years of expensive experimentation, during which he's become both a recognized ethnomusicologist and a National Resophonic instrument dealer. Now he has what he wants, and we listeners benefit.
There's trad. acoustic blues here, but there's also borderline flamenco with Cab Calloway-style scatting, raga / jazz / pop fusion and one piece that sounds for all the world like circa Summer of Love Kinks. Apparently, if one has the time to study his entire body of work, there's considerably more breadth there, too. His website, http://www.bobbrozman.com, is a virtual musical world tour.
This is an interesting musician and an energetic communicator of music. Do, at the very least, visit that website soonest.