[Harp-L] Report from Tampa Bay Blues Festival (some, but not a lot of harp content)

[Mjmeadors@xxxxxxx]

Yesterday (Friday):
 
Anna Povavic - wow.  Where did she come from?  I must be behind  the times.  
This woman plays great guitar, great slide guitar.  Sexy  tex SRV rock.  I'm a 
new fan.  To me, she's what Susan T. was shooting  for but didn't quite make 
it yet.  A-
 
Curtis Salgado - many on Harp-L have sung his praises.  For me he was  ok, I 
was expecting better on the harp.  As a pro he's pretty good but my  attention 
was not focused after a while.
Just my personal taste in music.  Voice was decent and he tried very  hard.  
Introducing every song with "...like THIS ..." got to be a bit  repetitive.  
Played straight through a Fender Bassman with some sort of  bulb mic (not a 
58).  B-
 
Siegel-Schwall Band - one of my all-time faves since the early '70's.   I've 
copied a ton of Corky S.'s licks and arrangements.  Have every  album/cd.  
This was a good show, but not their best, but great fun with  their usual humor.  
Corky did a show stopping solo where he ended up on his  knees doing his 
usual thing, and the crowd ate it up.  The crowd wanted an  encore but the 
promoters wouldn't do it.  Corky was clearly willing.   He was playing through the 
same Fender Bassman as Curtis, but had what looked  like an SM57 as a mic.  Sam 
Lay was drumming and did a great show.  B+  (they're always an A+ in my book, 
but I'm trying to be objective here)
 
John Lee Hooker, Jr. - TIGHT back up band, rehearsed to  perfection, and 
energetic performance from JLH2.  His voice is not  what was expected, he can 
sing.  Some songs were too stretched out far too  long and were too wordy, 
however, and too much "I love you St. Petersburg!"  kind of ass-kissing thing between 
and during songs, but JLH2 is a really good  performer if you like that kind 
of thing.   Kind of a Sammy Davis Jr.  kissup thing.  I also personally don't 
like the use of a keyboard player  who plays synthesizer horn parts instead of 
having real horns or just going  without the horn pretense.  Although the 
crowd ate it up, I give it a B-  due to the excess bs in the middle of every song.
 
Johnny Winter - I used to see JW come in Manny's and hang out when I lived  
in NYC in
the 90's (he looked weak then) and since then had heard he was in bad  
health.  He was.  He came out, bent over like a really old  man, and looked and 
walked like he clearly had some medical problems,  looked soooooo weak I thought 
someone was going to have to take his arm and  help him.  They propped him up 
in a chair and gave him a  guitar.   Then... he leaned forward and kicked into 
"Hideaway",  followed by "Sugar Coated Love", etc. and he was SMOKIN'.  The 
licks were  flying off his fingers like the old days.  How could a guy who looks 
so bad  play so strong?  He's JW, nuff said.  After one song he abruptly gets 
 up, the whole band leaves (nobody says anything), then he returns in 2 
minutes  with his Firebird and plays Mojo Boogie and others on SLIDE and again, 
he's the  still GREAT and can put it out.  He had a harp player, maybe some of 
you  know his name, who looked like he was playing out of a Super Reverb amp.   
Lots of energy from the harp player, he  hit the right notes, jumped around  a 
lot, tried to look tough and traditional, but the tone wasn't there and got  
lost in the mix of the music.  Sounded tinny without much bottom.  He  played 
too fast and too repetitive.  The real show was JW and his bass  player.  
Maybe the harp player was just too excited and tried too  hard.  A
 
TODAY'S performances:  Omar and the Howlers, Indigenous, Robben Ford,  Johnny 
Lang
TOMORROW:  Rod Piazza, Taj Mahal and others