Lincoln Durham – Live at The Saxon Pub – 2.28.2010
Lincoln Durham – Live at The Saxon Pub – 2.28.2010
Every once in awhile, in the midst of sifting and sorting my way through the ridiculous amount of music that is available on the internet to sample, I come across one of those gems that makes all of the endless hours completely worth it. Luckily for me, last week was one of those times.
Lincoln Durham’s gritty voice and gripping blues grooves take about 5 seconds to jump out at me as something special. About 10 seconds into listening, I realize that it’s not only special, it’s downright dirty and badass. 30 seconds after that, I’m scrambling to find this guy’s album so I can buy it. That’s the only downside I come across… His debut album is being finished and should be out sometime in the spring. But my luck has not run out yet, because I see Lincoln is from Texas, and happens to be playing at the Saxon Pub this Sunday. I’m now about 2 minutes into listening, and I’m sending my wife a text about the show. It takes her about 10 seconds of listening to confirm that we are definitely going to see this guy.
We roll into the Saxon Pub just after 6PM and Lincoln has already started his set. It’s a tiny crowd as expected on a Sunday night. With only a few people in the main part of the room, my wife and I have our choice of seats in the venue…
We are then bombarded with 45 minutes of blues-gritty goodness. Lincoln’s voice is a cross between Ray Lamontagne, Ryan Bingham, Bob Seger, and our buddy Jay Buchanan. It’s soulful grit matches perfectly with the slide acoustic blues grooves that he’s laying down on the guitar. Durham’s guitar work is a perfect blend of blues riffs, slide soul, and John Lee Hooker bass line walks. He also has his foot mic’d to keep a steady four to the floor drive behind the groove and is locked in throughout the set. It’s definitely a nice touch and ends up being a great compliment to what is going on with the guitar and harmonica in the solo sections.
All in all, I knew I was catching this guy way before his break, which makes me smile. With Ray Wylie Hubbard producing his soon to be released debut album, I know that 6 months from now, there’s no way he’s going to be playing to this few people on any night of the week, especially in Austin. Judging by the live performance, I fully expect to be seeing Lincoln Durham on much larger stages in the future. For now though, I’ll catch him as much as I can on a small intimate scale.