The shows, exhibits, and Martin Scorsese-produced PBS documentaries set for autumn broadcast in this Congressionally-proclaimed “Year of the Blues” are intended to show blues as a varied, living form that continues to impact American and global music across a broad spectrum.
This five-hour extravaganza, featuring over 40 numbers from dozens of acts, was produced by Seattle’s Experience Music Project as a benefit show for the Blues Music Foundation. It was filmed by director Antoine Fuqua for DVD, broadcast and possible theatrical release later this year.
The show was designed to proceed through history with period multimedia slides backing the acts, but the organizers also looked forward as often as backward. There were some unforgettable moments as key blues musicians rose to the “for posterity” occasion, but most encouraging was the strength of younger acts amid a lineup that ranged from teenagers to 87-year-old Honeyboy Edwards.
Shemekia Copeland’s blistering vocal on Etta James’ “Something’s Got A Hold On Me”, followed by her emotional duet with Robert Cray on Bobby Bland’s “I Pity The Fool”, announced the arrival of a substantial new blues mama. (James and Bland were among the short list of living legends who did not make this show.) Angie Stone nailed and freshened T-Bone Walker’s seemingly well-worn “Stormy Monday”, and Macy Gray offered a typically scruffy and idiosyncratic “Hound Dog” after Willie Mae Thornton’s original. Chris Thomas King’s adventurous and often-misunderstood blues and scratch/hip-hop mix on “Revelations” (sampling Son House), and Chuck D’s hip-hop-drenched turn on John Lee Hooker (“No Boom Boom Boom”), also pointed ways forward for this century.
Of course, with some of the great voices of the past 50 years in one room, the gut-grabbing moments were not limited to the young. Gospel/soul enchantress Mavis Staples and R&B queen Ruth Brown were joined by Natalie Cole, just killing and shouting on the comic “Men Are Just Like Street Cars” — after Mavis’ a cappella turn on Blind Lemon Jefferson’s “See That My Grave Is Kept Clean” had already stirred chills. And the singular Odetta delivered a crying, big-band version of Lead Belly’s “Jim Crow Blues” backed a full show orchestra that include Dr. John, Levon Helm and Kebo Mo.
Veterans including Buddy Guy (with acoustic Muddy Waters, a salute to Jimi Hendrix, and a re-charged “First Time I Met The Blues”), Gatemouth Brown, Robert Junior Lockwood, Hubert Sumlin (with David Johansen supplying the Howlin’ Wolf vocal on “I’m Gonna Quit You”), and B.B. King all gave “best night” performances. So did the Neville Brothers, Bonnie Raitt and John Fogerty (“Midnight Special” with soul chorus).
For all the emphasis on the blues’ impact on other forms (gospel, rock, jazz, pop) its storied interchange with country music before the rockabilly moment was barely noted. Alison Krauss played violin with James Blood Ulmer on “Sittin’ On Top Of The World,” a song long beloved on both sides of the tracks, but that’s a meager twang acknowledgement that the autumn films should explore further.
With tickets for this benefit running $50-$1500, the audience demographic not surprisingly gave standing ovations to the unremarkable, Stones-channeling reading of “I’m A King Bee” by Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler and Joe Perry of Aerosmith, and a shimmy-skirted reading of “St. Louis Blues” from Natalie Cole that was often plain off the beat. To their credit, the crowd did respond to an electric Solomon Burke performance (“Down In The Valley”), and noticed that the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion’s R.L. Burnside salute came off as neither explosive nor very able.
But the show, not the crowd, was the thing — and quite a show it often was.
