(I just invented the acronym MAWBT--Might As Well Be Tosa--for places on the edges of our community where we like to go. It gives me an excuse to write about them here.)
This is a summer of blues legends. First there was BB King at Summerfest, and Thursday I heard bluesman Johnny Winter at the
Times Cinema. In case you didn’t know, the Times has taken to hosting live music performances along with old movies. Next up is the Philip Walker Band (July 22), followed by Canned Heat and the Jim Liban Blues Band (July 29).
The live performance venue is mainly a good thing—if the audiences can manage to behave themselves and not drive the neighbors mad. Winter (the season, not the guitar man) will cure the noise and outdoor loitering, but while it’s warm the worried management will continue to flutter about, reminding even 50-year-old fans to go easy on the Smirnoffs and Miller.
Winter is the oldest 63-year-old I’ve ever seen. Of course he’s always looked a little spooky, bleached and skeletal, his mouth opening into silent Os between phrases. But hard living and injuries in a house fire have made him bent and wraith-like. It’s a wonder that he’s still traveling.
Maybe that’s part of living the blues, being a traveling man as well as a guitar man.
His band was fabulous, especially bass player Scott Spray, who watches Winter carefully, even lovingly, and lead guitar Paul Nelson, who left the stage most of the evening so people could concentrate on Winter. Winter’s still a master, and his voice was stronger than I’d have expected.
The great thing about the blues is that it’s the music of life. You can fake technique and passion, as rock often does, but you can’t fake life. It’s music in which an old man sitting in a chair can still teach the young, and it was good.
Back to the fans. I’ll just say this, mainly to the guys but also to the women in full merchandise display attire and shouting about menopause while dropping toilet paper rolls in the toilet: six of anything in a bottle is too many.
