Long Beach, CA, November 22nd, 2006
Reviewed by Steve Daniels
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It’s the night before Thanksgiving, and everybody is resting up ,
preparing for family get-togethers and gourmandizing, right? No way,
if you’re a blues lover, especially a harmonica aficionado, and can
find your way to Long Beach. The annual Battle of the Blues Harps
awaits your delectation!
Created and still organized and run by Dan Jacobson and his Southland Blues compadres, the Battle is at least as tasty as the next day’s meal, and less caloric. This year’s version featured 7 proficient harp mavens, with a slew of stellar musicians behind them. The Crystal Ballroom at the Golden Sails hotel was packed, and spirits of both the emotional and fluid variety were flowing. Leading off the festivities was John “Juke” Logan, adept harp player and powerful blues belter, ably abetted by Rick Holmstrom on guitar. Their half hour of raucous blues warmed up the crowd for the Delta Groove revue. That relatively new record label has a stable of top-flight talent, well represented this night by successive harmonica performers Randy Chortkoff (the label’s honcho), Mitch Kashmar, Al Blake, and Johnny Dyer.
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All 4 shone on the instrument, with varied and consistently crowd-pleasing
styles, and all were classy vocalists; Dyer, one of the few singers alive
who can do justice to classic Muddy Waters songs, did several, to the delight
of the audience. Rock-solid Richard Innes on drums and Tom Levy on bass
backed the soloists, along with whiz Fred Kaplan on keyboards and the superb
guitar rotation featuring Kid Ramos, Junior Watson, and John Marx.
Hey, was there even more? Oh, yeah! Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers came
on next and dazzled the audience with their usual no-holds-barred high energy
West Coast blues, followed by James Harman and his band, featuring his
pixilated humor and the unpretentious but impeccable guitar artistry of
Nathan James. Finally Johnny Dyer reappeared and he and Harman closed the
night at almost 1 AM, after almost 6 hours of excellent blues, by sharing
vocals on several more songs. They were obviously having a great time,
and so we were lucky appreciators. I can hardly wait for Battle XIX!
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