Re: Kim Wilson Show

["Charles Williams CS" <CWILLIAM@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Also got to see Kim here in DC this past Friday at Tornado Alley. Great tone
and overall musicianship (2 hours) although I would have loved to hear him
play some chromatic but then you got to plug your albums. He was playing
through a Fender Brown Tolex Vibrolux with one 15 inch speaker. I remember
looking at the settings and was surprised that most were turned way down
except for one but for the life of me I have blocked out which one.  Almost
all the settings were off with the volume at about 3 1/2. He didn't use any of
the built in vibrato/intensity settings.  This from a guy who owns many premo
vintage amps.

Kim is one hell of a good guy and performer. Even after the band stepped down
he played the two encores mentioned by Steve-where he played drums and harp
together and then did his solo acoustic on the vocal mike version of 9 Below
Zero-just great tone and feeling. Then walks off stage to immediately sign
autographs without a chance to change his shirt or take a wiz. Talk about
giving people there moneysworth and with a positive attitude. I know some you
feel he should play harp on everysong but when he does play harp you know it
will be great blues.
This was his second to the last show (Bottom Line on Saturday) on his 10 week
tour that started in San Francisco in September. Spoke with Rusty Zinn (his
guitarist) and he will be playing with Snooky Pryor for New Year's Eve. Kim
was planning to go on vacation for a much needed and deserved rest.  Also
there is apparently going to be another blues cruise put on by Delbert
McClinton to run around the same time as the already well publicized cruise in
January (which the T-birds and Delbert played on last year.

Spoke with Kim about his harps and he says he will soon start tuning his
Marine Bands  - apparently Joe Filisko has convinced him of the need.
We also discussed briefly Pierre Bouregards harps and tunings and Kim's
observation was how Hohner completely by accident/coincidence came upon the
almost perfect tuning for blues with the diatonic/Richter harp and how
versatile it is in several positions without any changes needed (ie. hard to
improve on it for blues playing). Well that about all for now harp fans.

cwilliam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Charlie Williams, Clarksville, MD)
alias Choo Choo Charlie - Disclaimer "all opinions are my own".