Chromatics and Jerry Portnoy

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

BTW I heard Jerry Portnoy at the Eric Clapton concert here in Maryland on
Wed. night.  Jerry's sound was not very prominent early on especially on his
playing through the vocal mike. Later when playing through his amp he cut
through alot better and was the only band member introduced by Clapton which
was probably just an oversight. Clapton played 2 hours of blues and did none
of his originals and featured Jerry on about half of the tunes. On one song
Jerry played chromatic (third position) but very much in the background and to
my surprise used a 16 hole CBH model which has caused me to dust mine off
again. Alot of the blues players I know do not use it for a variety of reasons
(tone, feel,) so I was intrigued by this since Jerry has always been a die
hard Marine Band user which are certainly a polar opposite to the CBH design.
Jerry played mostly second position and a couple in first position - Hoochie
Koochie Man and had real good tone.

<From where I was sitting it appeared he was using a JT30 and a small Fender
tweed amp. It looked so new I wondered if it was one of the newer reissues or
just a restored Champ or perhaps a Deluxe. It was larger than my 55 Champ.
Anybody else know the specs on the amp he is using on this tour? It sounded
fine but I have known Jerry to use much larger and even 2 amp rigs in concert
so again this surprised me that he only used a smaller amp especially on such
a big concert tour.

I really enjoy learning from all the great posts and different opinions on
this list.  I too use older tubes in my amps when I can find them. Now if I
only had the time to try all the variations I hear about on this list. P.S. -
any word on the Ultimos?