Re: Sugar Blue Show.

[Joe.Lempkowski@xxxxxxxxxxx (Joe Lempkowski)]

I have seen Sugar Blue more times than I care to admit.
At first,  I was awed by him.  I thought his high end runs 
were really cool.  The more I saw him play the more his 
style grated on me.  He seemed to be really repetitive,
playing the same lick over and over and over.

He is an awesome harp player,  but I don't think he has
developed much in the way of feeling the blues.  He doesn't
know when not to play.  There were a few harp players in
Chicago that could do the same runs but with more feeling. 
Billy Branch was one.  Carey Bell is capable of doing it.
There were other lesser known harp players that were hot
and could play that style if necessary.  Scott Bradbury
was one.


Keep in mind I developed these opinions almost ten years
ago and haven't seen him since.  Probably because I moved
from Chicago eight years ago.

BTW,  I found Sugar Blue to be hospitable and fairly 
friendly.  He used to host Monday jam nights at Kingston
many moons ago.  He never appeared to have an attitude
back then.  He was pretty confident in his abilities and 
always let lesser skilled players have their shot at the 
mike.  I used to love listening to him play Miss You.
I used to hated having to follow (or precede) him at those 
jam nights.  One learns humility quite quickly this way. :-)

Joe