[Harp-L] suncoast blues fest 11/05/05

[Joe and Cass Leone <leone@xxxxxxxx>]

 So I went to the suncoast blues fest yesterday. Left home and drove 
the 1 1/2 hrs to Pine Island. The day ran from noon till 10pm. I got 
there at 1:30 so I missed the first act. Entry fee was  10  samoleons
second act:     Deb & the Dynamics.
                       musicianship = decent
                       presentation = good
                       material = good
                       overall = this is a local group and was 'in a 
word' = surprising

third act:         Don't remember the name..don't care to.
                       musicianship = fair
                       presentation = repitious
                       material = decent
                       overall = from Orlando and in a word = boring

fourth act:       James Peterson blues band
                       musicianship = loud, raucous, and uninteligible
                       presentation = Peterson went into the audience 
to interact with them. He never shut up.
                                               People were crawling all 
over this guy, taking pictures, etc. Proving a
                                               suspicion I have held 
for years: "Not all the crazy people are safely put
                                               away".
                       material = WHAT material? Some of the tunes?? 
ran over 20 minutes of tedious
                                        repetition. Lots of crude 
language.
                       overall = group is from Alabama and in a word = 
Horrid

fifth act:          Saffire & the Uppity Blues Women
                       musicianship = top drawer. Best keyboardist I 
have heard in years. Obvious influences
                                               were Meade Lux-Lewis & 
Dr. John
                       presentation = excellent. Very tight well 
rehersed group.
                       material =  much of it was original stuff. It 
wasn't my cup of tea. The premise of their
                                         show seems to center around 
how older (especially larger) women are
                                         'where it's AT'. Most 
everything was done in G
                       overall = worth seeing once and in a word = 
tolerable
                       special note: although listed in Danny Wilson's 
'Gig-List', there was a grand total of
                                            20 SECONDS of harp. Hard to 
justify saying a group has a harp player
                                            at that rate. :)

sixth act:        The Nighthawks
                      musicianship = absolutely tops
                      presentation = too MUCH harp and all compressed 
with no variations
                      material = all sounded the same. (in all honesty, 
this could have been caused by the
                                       harp). Most everything was done 
in the same key (A)
                      overall =  in a word = tedious, so I left in the 
middle of the show, went and got a cappuchino and began the lonely 
journey home. A waste of a day and a waste of money. That's when it hit 
me like a falling 16 ton weight. Most of the best harp players either 
don't tour OR travel away from their home base on very rare occasion. I 
surmise this is because they are making too good a living at their 
'day' jobs.

smokey-joe

---
[This E-mail scanned for viruses by EWOL using Declude Virus]