Re: [Harp-L] Most Amazing Harmonica Shows

["Splash" <celtiac@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

This is an excellent thread.

As far as the blues... I can remember one amazing show and I can't remember
when it was.  Mid '70's I think.. 1972 or 3 ???   at the Sportatorium in
west Hollywood, Florida.

IAM going to go by memory entirely.  As everybody knows, if you can remember
the 60s or 70s, you weren't doing it right... I confess my dame bramage
still shows up in the most amuzing times... anyway, I digress...

The opening band was an Australian group caled Daddy Cool.  They were good.
Got a cool groove going and they had a sax player who was the frontman. No
harp.  Good groove, jazzy rock'n'roll stuff.  Everybody got off on them OK.

Then Lightning Hopkins came out and sat on a chair.  I was pretty much
enthralled by what he was doing since I had been playin the blues for a
couple of years but didn't really "get it" yet.  He must have been 90 years
old.  Or 100.  I know now what I witnessed that night and I am more amazed
by my memories of that night now than I was then.  He was on top of it...
played constrained and exact, very intense tone and precise notes.  It was a
wake-up call for me because I was playing wild at the time.  I learned to do
less with more from Lightning that night.  In fact it stayed with me for
years how how did so much without seeming to do very much.  And the tone!
The tone!  Did I mention the tone?

Next act - Howlin' Wolf.  Oh-Mi-Gawd!  I couldn't believe what I was seeing,
and hearing. Triple XXX rated lyrics, wild on stage acrobatics. He was
throwing the microphone all around and shaking it like it was his penis, and
threatening the ladies with his "tool" and everybody could tell, he meant
it.  I think he was "on something."  <Har!>  I know I was. And all my
friends that I went there were "on something" as well.  Hey it was them
days.  The 60's and 70's, remember?  If you can't quite remember, that's OK.
Neither can I.

Then out came Muddy Waters.  What can you say about Muddy.  Loud and in your
face.  We left in a daze, as much from the music as from everything else.

I don't remember getting home that night.

It was the 70's.. I think.


PEACE
Scott
Believe in Magic!