Re: [Harp-L] Jason Ricci Revue from Orlando Blues Society - OBBS

[David Payne <dmatthew@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Think we could get Jason Ricci to listen to some of   James Cottonâs Band
doing  âHold Me Babyâ  with Jimmy Vaughn playing  slide?   He certainly
could play the hell out of thatâââif he wanted  to.
Oh well,
Ford"


Well, if he doesn't it's because there is NO shortage of people who do. There
is an EXTREME shortage of people who do what Jason Ricci does. On the flip side,
I remember at the Charlie West Blues Fest in Charleston, West by God
Virginia, numerous people saying they expected Punk when he got up on
stage, but were shocked when they heard the kind of blues he was
playing. That was an all-blues set list. He plays a blues set list when he plays BLUES EVENTS. Was this a blues event? I doubt it. He has more than one set list,
convienently-ambiguous Mr. Ford, who is not part of this list, I feel what tales he spins are appropriate in his OWN FORUM. I do not fault Mr. Ford, Man of Mystery, for his thoughtful colloquy, which he appropriately posts in his own forum. I see this as part of the cycle of negative action/apology, negative action/apology that has gone on the part of that review's forwarder for all these years that the most assurably honorable Mr. Ford has been unwittingly drawn into.

If I were a newbie, I would pause and consider this a time of constructive reflection and self-examination about the direction you take. Ok, you wanna sound like Cotton, who is the MAN. Cool. But as you start to sound like Cotton, you want to go beyond that. You want to sound like YOU, a guy that likes Cotton, but is YOU. 
Why the hell would you want to sound just like Cotton or LIttle Walter, or my personal heros of my pearwood-harmonica-laden youth, Junior Wells and Rice Miller? Cotton sounds like Cotton. Little Walter sounds like Little Walter. Same with Wells and Miller. You wanna be THE MAN? You're not going to get that way sounding just like somebody else. I GUARENTEE somebody back in Walter's day was thinking "What's this whimsically-narfarious junk? Hook this cat up with some Gwen Foster 78s. He could play that.. if he wanted to." 

That said, if I were Jason, I would take it as a compliment. 
Take Hank Williams Jr., for instance. Know what kind of hell he took when he stopped singing his daddy's songs and as he said "kind of changed my direction," even from his own mother? But he forged his own unique sound... Far as I'm concerned, Jason can skin a buck, run a trotline, and keep doing what he's doing. Having just drawn a parallel between Hank and Jason Ricci, writing any additional prose would be anticlimatic. 

That's all I have to say about that.

Dave
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