Monday, February 16, 2009
The Spin B.B. King and Buddy Guy at The Ryman 2/12/09
Posted by The Spin on Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 9:22 AM
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Like everybody else in this workaday world, The Spin sometimes gets the blues. The only thing for it is to get smacked upside the head with an electrified blues spectacular. So it was that we found ourselves in the pews at the Ryman Thursday, getting the good mojo from blues legends Buddy Guy and B.B. King.
Guy, who recorded his last album Skin Deep in Nashville, started the evening off with ice-pick sharp solos and wit to match. Before Guy could play the album's title track, an audience member shouted a request from the front row.
Guy stopped the band mid-groove and glared at the fan. "Shut the fuck up and let me play what I want to play," he said to a roar of laughter from the audience--though it was clear the blues man wasn't being funny. "I want to play the title track off my new CD."
He then proceeded to do so, strumming the doleful, soulful tune, a Rhodes organ effect creeping from the electric keyboard. The song speaks to the basic homogeneity of mankind. Its chorus pleads, "Skin deep, underneath we're all the same."
Still, some of the song's poignancy was lost, considering that the man singing it had just told a person who paid eighty-five bucks to be there to fuck himself. But all was redeemed when Guy reverted to the gun slinging showmanship that's made him famous.
He crept off stage mid-solo and reappeared--still plucking--at the theater entrance. Guy then ran, sang and shredded his way around the theater, pausing for a moment, mere feet from the Spin. We locked eyes as he played and for a moment it was just us, him and the Mother Church.
After such a high-velocity display, B.B King was bound to be an emotional octave shift. His tuxedoed band warmed the up the crowd with a couple of plodding, groovy instrumentals that even included a flute solo(!). Then the man himself took the stage, sat down in a folding chair, Lucille was placed tenderly in his lap and the whole audience got their tickets punched for a ride on the blues school express.
King still sounds great. His playing is as crisp, simple and powerful as ever and he still manages to take the 1-4-5 progression to jaw dropping new places. His voice is a bear-like roar, the very definition of soul, no matter what he's singing about.
But he leaned on his band a bit too heavily at the Ryman. His horn players (and they were many) each got long solos on every song and even the drummer got a little showcase during the second number. Toward the middle of the set, B.B. spent more time talking than playing, and many in the well-heeled crowd headed for the exits.
When he did play, King demonstrated that he can still take a single note and make it sound like an orchestra. It probably wasn't his finest performance, but he's still better than just about anyone else.
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