Author: Vincent Abbate

WIB Listening Party #20: Lost and Found

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featuring…

♫ Jimmy Scott, Lost and Found

🍺 Chimay Bleue Trappist Ale

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

I like to jump around musically at the Listening Party, both within and without the blues genre. Now that we’ve reached another round number on the beer and blues hit parade, I intend to do some more jumping.

You see, I’ve never quite understood why blues fans – or diehard fans of any one style of music – are so intent upon listening only to that genre, or why they choose to define it so narrowly. It’s like loving basketball but hating all other sports, like reading police procedurals but no other kind of book. Doesn’t seem quite right, does it?

I’m devoting today’s Listening Party to Jimmy Scott and his album Lost and Found. It’s a reach, I guess, outside the blues into the realm of jazz. Scott – to my mind the greatest balladeer ever – is generally considered a jazz singer. But honestly, I can’t think of anyone bluesier.

Beer is also matter of taste. There are purists who stick to one type of beer or even a single brand throughout their lives. Others try different styles and flavors from all over the world, discovering loves, likes and dislikes along the way.

That’s what I’m doing here at Listening Party. Exploring the world of beer while presenting my favorite music. Today, while getting lost in the wonder and heartbreak of Jimmy Scott, we’ll partake of Chimay Bleue, a strong Trappist ale from Belgium. I honestly don’t know what to expect.

Let’s do it. Beer and blues, round 20.

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WIB Listening Party #19: Live at the Corner

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featuring…

♫ Ash Grunwald, Live at the Corner

🍺 Kona Longboard Island Lager

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

OK, I’ve had enough.

Obviously, I didn’t move to Germany for the weather. The Rhineland is not Bora Bora or the Côte d’Azur.

But generally, by mid-May, you can expect decent weather. Not this year. February, March and April were sprinkled with beautiful, sunny days. Right now, we’re in an interminably long stretch of gray, the temps are cool to tepid and summer is looking like it may never happen.

So my mission this week, for selfish reasons, is to paint the drabness around me in the reassuringly bright colors of summer. It gives me the chance to knock back a bottle of Kona Longboard Island Lager and write few lines about Australia’s Ash Grunwald.

Grunwald came instantly to mind because Kona brews on Hawaii’s Big Island and he’s an avid surfer. He even wrote a song about how a pod of guardian angel dolphins once saved him from a shark attack when he and a friend were out on their boards.

I honestly can’t think of a single blues artist from Hawaii. I’m sure there are some. I’ve just read that there are eight different climate zones on Hawaii and quite a bit of rain – but something tells me the landscape and vibe of the place might not be very conducive to the “blues feeling.”

So I’m going with Grunwald, the laid-back surfer dude who sometimes takes the stage in flip flops. That doesn’t scream “blues feeling” either, but he has it in spades. His early albums – including today’s pick Live at the Corner – contain excellent covers of Robert Johnson and Howlin’ Wolf alongside his own knockout-punch originals. He’s since moved on to become one of the genre’s more progressive and experimental performers, but the raw intensity of the blues has always been there, particularly in his live shows.

I’m switching into shorts and a Hawaiian-style print shirt for this, even if I freeze my balls off.

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WIB Listening Party #18: All I Want

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featuring…

♫ John Mooney, All I Want

🍺 Welde / Himburgs Braukunstkeller Pepper Pils

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

All I want is …

Nah. Let’s not go there. The list is long and kind of depressing. Let’s talk about John Mooney instead.

John Mooney is a guy who projects both power and sensitivity, both darkness and light. In his playing and singing, you can hear how he went to school on one of the all-time greats, Son House, the former Baptist preacher and blues pioneer who was forever torn between the sacred and the secular. Mooney played alongside House as a teenager in upstate New York after Joe Beard introduced them in 1971. He possesses an uncanny feel for the sort of Delta blues House performed during his lifetime and has come up with a signature guitar tone that soars like a bird on the wing.

But he carried it a step further. He moved to New Orleans as a young man, hooked up with influential musicians like Professor Longhair and Snooks Eaglin and made that city’s famed second line rhythm his own. Mooney makes magic with those two basic ingredients, the Delta and the second line.

I love just about everything’s he done but have a special place in my heart for All I Want. The album’s energy is electric and Mooney’s playing is off the charts.

All I Want was his most current disc when I interviewed John before a club show in Bavaria in 2003. I think I was drinking Pyraser Landbier in half-liter mugs that night. Mmm. Today’s Listening Party pick has little in common with that Bavarian Helles, but it is German: Pepper Pils, which I chose for the simplest of reasons. I’m intrigued by what adding pepper does to beer.

Let’s crack open the bottle and let the music play.

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WIB Listening Party #17: Time Bomb

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featuring…

♫ Sue Foley, Deborah Coleman & Roxanne Potvin, Time Bomb

🍺 Steamworks Pale Ale

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Can we agree there’s too much product out there?

It’s how I feel and have felt for quite some time now. Everybody and his brother puts out a CD or DVD or digital-only release on a regular basis. For the consumer, trying to keep up with each new wave of recordings is a Sisyphean task that hinders the enjoyment of music. Long gone are the days when we would sit for weeks with a favorite LP, poring over the lyrics and attempting to decipher the secret meanings hidden in the whacked out cover art. Today, we listen quickly and superficially before it’s wham, bam, on to the next one.

What’s worse, the never-ending torrent of new product keeps us so busy that we rarely dive into the collection we’ve assembled, which is full of gems we probably didn’t spend enough time with in the first place. Like Time Bomb.

The album was recorded and released to coincide with the third edition of the Ruf Records Blues Caravan Tour, which featured Sue Foley and Roxanne Potvin alongside the late American guitarist and singer Deborah Coleman.

I want to go music-heavy as I explore this excellent record from 2007, keeping the blah blah to a minimum and giving each of the three talented ladies who contributed to the project their chance to shine. 

And of course we’ll do a little beer tasting along the way, indulging in our first Canadian brew in honor of Foley and Potvin, each of whom hails from the Great White North.

Let’s stop – take a deep breath – pour a cold glass of Steamworks Pale Ale – and enjoy Time Bomb.

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WIB Listening Party #16: Back Door Man

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featuring…

♫ Howlin’ Wolf, Back Door Man

🍺 Superfreunde Hang Loose Pale Ale

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

I’ve got a birthday coming up in … just a coupla hours. Yippie? I don’t know. At my age, I don’t get too excited about another tick on the calendar. Especially this year. The past twelve months feel very much like lost time I’ll never get back. No concerts, for one – aside for a couple of small, seated, socially distanced things. Live music sure, but not the same. A concert where you can’t hug your friends and can’t scream and fall down and go nuts can’t be anything better than OK.

I thought about cutting myself some birthday slack and not doing a Listening Party this week. Then again, one doesn’t get far in life by taking the day off. So here we are, sharing the time until midnight, when the “5” in my age becomes a “6”. Shooting the shit, as we do every week, about music, beer and life in general.

Today’s beer is called Hang Loose and I intend to crack it open shortly before the clock strikes twelve. If you’re expecting puns and wordplay related to surfing, I’ll have to disappoint you – I’ve never been near a surfboard let alone ridden one. (Does one even ride a surfboard?)

But hanging loose has other connotations and we’ll be doing just that with the great Howlin’ Wolf and his incomparable session bands from the 1950s and 60s.

Ready for a dose of some of the bitchinest blues ever recorded? I sure am …

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WIB Listening Party #15: Forgiven

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featuring…

♫ Los Lonely Boys, Forgiven

🍺 Mashsee Beverly Pils

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

Do you have a funeral playlist? You know, a batch of songs you’d want to have played when people gather at your memorial service and talk about what an incredible person you were? I do, though I haven’t yet bothered to write it down.

Certain songs express an attitude about life, mortality, God and a hypothetical hereafter. An attitude that speaks to you. Sometimes, I imagine the folks sitting there when I’m gone, hearing the songs on my personal playlist and gradually recognizing who I was and what I believed in. 

I’ll get to one of those songs shortly. First, let’s talk about Los Lonely Boys. A terrific band that’s overlooked by many blues fans.

One reason might be the name. Los Lonely Boys doesn’t scream blues like, say, Too Slim & The Taildraggers. Or it might be the curse of their smash debut single “Heaven” – a melodic rock number that put the band on the map in 2004. It’s the only thing a lot of people know by Los Lonely Boys. The trio has tried to replicate that success with radio-friendly tracks on subsequent albums but has never come close. So for some, they’re a one-hit wonder.

But Henry (guitar), Jojo (bass) and Ringo Garza (drums), sons of Conjunto musician Enrique Garza Sr., have been making good to great albums all along, mixing blues, classic rock, pop and Tejano into what they like to call Texican Rock’n’Roll. My favorite of theirs is 2011’s Rockpango, where the brothers blend those ingredients into a cocktail spicier than a Bloody Maria. The follow-up Revelation, their final album to date, is also very good.

Today I’ll go a bit further back to their third studio album Forgiven, mostly because the title track is one of those on my funeral playlist. At this writing the band is on some kind of hiatus or may in fact have packed it in completely. I hope not, so I’ll talk of them in the present tense.

And because the motto of the Who Is Blues Listening Party is “One album, No scotch, One beer,” I’ll be diving into Beverly Pils a bit later on – a superb Pilsener created by Germany’s Mashsee brewery.

Now, let’s head south to San Angelo, Texas, a little bit west of Dallas, a little bit north of San Antone.

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WIB Listening Party #14: The Early Years

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featuring…

♫ Blind Willie McTell, 1927 – 1933 The Early Years

🍺 Bevog Totem Sour IPA

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

I’ve heard rumblings that audio cassettes are making a comeback. This following the spectacular revival of vinyl over the past decade or so.

Now, vinyl I can understand. LPs and 45s offer you something on a tactile level. They’re nice to look at and hold in your hand. Many believe vinyl sounds better and “warmer” than CDs and streams – a disputed topic that is open to debate.

But cassettes? They’re sort of ugly, feel cheap, are prone to getting tangled up in your tape deck and reside pretty near the bottom of the audiophile food chain.  

Not that I’ve thrown mine out, mind you. Disposing of cherished mixtapes from the 1980s or a cassette that a certain girlfriend gave you is like dumping your personal history into the rubbish tip. Maybe it’s just me, but I prefer to hold onto such things.

Beer in cans has a similarly bad reputation. Until the advent of plastic beer bottles (ugh), the cheapest beer at the supermarket was always canned beer. Bottled beer looks more elegant and is usually more expensive, so we’ve convinced ourselves that it tastes better.

But craft brewers are helping to rehabilitate the can’s reputation. Cans are easier to transport and more recyclable than bottles. They’re better at protecting beer from exposure to light. That prevents oxidation, keeping a beer fresher for longer and preserving the flavor.

All that as a lead-in to this edition of the Who Is Blues Listening Party, which, as you’ll see below, has a different look.

My musical selection, the Blind Willie McTell compilation1927-1933 The Early Years, is on a cassette I picked up from a vendor in Union Square in New York City.

Bevog’s Totem Sour IPA is the first but certainly not the last canned beer recommended to me by my good friends at Bierlager.

Old school? New school? Let’s have fun with this.

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WIB Listening Party #13: Born Under A Bad Sign

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featuring…

♫ Albert King, Born Under A Bad Sign

🍺 Guinness Hop House 13 Lager

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

I bought Born Under A Bad Sign when I first started writing about the blues in the late 90s. It’s one of those quintessential albums you had to be familiar with if you were going to publish anything on the subject. Required listening, so to speak. Read any three guitar player interviews and one of them is bound to mention Albert King as an influence. Hendrix, Clapton, Stevie Ray Vaughan … if those guys idolized the big man from Mississippi and tried to copy his peculiar left-handed upside-down string-bending style, then there must be something there, right?

I like what self-proclaimed guitar nerd Joe Bonamassa had to say about King’s legacy on an episode of his Live From Nerdville video series: “[Albert] has been imitated many times – including by yours truly – but never quite duplicated, because his attack, his presence and the way he felt the music was completely new.”

The appeal of Born Under A Bad Sign begins with cover art that is among the coolest in the blues’ long history. The color scheme, the placement of the ace of spades, snake eyes and other bad luck symbolism, even the iconic Stax Records logo tucked into the lower left corner – all very striking. It reminds me of some psychedelic 1960s wallpaper … one you wouldn’t want hanging in your room if you were on a bad trip.

The album collects 11 tracks recorded in 1966 and 1967, many of them running less than three minutes (!!) … starting with the title song, dating to May of ’67 and played countless times by well-intentioned blues bands the world over in the half-century since. Frankly, it’s a challenge to listen to an LP with fresh ears when so many of its tunes have been covered to death – though it speaks volumes about the quality of the material.

Perhaps a bit of barley broth will help get us there! Guinness Hop House 13 Lager was an obvious choice for Listening Party #13, what with the bold red number 13 on the label echoing the calendar page on the cover of Bad Sign.

That’s a lot of 13 gathered in one place. Bad juju?

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WIB Listening Party #12: Peace Machine

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featuring…

♫ Philip Sayce, Peace Machine

🍺 Sierra Nevada Torpedo Extra IPA

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

My past two Listening Party posts went off on a bit of a folky/world music tangent. The adventure was both musically satisfying and educational. But now, as I steer the proceedings back toward the grit and grime of the blues, I find myself wanting first and foremost to have my face melted. Who better to turn to in this case than Welsh-born, Canada-raised, next-level electric guitar monster Philip Sayce.

For me, any consideration of this abundantly gifted blues-rocker begins with the night he rolled into Leverkusen, Germany on the first night of a European tour and blew the walls off of a tiny club called topos. When I first caught wind of that gig, my first thought was, “What? He’s playing there?!!” Sayce’s growing reputation at the time suggested he would pack the place, and so it was: When the evening arrived, curious bodies occupied every available inch of space, from the gunky restrooms tucked away behind the stage all the way past the bar and out the front door. You basically couldn’t move. 

Sayce’s power trio was so damn good it didn’t matter.

The knockout energy of Philip Sayce and his revelatory album Peace Machine, which we’ll be sampling today, calls for a beverage that packs a similarly potent punch, so I’m going with a personal favorite: the Torpedo Extra IPA crafted by Chico, California’s Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. 

The bottle is chilled. Three choice album tracks have been hand-picked for your pleasure. All I need now is a pair of heavy duty bolt cutters. This is Listening Party unchained.

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WIB Listening Party #11: My Africa

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featuring…

♫ Elemotho, My Africa

🍺 Windhoek Lager

Words & photos: Vincent Abbate

This entry in the Listening Party series is about discovery. Specifically, one that sent me on a rather wide detour from what we generally call the blues. It’s that rare instance in which a particular brand of beer led me to some truly wonderful music I hadn’t known of before. Perhaps I should explain how it came about.

My partner in this blues-and-brews endeavor is Bierlager, a craft beer retailer in Cologne, Germany, the city where I took up residence some 28 years ago. Bierlager’s bottle store sits around the corner from my office, and once a month or so I stop in to pick up a fresh supply of beer to write about. Last time, I walked away with a small carton full of interesting sounding ales and lagers from Canada, the U.S. and Europe. The folks who run the shop also included a bottle of Windhoek Lager, a Namibian beer that was fast approaching its sell by date. 

Fine. Something out of the ordinary.

I thought it best to pair Windhoek Lager with a band or artist from Namibia. Makes sense, right? Fairly confident I’d find something bluesy, I tried a half dozen or so recordings on for size, but nothing inspired me. Most sounded like an imitation of American blues, some fell into the generic pop category and I really wanted something that sounded African. After all, it’s the source.

Eventually, my persistence paid off as I stumbled upon Elemotho, a native artist with roots in the Kalahari Desert. His song “The System Is A Joke,” a plain and melodic protest song, sounded promising enough for me to order My Africa, a compilation CD on ARC Records that culls songs from Elemotho’s first three albums. It’s been in heavy rotation since it arrived at my doorstep. 

Full disclosure before I go any further: I’ve never been to Namibia and won’t pretend to know much about its people, history or geography. What follows is simply a response to what I hear on My Africa and what flows out of the green 330ml bottle of Windhoek Lager standing before me.

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