LUNCH WITH ALBERT

I finally found a little spare time to report on the Coloma Blues Live Festival I attended on Sat. up in the Gold Country in Lotus just up river from where gold was discovered at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, Ca. on the South Fork of the American River. The show started @ 11:00 AM with Curtis Salgado, a nice set even though Curtis told the crowd it was unusual to be up at that hour of the day let alone performing. Then as the noon hour approached Albert Cummings took the stage after the Emcee told the crowd that the artist everybody requested on their feedback replies from last years show was hands down Albert. He played a much too short 1 hour set and as he told me later they abbreviated some songs to squeeze in more of their material. They killed it with Voodoo Child/Purple Haze to end the set then grilled it with The Blues Makes me Feel So Good & Zep's Rock And Roll for an encore. The stage crew did a fantastic job of turning the stage around for each act in minimal time, roughly 15 minutes which was nice to keep things movin' along. Roy Rodgers was next up and if this show had been at night I swear to God you'd have seen sparks comin' off his acoustic and national steel. It's been too long since the last time I'd seen Roy in concert, the sit down interview I attended here in Benicia last year with him didn't do his playing justice. I have to say Roy can give Sonny Landreth a run for his money any time any where. Tommy Castro hit the stage next. I wish I could borrow an ounce of his mojo, this guy makes a crowd restless, especially the ladies. The open space in front of the stage was elbow to elbow the minute he kicked it with people shakin' their booties throughout the entire set. My neighbors Scott & Diane that came up Sat. morning and I were hangin' tough at this point as the weather was spectacular, upper 80's, but a gentle breeze and 3 applications of sunscreen kept us goin'. Last, but not least Los Lobos took the stage and Bluesrocked us to the finish line. These guys have been at it for over 3 decades now and they know how to deliver. They've been covering I'm Sorry by Bo Diddley for years they said which they played in his honor and absolutely lit up the crowd with a rousing version of Tito Puente's Oye Como Va which morphed into One Way Out, the crowd was about delirious at this point. I highly recommend this festival to all the Norcal forum members next year. This was one of the most well organized events I've ever attended. I don't know if they sold out, but the ticket max was only 2,000. Plenty of good food and beer, wine, smoothies, espresso bar, other goodies. My friends and I were amazed that we only saw 2 people all day that appeared to be over the line alcohol wise. I talked to a sheriff on the way out and he said they had no arrests and the only incident all day was a minor fender bender in the parking lot, pretty amazing. I hooked up with members of the Sierra Blues Society at their booth where they had flyers and handbills promoting the Fire On The Mountain Festival Aug. 9th which Joe is headlining this year, for which I heartily thanked them and got an address to forward some Sloe Gin posters which they promised to spread around in the foothills. All in all a very nice weekend. now it's off to Monterey in a couple more weeks.

                                                                                                      Think Green,

                                                                                                      J Dawg

PS I had a Salmon burger for lunch, but I contemplated the ostrich or the buffaloe burgers. Like I said plenty of good and unusual grub at the gig. Another popular item of the day were the hellabig BBQ turkey legs. Los Lobos did play some blues in Spanish as Richard Hidalgo said, Hispanics get the blues too you know.