[ Closed ] waterfront blues fest (Page 1 of 3)

I belong to Joe's Street Team, and I believe in the long run he's gonna turn out to be one of the best ever, but the performance last night was a big disappointment to me. Granted Joe is every bit as good a guitar player as Joe Satriani or Steve Vai, he can run them scales like he's in a world championship track meet with anybody on the planet, but what that has to do with playing the Blues is what I want to know. Do you see BB King doing that non-sense? Buddy Guy does it for short stints, but he always brings it back/down to way back in the alley south side Chicago, or back in the swamp Louisiana. I think once Joe gets some years under his belt he'll be doing this to, right now he's full of the beans of youth, entranced in that guitar god game.

Half way through the first song I told my brother Joe was a Jimmy Page wannabe and the band was a Led Zeppelin Tribute. Joe finished his set with a ZZ Top tune that morphed into a Led Zeppelin medley. My brother said to me you nailed that one. The Joe holds that Les Paul, he is constantly going into the classic Jimmy Page pose. Ya, that's right, that makes Joe a poser, a Jimmy Page poser. It's nothing to be ashamed of, every rock guitar player that has strapped on a Les Paul since Jimmy Page, myself included, has struck that pose. How could you not, it's so freakin' cool Jimmy did it perfect, why would anybody want to try and improve it, I don't think it can be done. Nothing wrong with being a poser, especially when you can rock it as hard as Joe Bonamassa, and for my money, ain't nobody rockin' harder than Joe Bonamassa out there right now, not Joe Satriani, not Steve Vai, not Kirk Hammett, not Joe Perry, not Jeff Beck, not Eric Clapton,....none of 'em.  That's the magnitude of Joe's raw talent. When he finds his true inner voice, when life has cooked his juices and simmered his soul into a good gumbo, oh man, he's going to blow everybodies mind !!!!!

Take care,
Jimmy Hale, aka Fast Jimmy
www.fastjimmy.com

Fast Jimmy. Thanks for posting your links so I could see what qualifies you to cast stones. I'll leave it with a quote from the boss. If you can't say it don't type it.

I will say this if I could I would. I'm willing to guess that if you could you would. If you will break out the rule book of blues and point out the section about too many notes then I might agree with you. Until then Joe is just playing the blues like he plays the blues.

Thanks Jimmy for the background. You are always welcome here along with your opinions. We usually just disagree hardly ever argue. It frankly is a matter of taste. Joe has matured along with his playing since he first hit the public stages.

Joe starts playing like Jimmy Vaughan and I'm outa here though. I like Joe just the way he is. Whatever Joe is doing seems to be working. Tommy would like to play to a Joe sized crowd if he could in a Joe sized venue. I know he told me.

I just don't think you have to have lived the blues to be a bluesman or a blues fan. The only blues I ever have is when the Visa is maxed out but I think I'm qualified to know what I like about an artist or dislike.

Since you're new here I'll tell you that to me there is nothing authentic since field hollers. So we need to get past defining the blues and what it is and shouldn't be and enjoy when a guy that has the abilities of Joe chooses to play a little blues.

Again thanks for introducing yourself. Most newbies come here to bear witness to the jaw dropping experience they just had. Not to chastise him for paying homage to his influences.

First of all, no real fear of losing me. I may piss and moan, but when I throw down with someone, in the sense of on their side, it's for life. The person really has to screw up, and Joe didn't screw up by any means, he just didn't fulfill my unrealistic expectations. I expect perfection from myself, hence the same from the ones I love. Like it or not, Joe's gonna have that weight to carry from here on out.

As far as comparing Joe and Tommy goes, just compare their lyrics. If you can show me Joe Bonamassa lyrics that match the of consistency of depth of soul and heart as Tommy Castro lyrics, then I'll concede the point. Here's Tommy's lyrics: http://www.tommycastro.com/lyrics.htm

I'll confess to not having made the comparison, but after what I saw/heard yesterday, and what I saw/heard from Tommy in Reno last Saturday, frankly I don't have to. Jim M, you claim you don't have to have lived the Blues to play or recognize the Blues, etc. that's true to a certain extent. But look at it this way, as a man, can know what it's like to give birth to a child, I mean really know what it's like for that thing that grew inside you to pass out of you and come into the world. If you think you can, you're a fool. OK, I'm gonna expose an under belly here to make a point, y'all better not betray this trust I'm giving you. I'm bipolar II. You probably already guessed it. I'm light on the hypomania but real heavy on the major depression. My last depression lasted 4 years, much of it spent my brain saying "I wish I was dead" or "why don't I just kill myself". That's wake up in the morning with you cup of coffee to good night while brusing your teath, for 4 years. Not every day, sometimes just in the morning, sometimes just going to bed, sometimes for a 1 1/2 years 24/7. You wanna tell me now your understanding of the Blues is the same as mine, that you're intellectual conception of the Blues informs you the same quality as my lived-experience of the Blues?

You'll have to excuse my anger, but when people try to claim they can know what I know just by thinking about the Blues, or what Tommy Castro knows, because if you read Tommy's lyrics you can tell he's been through some of the trails as me, then I have to take exception. It's like white people thinking they know what it's like to be black. You gotta be naive and ignorant to have such thought.

I'm sorry, Jim M, to come at you so strong, and cathysiler, Tommy being no Joe, again, just compare the lyrics.

There's a reason Tommy got the BB King Entertainer of the Year and Contemporary Blues Album of the Year Awards from The Blues Foundation and not Joe, and it's not that he's been at it a lot longer, because the truth is I believe Joe and the Tommy Castro Band have been on the road about the same number of years. It's because Tommy is playing Blues, and Joe is playing Rock-Blues, heavy on the Rock, light on the Blues.

And yes, now we're in the realm of personal taste. To be perfectly honest, I'm the record Hendrix In The West, the songs "Red House" and "Johnny B. Goode", those two songs for years were all I wanted to hear. Then there was Jeff Beck. Now I think I'm down with Vernon Reid who says the minor pentatonic is a good launching pad to pretty much anywhere you want to go. But you know, when you play a duet with guy like Kenny Neal, you go, "oh **##, in Baton Rouge, this is what is meant by the Blues".  When you talk to Raful Neal on the phone, and genuine Louisiana Blues is on the other end of the line, the Blues become a matter of family, not a style of music (see http://www.fastjimmy.com/music/from_the_sky.txt,  listen to http://www.fastjimmy.com/music/from_the_sky.mp3).

OK, time for me to sign off. If I haven't made my point by now, it'll never be made LOL

In closing I just want to say Joe Banamassa is the Steve Vai of the Blues, and that is a very cool thing!!!!

Take care,
Jimmy Hale, aka Fast Jimmy
www.fastjimmy.com

I belong to the Joe Bonamassa Street team for one reason. When I was chairperson of the Blues In The Schools (BITS) program for the Cascade Blues Association Joe did a double header for me when most Blues artists wouldn't give me the time of day. On top of that, at two high schools, solo on acoustic guitar, Joe demonstrated the power of the Blues so strongly he captivated 200-300 kids in gymnasiums the  last week of school. Teenagers, the last week of school, mesmerized by one man, a guitar, and his personal journey with the Blues. Other than the BITS fund raising benefit I hired Kenny Neal for, it was the best thing I was involved in during my stint as chairperson of BITS.  For better or worse, this is the standard I hold Joe against. When he hit the stage last night, I was expecting him to repeat what he had done at those high schools back in 2004. So ya, all this grief I heaped on Joe I should of really heaped on myself. The problem really isn't Joe's, it's mine, and my expectations of what I think Joe should be.

I apologize to everybody in the Joe Bonamassa world and wish I'd kept my big mouth shut, but with who I am, it just doesn't work that way. Pete, you wanna throw down on me, don't kid yourself. What you interpret as insults are in fact me speaking from the heart what I feel is the truth, willing to risk that I've got it wrong, to take the ridicule of people like you, in the hope that Joe might see some benefit of someone pointing out something he hasn't seen from a different point of view. If you can't see that as an act of love for Joe on my part, so be it...

Oh, and the self-promotion piece, guilty as charged, I apologize for that too...

It's now I start thinking, at least with Tommy Castro I don't get a bunch a grief from my fellow Street Teamers...

Hey Jimmy,
Welcome to the forum.
I'm not sure that I get your point(s) (there seems to be a number of them).
Here's the part I think I understand:
You like Tommy Castro more than you like Joe...no problem there, everyone's entitled to their opinion.

What I can't tell is whether you actually like Joe or not. It seems so, because you are a street team member and you've certainly offered up some praises, but then you call him a Jimmy Page wannabe/poser and the band a Zepplin tribute band (doesn't matter how much you try to make that sound like a positive, that statement comes across as a criticism). Maybe you're a fan of Joe's talent, but not his style of music?
The odd thing is it seems like you would prefer that Joe play the blues more like Tommy Castro or Jimmy Vaughan...and thus become a Tommy Castro or Jimmy Vaughan wannabe. I don't want to put words in your mouth, but that's how it came across to me.

Is Joe a traditional blues artist? No, but that doesn't mean he's not playing the blues. I guess it's like that commercial: "This is not your father's Oldsmobile" (This is not your father's blues?) 
I'm thankful I don't have to go out in the morning and hand crank my car to start it. Other people love vintage cars, and that's great. Different strokes, as they say.

Bill S

I was standing 3 feet in front of Joe at the Waterfront gig last night and thought it was outstanding.  I'm still grinning and the guy who came with me was just blown away.   Joe looked super fit and was obviously into what he was doing.  Overall consensus was that he should've been a headliner.

As a long time Portland resident and musician I'll just say to everybody here take this Fast Jimmy guy with a grain of salt.   Portland has and will always be chock full of self described blues geniuses and more than a few who will spew at the drop of a hat.  Not a big deal.  Like anything, it's the guys who keep their mouths shut and just play who prove to be the true badasses, and there's more than a few of those guys in Portland as well.  If Joe's current trip works for you - awesome.  If not, its pretty easy to take Moms advice about "if you don't have something nice to say..." and move on.  Portland resident and verified killer killer guitar player Eddie Martinez (he's played with just a couple of people...) was sitting stage right by Joe's tech just shaking his head and grooving on what Joe was doing.  There were at least a handful of folks in the crowd that appreciated it as much judging by the fact that their applause were drowing out the stage mix.

I don't care what you want to categorize it as, but Joe Bonamassa is welcome with open arms to come back to Portland and play a kazoo if he wants, and I'll be right back there.  Thanks for an awesome evening.

So are you saying that a person must have an ongoing long lasting depression to either have the blues , feel the blues , understand the blues, or be capable of playing the blues ?. What makes you feel that whatever was causing your personal version of blues gives you the authority to decide what the blues is for anyone else ???