Blueswebguy gets front row at Bamboo Room last Tuesday nite.
Went down to the Bamboo Room last Tuesday for a damn good show.
Admission was free that night, as Tuesdays are a slow night
and usually reserved for local acts trying out the stage and getting
some exposure. This particular night must have been some sort of mistake
or blessing or somethin', as the Memphis based dude they booked kicked
ass. I apologise to any younger viewers for this coarse language, but that's
the only was I can describe the Richard Johnston Show.
I get there about eight-fifteen, there's a front row table open and I snag
it, order a two dollar draft (not bad, eh? I like them Tuesday nite prices!), and
sit back and watch as Richard's jug band set tunes up and gets the sound guy
going. Tonite, for a special treat, Russell (the B.Room owner) and Mr. Bill (B.RoomMC) are
gonna play some backup for the foot stomper. I'm looking in disbelief at a big
whiskey jug with pickups attached to the bottom of it. Russell's hooming into this
and the sound guy upstairs is getting it balanced just so. Mr. Bill appears
with a neck mounted washboard complete with bells, cymbal and wooden percussion type
sound blocks mounted top and bottom. He doesn't have pickups on it but
is miked into a Shure 57 and sounds real good and crispy. He's got what looks like
weightlifter gloves and thimbles or something attached to the fingertips.
Richard has more stuff and does the work of three guys up there himself.
Some of you may not be familiar with his particular style, so I'll try and
illustrate... There's a stool and in front of the stool is a bass kick-drum, to the right
of that sits a snare drum mounted at a right angle to the floor, also with a
kick pedal, to the right of that is a high hat cymbal (foot operated) with a
tambourine on top for more jingle. In the middle of all this sits the bare footed
Richard Johnston and his guitars.
Sound checks done, there's a five minute break and at eight thirty sharp,
Richard takes the stage and talks to us. Yeah, this guy knows how to
talk to an audience (looking around the room has almost filled). He tells
stories of his youth in Memphis, tells about gettin' rid of his Blues Singer
apparel at the advice of Willie Cobb. Tells of playing overseas. And then
he sang a couple real nice folky sounding songs. I think one was called Jennifer
and the other was something about butterflies. Not bluesy stuff, but
we all liked 'em cause he sang and played these
like he meant it and we had the feeling that somethin' a little different
was about to start happening.
At this point he brought up the jug band. Russell and Mr. Bill surprised
all of us by keeping up with Richard, who had somehow changed the whole
mood of everything with a couple bass drum kicks and whoomping hill
country style crazed rhythms on his electrified wooden bodied resonator.
As soon as they got going, the room started to move. Between wild percussion,
the jug bellowing (very cool, by the way) Mr. Bill attacking and draggin'
thimbles on the washboard at a high rate of speed and RJ's XtraFine
slide guitar work and vocals. We were all fairly put in a trance.
We were hearing juke joint music 21st Century style from a young
white guy with a hell of a sense of humor and a shit load of talent.
He flat out whupped our asses. That guy's got the whole deal going
on and pulled out all the stops. He moved from one tune to the next with
no effort or stammering in between and kept us all on the edges of our
seats watching this show he did. Sadly, nobody got up and danced. I think
they were too freaked out by the blast of energy coming off the stage.
I never heard anything like that and I'm pretty sure most of the rest
of the people there hadn't either with the exception of the folks
who came up from Ft. Lauderdale. He'd played there over the
weekend at the annual Sound Advice Blues Fest and more than likely
zapped that bunch too.
I stayed for about half the second set, which featured two new side men. One
playing harp and the other playing some fine guitar licks behind Richard's
wildass amplified BroomstickGit. It was gettin to be late and I had to get to work the next day or I'd have stayed til the end.
O Ya, almost forgot the diddly bow.......
He's got this doublebroomstickmountedtoacigarboxelectrified sonofabitch that he'sgot set up for bass and treble slide. Yes, that's right. Bass string on the "top"
broomneck and treble strings on the lower one. Two separate pickups
are installed as near as I can figure as he ran the top broom through
a bass amp and the other one through a regular amp. It looks like hell
but he knows his way around it. You ain't heard nothin' til you
see this wildman stompin the crap outta his drumkit, flailing the brooms, slidin' the bass string and
singing songs or makin' em up spontaneously like he's lived every
second of what he's talkin' about. I believe he has "been there" or else he's
been infested by every old evil spirit that ever loitered at the crossroads.
Look for his CD which is due out in mid January. I'm gonna be
keeping my eye peeled for it. If he don't explode first, he'll be one of the
few legendary blues music innovators to come out of this era. Pretty
extraordinary stuff!!
