bob margolin and carey bell
at the bamboo room 7.31.04
I had the extreme pleasure of attending an extry fine performance last nite down on J Street, which of course as you all know, means BambooRoom Blues at it's finest. If it ain't good, I don't write about it, and here I am....moved to record what I can recall of the show.
Carey Bell and Bob Margolin filled the room with patrons, most of whom stayed to the last song of the evening. (a huge testament to the show, as most evenings people will escape out the doors somewhere during the break) When I got there, Russell came up and wondered if I'd let Bob use my Regal Reso as he was traveling light, in fact he'd just brought himself pretty much and had three of Russell's House guitars lined up on the stage. Anyhow, I figgered that if Bob Margolin played that Regal of mine, the damned thing might start smartening up and work better, so I went and got that along with the now completed Cigarbox guitar to add to the Bamboo Room's walls of cheap and summat out of the ordinary, stringed instrument collection.
They started off with laid back, deep, slow, Chicago style blues...and kept that groove going all nite. Carey Bell blowing the fills almost gently, alternating between his arsenal of standard harps and his chromatic. Bob, who is the master of the turnaround, keeping the time thumping out the bass strings and using every combination of bluenotes acquired over the last thirty years or more, as well as every guitar on the stage. Sometimes Bob singing and sometimes Carey. Willie Dixon style blues all night long.....A better balanced couple of sets would be hard to find.
The Bamboo audience was captivated and drinking and kept the staff busy gliding trays of libations through the maze of tables and filled seats. I am always amazed that these girls don't dump a whole tray on somebody, but it never seems to happen in there. This was no dance crowd and there was no room to dance anyhow. It was one of those nites where you are sitting in somebody's living room listening to two major players play music and entertaining pile of friends who'd stopped in for a spell and got one put on them with "Nine Below Zero", "She's Nineteen Years Old", "All Aboard", "Walkin' in the Park".....ahhhh.
I heard many of the customers proclaim this to be one of the better nights at the Bamboo Room and I'm inclined to agree. It's what the whole thing about live blues is about. People come for good music by real players, they have a good time and meet like-minded folks from various social stratas and for a while, everybody's on the same level in there, with the blues like a blanket over the whole lot of us. Making the people smile and laugh out loud and keeping people real for a little while again. The hardest thing is getting folks to come and take this medicine, but last night, for some reason or other, a lot of people in Lake Worth showed up to get a good dose of it.
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