Craig Horton at the Healdsburg Bar and Grill

Posted by Rolfyboy on May 30, 2002 at 21:18:19:

"I'm goin' back down South
Where the water tastes like cherry wine,
'cause this [your water supply here] water
tastes just like turpentine

I'm goin' back down South
where the weather suits my clothes,
I spent so long in these northern cities
That my heart done almost froze"

It's a third of a century since I migrated and I love the Golden State. Like most migrated cultural southerners I love California's comparative mental freedom and tolerance but in my heart of heart I sure do find a lack of soul sometimes. I come home from some "blues" gigs where the band was all berets and fedoras and hyphenated blues and leather pants and black sleeveless shirts and I put on the Jelly Roll Kings and Freddie King and Muddy and "Born Under a Bad Sign". Just to get the groove before I sleep.

I didn't have to that after the Craig Horton gig at the Healdsburg Bar and Grill Saturday night. Craig and the band had the Deep Blues for me. The ones where the fingers slam the fretboard. And being Memorial Weekend Saturday Night (parties and functions everywhere) the joint wasn't very full.

The band opened the show playing the instrumentals a band is s'posed to play before the headliner comes on stage. "The Stumble", "Hideaway", and jazzy soul jams that show they really know how to play. A big tip of the hat to Steve Gannon, git-tar player. And to Steve Silviera on drums, Mike McCurdy on a brand new shiny upright bass, and to Richard Hemingham on keyboards.

Craig Horton was announced and hot damn, he was wearing a camelhair coat and a Homburg. He looked like the blues. I never have understood the thing about dressing down to look cool. I wear work jeans all week long, weekends are for looking sharp (not that I manage it).

And then they did the Deep Blues, and early Chicago R&B (like The Larks and Jesse Belvin). And when they wanted a rockin' tune they didn't do something hyphenated, they did "Little Queenie". Chuck himself hasn't done it that good in twenty years.

The people who were in the bar were a mix of people who were dressed for a semi-formal function that they'd been to somewhere in Healdsburg. And a few stone blues fans. There was room to move on that fine H'burg B&G hardwood dance floor. And move I did.

And the Craig Horton Band can play the blues SLOW and MEDUIM. None of this stuff about fast and faster. Nuh uh honey, they got time to bend a string and to really sing and phrase. And they play soft and loud and soft.

I could see the band wasn't really sure about what was happening--where were the audience? More people came in from some semi-formal function they'd been at. The ladies were wearing white shoes and flats. And those ladies dragged their men out on the floor and they SHOOK it. And then the band began to relax. Most everybody there was dancing and if there wasn't a full house, 'least it was a blues house. I can't wait to see them at the Tradewinds.

The last set was like a blues dream. All the folks who'd been at some function had to go and there was only about twelve of us there, plus the B&G staff. The staff of the B&G didn't go home at their shift end. They stood at their doorways and the bar and watched Craig and the band. And they danced. I had my very own blues band, one that played like the Duke and Peacock records of the early 60s that came over the night-time airwaves to my kid's little plastic Wards Airline radio. It was Wayne Bennett and Clarence Holliman and the southern juke sound. And I danced in front of the band watching Craig play the way I learned down home.

"My home is on the Delta
Way down that Farmer's road
I'm leaving for Chicago
And people I sure do hate to go
I'm leaving in the morning
I won't be back no more."

BadDaddy Records: Craig Horton

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