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Trip Report: How I Spent My Summer Vacation

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crispen

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May 19, 1993, 1:49:03 PM5/19/93
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The Rev. Bob "Bob" Report on the Memphis in May Beale Street Music
Festival, May 7-9, 1993. Sorry for crossposting, but folks on both lists
have been asking.

THURSDAY

My beautiful wife Kelly and I got into Memphis on the afternoon before the
festival. Thanks to a heads-up from Geoff Knight of BLUES-L, we went to
the Memphis in May offices and got the cheapest tickets in town ($12 each,
no service fee). They also gave us a schedule which I think they gave the
bands (it had the set change times down as well as the start and end
times).

Thursday afternoon and evening we hung around Beale Street, getting
molested by the park drunks and generally enjoying ourselves.

FRIDAY

Friday morning we strolled up to the Napoleon exhibit. After getting
squashed between 100 4th graders and another 100 10th graders, we talked
the ticket guy into trading our tickets for Monday afternoon after the
school kids were out of the museum.

We had made plans with Geoff Knight and Leonard Watkins to meet in the
Brewery at 400 something Union (right next to the Greyhound station).
Geoff had a sick kid so he stuck his head in to say hello and goodbye.
Leonard and his beautiful wife showed up a little later and were able to
spend some time visiting with us.

Leonard, I don't know what sins your poor wife has committed to get stuck
with you! She's a gem, and not just by comparison with you. ;-) Anyway,
the two of them looked astoundingly happy and in love with one another, and
I wish them both well.

Beer report: At the brewery the IPA is a little sweet for my taste, but
there's a brown (real) ale that's simply wonderful. I can't remember the
name; I kept saying "Gimme another one of those" and they understood. The
food was good too. This is a newish place, and they have music (and a
cover) on weekend nights. Definitely check it out.

On to the music. On Friday we started out in the Blues Tent with Warren
Haynes. Haynes plays with the Allman's, I believe, but he also brought his
own band which is a guitar-oriented blues-rock gang.

Next came the Nighthawks. These guys sucked big-time. They were loud,
noisy, and generally bad. They claimed to have been together for 21 years,
but if the guy playing harp hasn't figured out how to keep his Green Bullet
mic from causing feedback with the monitors in 21 years, he's been wasting
his time.

After enduring the Nighthawks, we saw Earl King. He played with the Rod
Piazza band. It sounded like he and the band weren't talking to one
another. The obviously had rehearsed some of their songs, and equally
obviously had not rehearsed some others. King didn't come out for an
encore, didn't talk to the audience, and in general acted pissed off at the
world. Dee Piazza did a great job on keyboards, and the rest of the band
did just fine, so I don't see what King was all mad at.

So far, apart from Haynes, this was turning out to be a bummer (well, King
wasn't that bad). Then we drifted over to the river stage. We caught the
end of Dan Baird's act -- kinda pop-oriented, nothing special.

Then came the Iceman, the Master of the Telecaster, Albert Collins.
Collins was as usual awesome. We were way the hell in the back, but got a
nice intro to his music. Since everybody was running late, we got the
notion that the Allman Brothers were being dicks, because Collins's show
was way under the 60 minutes allotted for it.

We went back to the hotel, after stopping at a few bars. Basically our
position by the river stage was so lousy and the park was so crowded and we
were so tired that we decided to skip the Allmans. Saw the Rod Piazza band
at BB's and once again Dee was outstanding on keys.

SATURDAY

On Saturday we stuck with the blues tent. Li'l Howlin' Wolg did a great
show, backed up by the Famous Unknowns. These were the first people we
could see that were having a good time (Collins probably was, but we
couldn't see him).

Next came Ruby Wilson backed up by the King B's. Yah-hoo! She absolutely
stole the show. The King B's were something else, too -- definitely the
pick of the hometown backup bands. Her encore was the old Sly Stone song
"Thank U faleddin me B mice elf agin" or however you spell it. Just a
dynamite singer!

Eddie Burk come on next backed up by Delta Blue. The only note I made was
that the band were noisy, so I'm not sure of Delta Blue is his regular band
or not. Eddie had a pocketful of harps and generally sounded pretty good.
I'm afraid my main problem with his show was that he had to follow Ruby
Wilson.

Willie Cobb was next. He had an unusual lineup of 2 harps, guitar, bass
and drums. His band sounded much cleaner. He had an older guitarist with
him who sounded wonderful.

Pinetop Perkins was supposed to play, but it was the damn Nighthawks again
(exact same set, exact same feedback, so we left). On our way out we saw
Piano Bob and the Snowman at the back porch, and I stood about 3 feet away
from Piano Bob's left hand, stealing stuff left and right.

Once again we were too wasted to stay for James Brown, and as we left we
heard the people with the bullhorns saying that the park was sold out.

Saturday night's low-lights came back at our hotel. Some college kid had a
dozen of his friends in the room next to ours and they were playing their
boom box and bouncing off the walls until late into the night. And about
4:30 AM there was a false fire alarm that emptied the hotel. One of the
Beale Street drunks was walking by and his eyes got as big as saucers when
he saw about 200 drunken white people all sitting along the sidewalk in
front of the Radisson.

SUNDAY

Sunday's show made the whole thing worthwhile. We decided to stay in the
blues tent because of the heat, so you'll have to read a review of Edgar
Winter from someone else. Actually, there were just too many good acts
on Sunday.

Piano Bob and the Snowman were excellent. They played a little soft,
though, and they were drowned out by Red Rage who were playing at the river
stage. Kelly had caught a quick listen to Red Rage on Friday and she said
they were pretty good.

Booker T. Laury came on next. He played a solo set, and though he kept
talking between numbers about how he was going to take the audience on a
trip through the blues, he never really got the audience with him. Part of
the problem was that he (I believe unintentionally) pushed the button after
the first song that changed the keyboard to a Fender Rhodes sound instead
of an acoustic piano sound, and he looked uncomfortable with the sound on
all the rest of his songs. I recall a time last year when he showed up at
the Blues Palace (now Jerry Lee's Spot, I think) and got pissed off and
lectured the audience for not being quiet while he was playing. Basically
my impression is that the guy's a dick (which is why he didn't ask for help
when he pushed the wrong button) but he plays good.

Anyway, since my main instrument is piano, I really liked the first two
acts, and learned a lot from them, so no complaints.

Then came John Campbell. We knew we were in for something different when a
tour bus showed up, and he had two roadies and a sound man. Campbell and
the band attacked the audience with their sound. I saw three little high
school girls in front of me get up and it looked like they were running for
their lives.

Campbell played a lot of stuff from his new album, plus one song in the
middle where he said "I bought my first guitar on Fannin Street" and showed
the Leadbelly piano style of slide, the banjo style, and the Mississippi
style, then put them all together on his 1934 National. On his
next-to-last song he gave his band a lot of room on their solos (this was
pretty much of a standard thing with the acts, introducing the sidemen and
giving them solo spots, as was the "Sound Check Blues" that everybody
played first, often with the main artist sitting out).

Anyway, Campbell was the high point of the whole festival for me and
Kelly. He brought the audience to their feet a couple of times and after
he did "When the Levee Breaks" as his encore, we were wondering just who
the heck could follow that!

The answer was (and give points to Memphis in May for figuring this out)
Rufus Thomas. Rufus didn't pretend to be a great artist, though there were
some outstanding performers in his band (his son on keys was a special
standout as was the sax player). He just proceeded to entertain the
audience. He had some of the young women from the audience on stage doing
a funky chicken contest at the end and it was just wonderful!

We moved over to the river stage (at last the crowd was small enough that
we could get a good enough place to sit) and listened to the end of the
Fabulous T-Birds. Unless the band was getting tired toward the end, I've
just got a tin ear with respect to those guys.

Ruth Brown came on next. She said at the beginning of her set that nobody
in the audience probably ever heard of her, and that's why the crowd was so
small (oh, great! another whiner, I thought). But she made a funny crack
about how we'd all have to be on Medicare to have heard her songs and did
her show for the folks who were there (a true pro), and it was wonderful.
After the emotional exhaustion of hearing John Campbell and Rufus Thomas,
Brown's low-key set was just what the doctor ordered.

The crowd picked up for the last act of the festival, Delbert McClinton.
I live in a cave, not having heard either Delbert or the T-Birds. It was
kind of low-key, disposable music, but it was performed competently and
loosely, and was just a lot of fun.

Monday afternoon we saw Napoleon (give it a B+) and went on a CD
splurgefest, buying 2 Albert Collins, 2 John Campbell, 2 slide guitar
compilations, a couple of opera things and some Stan Kenton. We finally
ducked out of Memphis on Tuesday.

Memphis in May is going to definitely be a regular thing for us!
+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+
| Rev. Bob "Bob" Crispen | "IT FOUND ME!" |
| cri...@foxy.boeing.com | Campus Crusade for Cthulhu |
+-------------------------------+--------------------------------------+

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