Some Thoughts On Last Night's Show

There are days when I'm amazed that I still do this. I woke up this morning, sore as hell. My arthritic hands...swollen. The foot that I crushed nearly 30 years ago...throbbing. The nerve damage in my legs...burning. I'll happily do this again and again.

We were ON last night. Most nights we play, we are. At 52, I'm the youngest guy in the band. That often cracks me up. I know musicians half my age who couldn't put on a show like we do. Not on their best night! We know what we're doing. We can go into a song we've never done before (and I do believe we did) and play it like we wrote it. Members of the audience often ask how often we rehearse. Honest answer: We don't. This is one of the benefits of being a career working musician. You learn how music works. Once you know what key the song is in, you can probably fake your way through the average pop/rock/blues/country song. Lord knows I've faked my way through plenty. I had to fake my way through a Lionel Richie song once. Wow...it was pretty well-written for a rather dull song.

L-R Rod Zakowsky, yours truly, Buck "Swingin" Johnson
photo by Linda Z.

Sure, we're a blues band. People think blues is easy to play. Usually just 3 chords...yet people still wet themselves over a good blues player. You can fake the basic chords. What you can't fake is the knowledge it takes to do something special with those chords and what to play over or under them. You can know all the music theory in the world and still screw it up. (old rule of thumb I was taught early on: if you hit the wrong note, bend it until its right)

We usually do 3-4 hour shows. Thinking back to when I first started playing, the norm was 4-5. I came up in music playing redneck joints, biker bars, old man corner bars, chicken wire joints and animal clubs. We'd play 9-2. I'm often amazed that any of us have functioning livers. A lot of the young musicians I know have, at best, cut their teeth playing showcase joints. 3-4 bands on one bill. Oh gosh...you had to play an entire set of what? 12 songs? Then waste another 20 minutes while the bands switch over. Snoozeville. We still do 3-4 hours, sometimes more. How? We know our stuff. We can make a song longer or shorter. We play to the room. We gauge how the audience is reacting. Like last night, we also know the crowd because we've played there before. People will request songs that they know we play. They also request certain parts of 'the act'...

"I hope we didn't miss the medley!"
"I hope we didn't miss you guys both playing the same guitar at the same time!"
"I hope we didn't miss you playing slide guitar with a bottle/shot glass/fire extinguisher/walking stick/chair/etc."

We make the audience part of the show. I'll routinely come off the stage during a solo and get into the crowd. I'll walk over and sit down next to someone and play a solo. Maybe I'll try to get them to assist. If I see them with their camera phone, I walk right up to them and let them get a good, up close and personal shot. We try to make each show memorable for every person there. It's really not about us. It's about the music and the people enjoying it. We're just the 4 guys onstage who are also enjoying it.

We usually try to look like a band. Most folks don't want to see a bunch of folks onstage who look like they showed up to mow the lawn. Our front man dresses to impress! His stage look is somewhere between Sunday Best and Super Pimp. He's tough to compete with...but we try. One of my jazz heroes once told me he usually wears a suit and tie...because when he's going onstage, he's going to WORK. When he was growing up, you dressed for work. Made sense to me. Sure, I'm not always dressed up...there've been times when I've dressed down...but that says a bit about how I perceived a particular show. I haven't always been right.

People will often come up to me on a break or after the show and want to talk music with me. Sure! I'm down for it! A guy came up to me last night...a blues fan for sure...and he wanted to discuss my playing style. He said it wasn't the usual blues riffs. He noted that I play a very southern style. I just smiled and thanked him for noticing. Maybe he thinks my nickname "Memphis" refers to the ancient Egyptian capitol.

2 large coffees into me now. The ears stopped ringing. The hands aren't as swollen. Foot still hurts. Legs...not so burny. I still need to take the amp out of the truck. I also have to start thinking about tomorrow's show. New joint for me. New bunch of musicians. Its gonna be fun. It always is. That's why I still do it.