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Rating: You are in Atri, near the stage hastily set up in the square. You sip a Heineken from a plastic cup (yes, those transparent anti-intoxication ones they also give out at Campo de' Fiori). After taking a sip, you smack your lips and go ahhh. Life isn't going your way, but you know it could be worse. The night air is summery but fresh, yellow streetlights, kids running around, crowds, cobblestones. An old countryman who's about to have one too many glasses himself climbs onto the stage, says a couple of jokes, and then announces: eddimàrtin endetèxas bluskìns. In walks a bald guy in his forties with sunglasses and a leopard print shirt. A venerable lady in her 60s (or with many things in her veins besides blood and blues) tucked in a Texan hat that could blow away with the wind stands beside him, dragging an electric bass, while a 50-kilo electric old man leisurely takes his place behind the drums. You grin with delight, take another sip from the paper cup. ahhh. The bald guy spits a couple of phrases in cockney into the microphone and starts playing. "So excuse me for leavin.. i don't mean to be rude.. i'll just take one more drink and.. down the road..." He huffs, brays into the harmonica, roars riffs, he is a shapeless, bald mass of voice, harmonica, and slide that you almost can't distinguish from each other as they are so blended. The rhythm section is wise and powerful, the bassist smiles at you through her wrinkles, you raise your cup to her.
I chose this particular album simply because it's the best. The previous one, Fires and Floods, is also commendable, although neither can compare to a live performance. It was a live album, Play The Blues Damn It!, but the sound quality is terrible and on top of that, it was recorded in Japan, with all the warmth of the audience that entails... Nonetheless, all the tracks are original, and the lyrics - remarkable for a bluesman these days - are simple but not trivial, no rehashed clichés like "woke up this morning", "my babe is gone", "she done me wrong" and so on. Direct, without poetic pretensions. Blues is practice, not theory. It's life, it's now. In the seventies, composers of cultured music, the likes of Berio and Clementi, arrived at silence as the ultimate form of musical experimentation. Musicians who go on stage and stand still and silent. The unconscious task of the bluesman is to grab these people by the ear, give them a couple of rounds of slaps, and abruptly remind them they haven't made love in ages.
The concert ends, the bald guy is surrounded by people asking for his autograph. You have to go shake his hand, you gotta do it: "you got it, mate. you fookin got it" he grins broadly and goes: "thawnk you myte. push on it". I'm not exactly sure what he meant, but I'm still pushing.
"you gotta find your natural thing. well people, if you do, oh life's gonna mean something"
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