B.B. King Brings the Delta to VA - Fresh Tendrils's Blog

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B.B. King Brings the Delta to VA

Posted on November 13, 2008 at 03:09 PM.

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Walking down the brick, pedestrian streets of downtown Charlottesville there is an obvious sense of arrogance in the fixtures and displays of the stores and restaurants that attracts a certain type of consumer. Coincidentally, this atmosphere attracts music that I am largely interested in, which raises questions about my own arrogance regarding music, but that's another matter at hand. The type of music that's not commercial enough to be mainstream, but popular enough for childless, forty something, blazer wearing, Audi driving men and myself to like. To think that B.B. King somehow falls into pretentious music listening is a bit disheartening, but seeing how the man is a living legend without being commercially relevant it does make sense. Regardless I don't think a lot of the audience members (little old ladies) were fully prepared for this show, especially opening act Eli Cook.

Seating ourselves dead center in row 15 (I'm much too cheap a bastard to pay for tickets that included a 30 dollar donation to the CAAR Fund), my lady and myself patiently waited for the show to begin. The weather was pressing our patience as sweat soon started rolling down all areas of the body and gnats began invading the immediate airspace surrounding my forehead and receiving a deadly punishment for entering the No-Fly-Zone. To get my mind off the muggy-heat and insect Kamikazes, I started people watching. The people in the audience were what I expected beforehand - a lot of old people. There was an elderly woman two rows in front of me with a straw hat on which would prove to be entertaining during the concert, especially during Mr. Cook's set. Another interesting set of characters was a couple that sat about ten rows in front of me. The woman was a blonde pregnant woman, looking to be in her late 30s wearing a dress not becoming of a pregnant woman. Her male counterpart was an obviously pretentious lad, who looked like he was in his early 40s. With pony-tailed pepper hair, the man wore blue jeans, dress shoes, a dress shirt, and a light-blue blazer - I'm not exactly sure how the guy didn't die from heat exhaustion and/or hydration from sweating his *** off. Forgetting the crowd for a minute, the most interesting character appeared during the sound check.

The drummer during the sound check was an old black man. With his polished black dress shoes, black dress pants, baggy blue Hawaiian shirt, tooth pick in his mouth and Ray Charles shades he was the personification of badass blues drummer. During sound check, he sat behind the kit with one arm folded over his belly with the other arm resting on it and slowly twirling around a drum stick next to his ear while tonguing the tooth pick from one side of his mouth to the other. His face was expressionless as he stared straight ahead. Getting up to answer and talk to his cellphone, he began walking around the back of the stage, bouncing his drum sticks off the floor. When he finally walked off the stage I immediately missed him. Badass was his name and he returned later under a different persona.

After all the sound check guys left the stage, a skinny, long blond-haired white boy strolls across the stage with two acoustic guitars in hand. With no introduction, absolutely no warning, Eli Cook began a slide-guitar, feedback filled assault on stage. When he began singing, I first disliked his vocals, but then started liking them with each song. He sang with an obvious country-blues, frog-throat style that many of the original blues greats sang with. At times it sounded forced and comical, but for the most part he pulled it off. The guitar playing was flashy - not something I would really expect out a blues player, but after the white boy blues jerk fest of the 60s I'm not surprised. He wasn't bad by any stretch of the imagination, but with all the feedback it was hard to tell exactly how good his guitar playing really was. Regardless, I thought it sounded terrific, which was a feeling that wasn't reciprocated in some members of the audience. The little old lady two rows in front of me had her fingers stuck into her ears with a face wrenched by grimace. Not being familiar with his original work I can't exactly remember what he played, but none of his original work really stuck out other than the very last song he played. His covers were terrific though as he pulled out Mississippi John Hurt which preceded his cover of Jimi Hendrix's Voodoo Child (Slight Return) (to which he introduced by saying he was going to get belligerent again for us - an obvious comment to all the old ladies). The cover of Hendrix's classic was my favorite of his set followed by Cook's rendition of Didn't Leave Nobody But the Baby. During the set a good number of old people - mostly women - got up and walked away from the stage. For this display - for witnessing the sight of grimacing old lady faces with expressions of, "What the ****" on their faces and wrinkly old fingers stuck in equally as wrinkly old ears, Eli Cook's set was magical.

After a short interlude, two people came on stage and started talking about the CAAR Fund and did a drawing in which one person out of the four finalists would receive a ton of prizes. One of the emcees, a woman, confessed to being part of a Charlottesville rock-band during the early 60s named The Skyliners. It was while in this band that she opened for B.B. King in Richmond at The Mosque (now formerly known as the Landmark Theatre). She then proceeded to sing a verse of Row, Row, Row Your Boat as she again wanted to open for Mr. King.

Following this short interlude and break, B.B. King's Blues Band took the stage and Badass returned sans sunglasses and his badass demeanor. The band played a jazzy introduction for the King of the Blues, which allowed each member to be featured on their respective instrument(s). When B.B. finally walked across the stage, an eruption of applause came up out of the crowd to welcome the blues great as he sat down in his chair at center stage. During his introduction he admitted to having diabetes, which resulted in him having weak knees, but his fingers and vocals seemed just as strong as ever.

Unlike the other concerts I have been to, B.B.'s set wasn't about any one song or the setlist. His show was better consumed as a whole as he weaved in and out of songs with interludes and stories, with the sum of its parts being greater than any individual one. It created a sense of free-flow and improvisation that I believe the blues to be all about - to relay whatever emotion strikes you at a particular moment in time. Perhaps this is why B.B. King is still the King of the Blues (other than the fact that there's simply nobody else to take up the mantel) because not only can he play and sing it, but his shows embody it as well.

With the full band sticking around on stage for the first half of his set, B.B. would allow others to take the spotlight before letting Lucille out to play. During this I never got the impression B.B. was a hog - a ham yes, but a hog for the spotlight never. B.B. King is a definite showman and certainly hammed it up, but radiating from B.B. at all times was a sense of genuine enjoyment and happiness. His smile was wide as the mountains and spread throughout the crowd to fight off the disheartening heat. It was during the interludes and talks that B.B.'s personality as a humble entertainer really shined. His story about working the Delta plantation on which he was born, plowing the fields in the heat of the day with no air moving (which coincidentally is how the weather felt that night) other than the passing of air from the rump of the mule in front of him was especially endearing as B.B. has worked all his life and has loved every moment of it. King's interludes about girl watching and how to seduce a woman (Vodka, dancing close, and playing Willie Nelson's You're Always On My Mind) were especially interesting and entertaining to me as I came to the conclusion that Riley King is a pimp and at the age of 82 was passing on his wisdom concerning the female persuasion. His joke regarding viagra, cialis, and levitra and a 23 year old woman was funny, especially with his follow-up comment stating, "just because you're over 50 doesn't mean you're a dirty old man."

At the age of 82, B.B. may have looked old, but his personality and performance proves that he is still young at heart. Despite being seated for the length of the show, he moved more than any performer I've ever seen, dancing around in his chair like fire ants were crawling all over him. His moves, expressions, and stances during his songs and interludes provided me with an image of a young man in an old man's body, which reminded me of my late great-grandfather as he was the exact same - a jokster, ham and showman in the guise of a wise old man. If his personality wasn't enough indication that B.B. is still a big-eyed kid walking into town for the first time, King's fingers and vocals fill the gap.

Throughout King's performance his vocals continued to amaze me. His power is still very much in tact as he completely ripped the microphone on each and every song, wringing each word for whatever it was worth. Everything he sang he made it sound good. He meandered back and forth over the line of being smooth with his vocals and then crossing back to raw blues with his from-the-toes power. There is a lot to be said when a performer that has been recording since 1949 hasn't lost a step in his vocals almost 60 years later. In regards to vocals, Lucille sounded sexy and amazing as B.B. sounded like he was seducing his famed guitar instead of playing it. B.B. King has admitted himself that he is not technically proficient, but that is not important to me because B.B. knows how to get the most out of a little. It has always been my belief that B.B. King can display a wide range of emotions with the simple pluck of a string and seeing him play live only solidified that belief. King is not a flashy guitarist by any stretch of the imagination but the way he made Lucille sing and wail was like the angelic sing-song of heaven.

Being only familiar with King's early work, some of the songs were unfamiliar; however, he could sing Hot Cross Buns and it would sound phenomenal. Everything did sound phenomenal. My favorites never came up, but I was far from disappointed. As I stated earlier, the show was better consumed as a whole with B.B.'s interludes, powerful vocals, Blues Band, Lucille and B.B.'s larger than life personality rather than being concerned with a specific setlist. B.B. proved he was the King of the Blues, but to say that he set out to do that would go against his personality as his humbleness simply wouldn't allow it. He was a pure showman, like the ringleader of a blues circus with an act that I never wanted to end; an act that painted a smile on my face for the entire show and left me with a big Cheshire grin and wide-eyes like a boy coming back from town after his first visit.

last.fm

*The concert was on August 6th, 2008*