LONG BEACH BLUES FESTIVAL
1998

Day Two: Sunday, Sept. 6

I think the line up of this day created controversy the most. After the Dixie Hummingbirds did a beautiful Sunday gospel for a starter, the rest of the day was spent paying tribute to the British blues & rock music.

The Hummingbirds celebrates their 70th year. They were wearing the commemorative T-shirt for this. With no back up band (they used rhythm machines) they really show the depth of their voices. I think Ira Tucker is the oldest member in the group, but his voice was still very strong and really heart warming. The members came down ino the crowd one by one and in the end three of them came down together leaving just the guy doing the guitar and vocals on stage.

At first, I was especially puzzled to see the Yardbirds on the bill. Okay, I did listen to lots of British rock including these guys when I was in my teens (I still listen sometimes...), but hey, they aren't really blues guys. Sure they've been influenced by blues music, but... Anyway, it's been 30 years since they broke up, and the singer Keith Relf's been dead for almost as long. Who are in the group? Why them now? You know why I was puzzled, don't you?

But maybe because I wasn't expecting anything from them, I felt that their set was pretty good. Seriously, they played well, and it was hot! They started out with blues numbers like "I Wish You Would", but they did sound different. They had that distinctive sound of the British blues of the 60's. I looked for the singer, and the bass player was the one singing. Paul Samuel Smith? I went up close and found that this guy was pretty young, and he was not Paul (his name is John Tumidanski according to the program book). So the original members were just two guys, Chris Dreja on rhythm guitar, and Jim McCarty on drums.

The band played those good old songs like "Heartful Of Soul", "Train Kept A Rollin'" (a hot one!), "Little Games", "Shapes Of Things". Jim sang on couple of songs including "Sitting on Top of the World". The band closed the set with amazing "Dazed And Confused" (or should I say "I'm Confused"?) and crowd went wild. They did an encore and that was "For Your Love". It was cloudy when they started to play but during their set, the sun started to shine. Jim McCarty said something like, "Alright now! When I heard that we were going to do a gig in California, I expected to see a lot of sunshine, but we realized that actually the cloudy sky was just like London. Now it's more like it."

I had never seen Peter Green, and I was looking forward to seeing him very much. I just hoped that he wouldn't do an acoustic set like he did on his latest release which in my opinion was a pretty dull album. (Robert Johnson Songbook) I think basically, he is an electric guitar player. Well, his set of the day indeed was electric, with his band the Splinter Group featuring Nigel Watson on second guitar and vocals.

I was a little surprised to see that the main solos were mostly played by Nigel and not by Peter himself. In the first half of the set, the band played "Black Magic Woman", but even the famous intro solo was played by Nigel. But Peter did take solos here and there, and they weren't bad at all. His playing was nothing fancy and there may be people saying that he's slowed down, but it was very tasty. Especially when he took the solo on "Dark End of The Street", the whole festival ground seemed to be wrapped up in a warm comfortable mood. It was too bad that Peter's voice was very harsh and sounding pretty bad, but Nigel sang on some songs which was a nice support for Peter, and overall this set was very enjoyable. I hope Peter's voice was bad only temporarily. Peter seemed to let Nigel take the leader role of the band and he seemed like a very quiet man to me. Nigel did the talking, and Peter was standing there beside him without saying anything. Peter has gotten old and chubby, and he reminded me of a famous Japanese comedian/guitarist Boo Takagi. (Is it only me thinking so?)

Though I've been a fan of British blues for many years, I never quite got into John Mayall so much. I think he is a good player himself and always has great players in his band the Bluesbreakers, but to me that isn't quite enough to get exicte about. One thing I really admire about John Mayall is that he finds good guitarists. Needless to say that the giants such as Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, and Peter Green are all alumni of his band and that's quite a thing. Last time I saw Mayall, he had another great guitarist in the band Coco Montoya, and now he doing great on his own. The current Bluesbreakers had yet another great guiatrist named Buddy Whittington from Texas, and man! it was worth it to see this set just to hear him play. His tone wasn't too loud, yet had both the heat and the depth were packed in his playing and the band sounded so great thanks to him. The band closed the set with the well-known number "Room to Move".

It's now time for the British Blues Reunion. After an intermission, John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers came back on and Mayall invited Mick Taylor on stage. After doing a few song with him including "You Shook Me" which Mick sang on, Mayall brought on rest of the guys for the jam. They were Kim Simmonds (of Savoy Brown), Peter Green, Keith Emerson (of Emerson, Lake & Palmer), and Ronnie Earl. Mayall said he invited Ronnie to the jam "to be fair to the Americans". Keith Emerson's appearance was without previous notice, and I sure was surprised. He played the blues on the Hammond B-3 organ and fit in naturally among these group of artists. He did show some big moves of his arms when he was taking solos, and I thought "That's Keith!"

This reunion was really just a blues jam (I don't think they rehearsed for this), but it was quite an experience just to see these guys together. There was plenty of time to given to Mick Taylor and I enjoyed his solos, but on the other hand, I wished they had given Kim Simmonds more time for himself. He did short solo or two and that was it. He sure deserves more than that! When the jam was over, the crowd applauded for more, but it was just John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers who came back to do another number.