LONG BEACH BLUES FESTIVAL
1998

Day Three: Monday, Sept. 7

James Harman started out the day with music that really swings! When I heard his band's swining beat with lots of piano & harmonica work (and a little taste of the New Orleans beat, too!), I thought, "Oh this is what we were missing yesterday!" The band was really good, and I especially thought the piano player was remarkable. The guitarist looked like the weakest kid you see in the class of a jr. high school, but he played some good solos ala T-Bone style.

After the set was over, I went to the Tower Records booth to get James's autograph. I told him that I really enjoyed his set and also told him that this was my first time to see him. He said, "Where have you been?" (Hahaha...) I'd like to see him again.

Swinging good time continued with the Duke Robillard Band. With the band including a two-piece horn section and a double bass, Duke made it swing nice and easy. He used a full acoustic bodied guitar at first doing the Texas swing stuff, then switched to a Strat, and played more straight & dirty blues numbers. Either way, it sounded mighty fine to me! He showed the audience richness of this expressions on the instrument.

Next up was Sing It!. This is a trio consisting of Irmas Thomas, Tracy Nelson & Marcia Ball, and recently released an album of the same name from Rounder Records. As each one of them are well known solo artists, I was curious to see how they would do a live stage together. Their performance was basically just like you hear on that Sing It! CD. The most of the songs they did was from there, and I don't think any of them did their own stuff. They were backed up by a band that included some members from Irma's band the Professionals. The set opened with New Orleans R&B flavored title tune from the CD with Marcia playing the piano. It was sounding good, and the harmony vocals were really impressive. It's a shame that something went wrong with the PA and Marcia's piano sound suddenly went dead during the song.

The ladies took turns singing lead vocals after this, and then they were singing together the rest of the time. It was enjoyable, but I wished they could have enough time to do at least short solo sets of their own. Marcia played piano on only two or three songs, and I wanted to hear more honestly. Well I guess I will save that enjoyment for later.

Festival was getting near the end. Time sure goes fast once it gets started. Taj Mahal came on with The Phantom Blues Band and entertained us. Maybe because Taj was with a blues band, or maybe because he was playing at a blues festival, he did a lot of blues numbers, and didn't do any of the stuff he did on his latest release "Sacred Island" which is more Hawaiian than blues.

He only played guitar on the first one or two songs, but that didn't matter really. He was filled with energy and we sure were feeling it! He played many numbers from his recent blues albums. (ie. "Phantom Blues", "Senor Blues", and "Dancing The Blues") Crowd danced away with songs like "Hoochie Coochie Coo", "Think", and "Mr. Pitiful". The classic "She Caught The Katie" was a crowd pleaser, too. The closing number was "I Need Your Loving" with the refrain that goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, I need your loving every day!" Taj suddenly stopped in the middle of the song and said something like, "Everybody listen up! They just informed me about this emergency and I have to stop here. Be quiet now, this is very important." People stopped talking, and it got quiet. Then Taj started another dynamite "Whoa, whoa, whoa..." and went off the stage dancing as the band finished the song. Oh man, that was hot!

It was Jimmie Vaughan who wrapped up the Fest. His presence may seem to pale beside his late brother Stevie Ray, but I have been thinking that Jimmie's playing contained deeper expressions than Stevie Ray's. Stevie Ray's playing sure was fine, but it was more like a running-on-a-freeway-with-a-maximum-speed kind of sound, which sure had more upright power, but the expression itself was pretty flat. (I'm not criticizing him, just saying he had different character as an artist.)

Jimmie showed us that his ability hasn't faded away at all, but his tone of the guitar was different compared to the days he played with the T-Birds. This was partially maybe because he was using a capo through the set. The tone was more solid which left an impression that he had a confidence in what he did. The band was gorgeous and it made Jimmie's songs sound so much better that the versions from the original albums. There were an organ player, a piano player, a drummer, second guitarist, and three African American guys doing the harmony vocals. These guys on the vocals especially made the sound great! On the soulful tune, "(Everybody's Got) A Sweet Soul Vibe", the impressive harmony vocals along with Jimmie's tasty solo brought a touching moment to the Festival ground.

Jimmie was playing slower tunes at first including the new single "Like A King." The crowd applauded with enthusiasm when Jimmie started to sing "Texas Flood", a Larry Davis song which Stevie Ray did on his first album. Jimmie never really sang before he released his first solo album in 1994, but hearing him sing live, I thought it was pretty good.

As his set came near the end he brought out more power with up-tempo boogie numbers like "Boom-Bapa-Boom", "Don't Cha Know", and "DFW", and I sure enjoyed bopping around with them.

And this is it! 3 days were gone. All my friends at the Festival, hope to see you again next year. See ya later, alligator!