NORTHUMBRIAN MUSIC
NIGHTS
What we said about
KEN HAMM & JIM
CONDIE
Ken Hamm and Jim Condie
make it a grand finale for the local
*Guys with Guitars* promotions gambit
"You can't judge a book by lookin' at its cover" goes an old cowboy-blues song, and the sentiment really wrapped up the evening last Friday at the King's Head in Allendale.
On the face of it, could it be real? A blues master from Canada? But blues giants has gots to be from way down south theah in the Mizzippi delta, ain't that right? Well, no, as it turns out. Y'heah?!
Ken Hamm and his sheet-metal guitar and his pure blues voice took us back to the mid 1800s, the era of the proto-blues, with superb accompaniment from that Scottish sidesman to the stars, Jim Condie. You're not posing when music like this emanates from your fingers.
Oh sure, there were the wonderful Leadbelly numbers, the aching Muddy Waters pieces, even the Rev. Robert Wilkins' 'Prodigal Son' as popularised on the Rolling Stones' Beggars Banquet album, just to show he understands the recent developments of the blues idiom.
But how about the brilliant instrumental, 'Poor boy a long ways from home', a tonal blues masterpiece, or Skip James' number 'KroJane' which sparkled as if newly hewn out of the cleff. These helped to convey a serious history to the genre, making a link with the past that even interlopers who aren't native to the Mississippi delta country can exalt in.
No blues gig is complete without some reference to waking up this morning, and it was great fun to shake along in silent misery, all the while with goofy smiles on our faces. I thought Ken's version of Leadbelly's 'Bourgeois Blues' was better than Ry Cooders', as a matter of fact, certainly a lot more rhythmic.
The shakey egg percussion behind the bar came out for 'Cross-cut saw', and it was a good thing, because there were other lazy, despondent, pining and gentle blues yet to come, like 'The Bad Luck Blues', or 'San Francisco Bay Blues', or even another Leadbelly number, 'Relax your mind'.
By the time Mississippi John Hurt's 'Candy Man' came along, the audience had realised that these two guys with guitars were authentic, real bluesmen, and nothing could shake that conviction, or the realisation that this really was a fitting finale to the eponymous *Guys with Guitars* promotion.
Nice to know that we've made another fine friend, and it's a sure bet that the 'Dale will welcome Ken Hamm back for another session of real authentic lived-in blues, maybe on yet another clever promotions gambit!
