The Current Rant
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Now let me tell you about the four white kids (and I mean kids) whom I opened for Friday night 5/31 in Cary, NC. They're called Reverend Slick's Bar B Q.
First of all, the Reverend Slick himself. He's maybe 5'5" tall, his face is an acne mess, his hair's all greased and you'd have to go to Church way uptown to see any other folks dressed like he was: diamond-patterned bright red silk shirt, three thick gold chains around his neck, bright red slacks, black-and-white spat shoes and a big black velvet derby hat. Slick (aka Daniel Hallinger, I think) plays piano like Pinetop Perkins, guitar JUST like Muddy Waters (I'm serious, Les Paul into a tweed Bassman, thumb and finger, probably doesn't even own a pick), dances, stomps his feet and sings like Steve Marriott and Prince put together. He's 17 years old.
About his band. Now, I'm sure, like me, you've had someone tell you before "Go see these dudes! They sound like real old CHICAGO BLUES, like Muddy or the Wolf or Jimmy Reed. They really have the sound! Go see 'em." And so you go see them and of course they don't really have the sound. Something's always not right - the drummer's not got it, the guitarist is too flash, the harpist is John Popper, whatever. With that said, these guys, these BOYS (18-year-old drummer and a standup bassist and harp player, both 23) sound EXACTLY like Chicago blues. In 25 years of going to hear live music, I've never seen ANYONE nail Chicago blues until these kids. It was scary. It's the sort of thing where you can see how people come away thinking "well, they sold their souls to the Devil" or something, because they had it DOWN. All the stuff people never get right about the Muddy sound - the real slow drums, one guy pushing while one guy pulls, one guy on the four while the rest are on the one - they had it! And they're babies! It's unexplainable. I sat through their whole show just amazed. The harpist sounded like Little Walter and he wasn't using a bullet mike in an amp, he was just blowing into a mike, and he had the sound. They sound like the Rolling Stones never happened. They sound like Chuck Berry hasn't even happened.
They're not perfect yet. Slick really likes to pretend he's black and he lays the blacktalk on a little thick, and they did "Smokestack Lightnight" at least six times under six different titles, so that got a little old, but these are minor flaws they'll doubtless take care of in time.
So if you ever come across the Reverend Slick's BBQ (or Slick just playing solo) go see them/him. I know Hubert Sumlin and Bob Margolin are fans already and Slick sat in with Hubert at the last W. C. Handy awards. There's no way this kid's not going places. (He's got one more year of high school and there's talk of him not going because he's got so many offers.) Pray you get to experience this before one of them goes to college or something.
8/13/02