|
Alvin Youngblood Hart brought his three-piece band to Ann Arbor’s Firefly club for two shows on February 16. The Firefly is usually known for booking jazz and avant garde artists, but these shows were special benefits for the Ann Arbor Blues and Jazz Festival. Being a big Alvin fan and wanting to support a good cause I headed down to the Firefly for the early show.
The Firefly Club is in the same building that used to be the Bird of Paradise (The Bird moved about a block and a
half away). The room is basically the same, but they moved the stage to the opposite wall which really improved the site lines and overall feel of the club in my opinion. It is a cozy room and a great place to see a show. I grabbed a seat at the bar and settled in for the show.
The band and the club were having all sorts of sound problems so things kicked off a bit late, but when they did get started the band was on fire from the first song. All the previous times I have seen Alvin, he has played solo acoustic, but this
show was completely different. He never played an acoustic guitar the whole show and the drummer and bassist laid down a heavy rhythm all night.
Alvin is known as a bluesman, but that doesn’t cover the full range of his styles. His electric music is certainly very informed by the blues, but in the same way that Cream’s music was.
Alvin played dirty leads on his collection of different guitars while the band beat out the backing. His songs ranged from straight-ahead blues to reggae to country to southern rock.
A touchstone for the band seemed to be the Mick Taylor era Rolling Stones. Many of the songs had that same gritty feel that you hear on Stones albums from that period. They even covered the Stones classic, Sway at one point.
Other highlights were cool versions of Chuck Berry’s Back to Memphis, Willie Dixon’s The Same Thing and an electrified version of the title song from Alvin’s first album, Big Mama’s Door. The band also played almost all of Alvin’s
latest album, Start With Soul which was produced by Jim Dickinson and is a great collection.
Somewhere in the middle of the set Alvin asked if anybody knew who Doug Sahm was. Only one other guy and I knew which is too bad, but Alvin and the band played a Sahm song called, I’m Just a Country Boy in this Big Freaky City or something like
that. One final highlight was a blistering version of the Buffalo Springfield/Neil Young classic Mr.Soul which Alvin called, "Canadian folk music".
All in all it was a excellent show in a great venue for a good cause. If you are looking for blues with a twist or two, check out the Alvin Youngblood Hart Band when they come to town.
Jeremy Baldwin
JamBase Michigan Correspondent
Go See Live Music!
| 
