I'd like to share something I wrote recently about an unsual musical encounter. My apologies to others for whom this is not new.

(Ya know we all miss you very much ... )

Walkabout 5-17-03

Well, on a recent, most dis-harmonius, Saturday evening I went walkabout. In the spirit of that aboriginal tradition – translated to this tiny hamlet in Northern California – my past such escapades have taken me to some local spot in hopes of soothing ‘the savage beast’. In practical terms this usually means I wander/stumble to our local blues/booze joint, Henfling’s Firehouse Tavern. ( In years past Ben Lomond had at least two such places. On major holiday weekends, locals would wander back and forth between them, depending upon which band was taking a break and who was at which bar. It almost felt like New Orleans … No more, now there’s only one. )

As I stumbled down to Highway 9, I had no inkling of the treat that was soon to come.

The Barry Melton Band was playing. ( Barry Melton, Barry Melton. Yeah, yeah didn’t he play with Country Joe and the Fish. Yeah, he was a guitarist. Guy with a big, sandy-colored afro. Yeah, that was him.) Well, Barry no longer has the afro. ( I wonder if he curled his hair then, or straightens it now. ) And he’s added a paunch, not unlike my own. But, delightfully, Mr. Melton still has a wonderful touch with an electric guitar. It’s a tone that soars from the players vibrato merging with electric amplification and subtle feedback that takes a simple, plucked string and transforms it into a ‘singing’, a singing that sears into your heart.

It was a pretty small crowd, but they obviously knew who they had come to see. The band’s repertoire consisted mostly of ‘electrified’ folk songs. I imagined this must have been the way these guys played in the early to mid-sixties, as the ‘folkies’, especially in San Francisco, made the transition from acoustic to electric instruments, just at the edge of late sixties psychedelia. There was mention of Harry Smith and his collection of tunes for Folkways – outside of ‘Stagger Lee’ and a crowd-joined rendition of the Johnny Cash / June Carter classic ‘Ring of Fire’ I don’t recall the titles of any. ( Hey, if I was a proper reporter I would have written them down, and [possibly] not been inebriated. ) The dedication to the, recently deceased, June Carter Cash was touching. She co-wrote ‘Ring of Fire’. There were some really fine songs, all re-worked for a 4-piece, blues band format. The spoken intro to one song in particular made you think that Barry was talking about the current George Bush only to realize that the song was originally written about LBJ !

And there was a lot of banter. Amongst the band members, and with the crowd. At one point I wondered if I was watching/listening to a band or a comedy troupe. They took almost as much time between songs as they did for each song ! Both they and the audience were more than comfortable to let the songs happen at their own pace, after prefacing remarks had been exhausted. There was a delightful, relaxed approach to their playing. Guys completely comfortable with their material and ‘playfully’ navigating their way through it. Possibly had something to do with the players …

Midway through the first set Barry Melton introduced the other members of the band. On bass was Peter Albin, formerly the bassist with Big Brother and the Holding Company. On guitar and keyboards was ‘Banana’ ( Lowell Levinger ) of Youngbloods fame. On drums was Roy Blumenfeld from Seatrain and The Blues Project (?!?). No wonder these guys played the way they did. I realized that I was watching the intersection of several streams of American musical history and a new living stream at that. At that hour and level of intoxication I would have normally stumbled home, but the whole idea of these guys and the quality of the music – I stayed.

It wasn’t very loud. You could express yourself to the person next to you and they back, and there was no problem. Yet the instruments and their sounds had all that you would hope for. I noticed that Barry was playin’ through one of the smaller Fender amps I’ve ever seen used in that venue. Maybe through age, and experience, we’ve realized that for the music to be good it doesn’t have to be earth-shatteringly loud.

Some time in the second (third?) set I began thinkin’ about the Blues Project. I like the description ( accessed, of course, after the fact ) at ‘allmusic.com’:

One of the first album-oriented, "underground" groups in the United States, the Blues Project offered an electric brew of rock, blues, folk, pop, and even some jazz, classical, and psychedelia during their brief heyday in the mid-'60s. It's not quite accurate to categorize them as a blues-rock group, although they did plenty of that kind of material; they were more like a Jewish-American equivalent to British bands like the Yardbirds, who used a blues and R&B base to explore any music that interested them. Erratic songwriting talent and a lack of a truly outstanding vocalist prevented them from rising to the front line of '60s bands, but they recorded plenty of interesting material over the course of their first three albums, before the departure of their most creative members took its toll.

That departure, of course, was Al Kooper and Steve Katz ( at the least ) who went on to form the first version of ‘Blood, Sweat, and Tears’, recording ‘Child Is Father To The Man’. Listening years later to these guys (‘Blues Project’) is wonderfully refreshing. Not only do we get Danny Kalb’s hyper-speed guitar riffs but Al Kooper’s ondioline mystifications, presaging many a later band’s MiniMoog usage.

My thinking about the Blues Project next turned to the idea that I might actually be able to locate the one album of theirs that I had purchased. Now I’m not a big ‘fan’ or big on the idea of being a ‘fan’. My take has always been that we revere, honor, appreciate those who make (major) contributions to the arts and sciences, but that ultimately those ideas (most importantly) must become, so to speak. ‘grist for one’s own mill’. What’s important is not any type of hero/fan worship but one’s individual growth and creativity inspired by works of beauty, insight, intelligence , and humor. Beyond that it matters little…

Well, given that, I was quite surprised when I walked back home and I started digging through my boxes of albums ( no longer readily accessible - and rightly so - since we banished them from the living room ), In short order I found the Blues Project’s ‘Projections’. Album in hand, I stumbled back down to Henflings.

When I arrived, the band had already packed up most of its equipment. Guitar, bass and keyboard amps were gone, but the drummer Roy, was still packing up his kit. I sheepishly approached him, album in front, and was greeted by a smile of recognition. I asked if he played on the album, and commented that it had no names for the players. He said that yes he had, and with the slightest touch of unease, mentioned that only their manager was credited. That man’s name is Sid Bernstein. Roy graciously asked my name and signed my copy. We spoke of the other members of that band. He told me that his close friend Andy Kulberg, bassist and flute player for the band, had passed away recently. He said that Danny Kalb was still active and that Al Kooper continued to produce notable folks. He mentioned ‘Lynnard Skynnard’, that I admit I was surprised by. I shook his hand and thanked him. Later (much too late ) I thought that I could have at least helped him pack up his kit. just like I had done for so many other friends at Henflings over the years. Oh, another knuckle to the chin of the empathic spirit …