Week in Review – September 22, 2019

This was a very busy and enjoyable music week.  The festivities kicked off with Lonelyland at the Saxon Pub on Monday.  Bob Schneider has been playing this regular residency at the Saxon for 20 years now.

This was an excellent show – very laid back and quiet (mostly) compared to a typical Schneider show.  Here’s the setlist for the show – my favourite song was “The Band Played On” – a very melancholy song.

Lonelyland goes live at 8:30PM CT at the Saxon Pub tonight! Join in on the live stream: facebook.com/bobschneidermusic

On the drive to the restaurant, I noticed a sign on the El Mercado Mexican restaurant alerting us that John Inmon was hosting Marcia Ball as his guest.  After dinner, we paid our $5 cover and enjoyed the last 40 minutes of that excellent show.  John Inmon is known as one of the finest guitarists in Austin (pretty rarefied company) and hosts a different guest every Tuesday night.  What a treat to see Marcia Ball with a different band and playing songs that you don’t hear in her regular sets recently.  Here’s the excellent “World Full of Love”.  Marcia and her friend told the story of writing this song after the last election – they were not happy with the result but turned around that sentiment into this beautiful song:

Thursday brought the drive back to Dallas so that Diana could attend a meeting downtown.  We listened to more of our audible book, “The Apartment”, getting close to the concluding exciting part.   Diana texted me this picture from the client office, asking me if I was interested in attending.  “Absolutely”, was my speedy response.  I’m a huge Eric Clapton fan and this festival includes many of the world’s best guitar players.

We headed down to American Airlines Center early on Friday afternoon and were the first folks to arrive at Diana’s work suite.  The show started with Bill Murray introducing Sonny Landreth (an amazing slide guitar player from New Orleans).  Last time I saw him was with less than 50 folks at the Rock N’ Bowl – bit different this time.

Eric Clapton and his band (including Andy Fairweather Low – my Mum’s 2nd cousin) were up next and provided a beautifully nuanced acoustic set – including these two gems:

Gary Clark Jr., another amazing Austin guitar player, joined Citizen Cope for this one – such a great guitar sound:

Sheryl Crow was joined by Doyle Bramhall (last seen at Antone’s small club in Austin) for one of my favourites of hers, “Steve McQueen”:

I think Jimmy Vaughan had one of the best sets of the evening (and there were a lot of good ones).  We last saw him a few weeks ago at the tiny C-Boys Heart and Soul club on South Congress in Austin – quite a change in venue.  He started out with the same band from C-Boys:

Vaughan’s first guest was the lovely Bonnie Raitt:

Then things picked up on the crowd pleasing dial.  Billy Gibbons of ZZTop joined for a couple of songs, getting the crowd going with “Sharp Dressed Man”

We saw Marcus King at the Hula Hut in Austin during South by Southwest and loved his voice.  Things were a bit loud and overdriven at this show.  I did enjoy this quieter song, “Goodbye Carolina”:

Next up was Peter Frampton – weeks away from entering retirement.  He started with a lovely instrumental version of Hoagey Carmichael’s “Georgia on my mind”, and then transitioned into the famous “Do You Feel Like We Do”, from the best-selling live album of all time, “Frampton Comes Alive”:

Then we had a real moment.  Frampton introduced a gentleman that he’d known for a long time, but had never played with, Eric Clapton.  A real one of a kind experience as they played the Beatles, “My Guitar Gently Weeps”:

Jeff Beck finished out the show.  A special guest ambled onto the stage to sing John Lennon’s “Isolation” – Johnny Depp – he did a decent job on a great song:

What an amazing event, finishing after midnight, wait – there’s a song about that.  Who wrote that?  Eric Clapton you might quickly answer, but you’d be wrong – it was J. J. Cale.  Check out the original version later in this post.  Thanks Diana, for an excellent event.  The logistics of this event were incredible – a rotating stage so that there was a very short gap between music, and satellite stages to add some special interest.  The setlist for Saturday (Vince’s buddy was recording the show and provided this) shows the precision involved:

Here’s the setlist from the show we saw on Friday:

Main Event in American Airlines Center from approximately 7PM on Friday, September 20th:

Sonny Landreth:  Walkin’ Blues, It Hurts Me Too, Instrumental (Title Unknown), Brave New Girl

Eric Clapton with Andy Fairweather Low, Jamie Oldaker, Steve Gadd, Nathan East and Pedrito Martinez:  Circus, Nobody Knows You When You’re Down And Out, Tears In Heaven, Wonderful Tonight, Lay Down Sally

Bonnie Raitt, Keb’ Mo’ and Alan Darby – 1 song.  Alan played the new Gibson Custom Eric Clapton 1964 Firebird 1 Recreation which is part of the 2019 Crossroads Guitar Collection.

Citzen Cope – 5 songs including Bullet And A Target and Sideways. Gary Clark, Jr. joined for one number

Gustavo Santaolalla – the Argentinian guitarist and composer opened with the Apology Song, followed by a selection of songs from film soundtracks he composed.

Sheryl Crow – 6 song set with guests Bonnie Raitt and James Bay. If It Makes You Happy, Steve McQueen (with Bonnie Raitt), Live Wire (with Bonnie Raitt), Everything Is Broken (with Bonnie Raitt and James Bay), Every Day Is A Winding Road (with James Bay)

Pedro Martins and Daniel Santiago – 3 song set

Kurt Rosenwinkel with Pedro Martins – performed 6 songs. Songs were taken from Kurt Rosenwinkel’s album Caipi and Pedro Martin’s album, Vox.

James Burton and Albert Lee with Jamie Oldaker and Nathan East: That’s Alright Mama, Rock Around With Ollie Vee

Jimmie Vaughan and The Tilt-A-Whirl Band with guests Bonnie Raitt and Billy Gibbons: D/FW, Roll Roll Roll, No One To Talk To (But The Blues), Baby Please Come Home (with Bonnie Raitt), I Ain’t Never (with Bonnie Raitt), Sharp Dressed Man (with Billy Gibbons), La Grange (with Billy Gibbons)

Doyle Bramhall and Gary Clark, Jr: Rock Me Baby

The Marcus King Band: 7 song set including I Just Want To Make Love To You, Hoochie Coochie Man and Goodbye Carolina.

Peter Frampton with Eric Clapton:  Georgia On My Mind (Instrumental), Do You Feel Like We Do, While My Guitar Gently Weeps (with Eric Clapton)

Jeff Beck with guests Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall (pending confirmation):  Jeff’s set included Big Block, Isolation (with Johnny Depp), Somebody’s Nobody (with Johnny Depp), Superstition (with Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall), Little Wing (with Johnny Depp and Jimmy Hall)

While we were enjoying all of this varied and excellent music in Texas, Will was presenting to a Redwood City elementary class about the solar power system he installed for their school.  You can tell he’s loving the chance to interact with the kids:

It’s been a very good football Sunday – the Cowboys won easily over the Dolphins (scoring two TDs while I was facetiming with my parents), the Eagles lost, and New Orleans beat Seattle with a backup quarterback.  And Nick Baudin, Campbell’s friend since elementary school in Los Gatos, hurdled a defender for a first down for the Detroit Lions.

I started “The Most Fun We Ever Had” by Claire Lombardo this week.  The first 100 of 500 pages have been enjoyable.  I suspect it’ll take me a few weeks to finish this one.  The multi-generational story of a Chicago based family seems like it will provide many hours of interesting reading.

There’s a new ablum from the excellent Teskey Brothers, a Melbourne based blues/soul band that I really enjoy:

Here’s the original version of “Isolation”, performed by Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp on Friday.  It really reminds me of Dark Side of the Moon era Pink Floyd and could easily be a Roger Waters song:

Let’s finish out the week with even more excellent music, the original version of “After Midnight”:

I highly encourage you to check out all of Cale’s wonderful catalog.

MIND GAMES COVER

TESKEY BROS