05
The Michigan Daily-Thursday, February 12, 1981 -Page 7
Hammond's
blues
But when the bird dies...
..
By FRED SCHILL
John Hammond is ninety percent
perspiration and ten percent in-
spiration. His two sets at Rick's
Anterican Cafe Tuesday night were
strenuously accurate forays into blues
history, measuring the depth and
breadth of the music with perspicuity
and without embellishment.
Enjoying 'Hammond's shows,
however, required a vigilant ap-
ppreciation of his skill, a quality
woefully lacking in altogether too large
a portion of Tuesday's audience.
HAMMOND IS A tall, lean, knobby
*fellow whose body fis all angles and
planes. He looks nothing at all like a
one-man blues. band. He has no par-
ticular eccentricities and little char-
risma, does not hold spirited conve-
sations with the crowd, and refrains
from rampaging abandonedly about the
stage. In fact, he sits rather peacefully
on a stool.
In short, Hammond isnot exciting.
He has, fortunately, enough versatility
and pure adoration for the blues to
make his shows consistently delightful.
Hammond's vocals are delicate and
loving, but often border on the som-
nolent. He alternately sounds like a
very soft Bruce Springsteen and an im-
personation of the thin, abbreviated
vocal style of early blues singers
but only an impersonation of them. He
has the phrasing and timing down, but
his voice (perhaps because he is white)
fails to quite recreate the tonality and
feeling of the earlier masters.
MUSICALLY, HIS performance was
impeccable. Promoted as one of the
best interpreters of blues giants Robert
Johnson, Willie Dixon, and Arthur
Crudup, Hammond earns his bread and
butter on' the strength of his
remarkable musical ability..
Adding a little percussion by poun-
ding the fingers of his picking hand on
the guitar strings, Hammond plucked
intricate guitat arrangements with
nimble forcefulness. Using a variety of
guitars for sounds ranging from old-
fashioned, tentatively tinny wistfulness
in songs like "It Huirts Me Too" to pum-
ping, energetic rhythm in "Georgia
Rag," Hammond ran the gamut of the
best of acoustical blues.
His harmonica work was not as per-
fect, but Hammond accomplished the
difficult feat of interweaving full, often
harsh harmonica solos and more
delicate, sedentary guitar work without
contrivance or discomfort.
Support the
March of Dimes
BIRTH DEFECiS FOUNDATION
John Hammond explored the history
and form of blues music in two intricate
sets at Rick's American Cafe Tuesday
night. Hammond was more performer
than entertainer, basing his show on
sheer breadth or talent rather than
theatrics.
By JAMES SCHEEL
As if in a dream, a thick fog billows
across the screen. It swirls and dances,
and parts occasionally, shadowing
reality. So begins Private Eyes, but it is
not long before the dream turns into a
nightmare. In the wave of movies
currently rushing out of Hollywood, this
one attempts to revitalize some old
familiar faces. If it sounds like Urban
Renewal tso you, it is.
Tim Conway stars as Dr. Tart with
Don Knotts as Inspector Winship, in
this parody of Sherlock Holmes. They
are called in to solve the murder of
Lord Morley, a man who reputedly
could not do anything right. As the
moyie progresses, one wonders if they
are not all blood relatives.
At times we get the impression that
we have encountered a run-away made-
for-TV movie. Fans of the Tim Con-
way Show will be advised to stay home
unless their television set is on the fritz,
for Conway presents no new surprises.
Is it comedy, mystery, or suspense?
At times it is all of them,and at times
neither. With so many objectives flung
about, it is not astonishing that some of
them are dropped. The true mystery is
who killed the jokes.
The plot does develop a double edge
when it is discovered that Lord Morley
wrote the note demanding the
resolution of his murder. This appears
not to bother our sleuths, but it will nag
you until the end.
While searching for clues, our two
heroes (a la Star Wars) stumble down a
shaft into an over-sized trash compac-
tor. As they emerge from a block of
A t times we get the im-
pression that we have en-
countered a run-away
made-for- TV movie.'
paper, Conway..says to Kpotts, "You
stink !" I am tempted to agree, but let's
have respect for the man, who gave us
Barney Feif and brought The In-
credible Mr. Limpett to life.
Attempting to establish the
whereabouts of the manor staff at the
time of the slaying, leaves Winship and
Tart pondering the lack of evidence. In
the true heart of the Spanish
Inquisition, after each interrogation the
person is killed.
The best death scene, however, is
played by a carrier pigeon. With a
double-handed toss, Mr. Tart throws
the bird through the window. Smash!
There is a pigeon size hole in the glass;
someone forgot to open the window. The
bird staggers drunkenly among the
shards of glass, before expiring.
In its own drunken stumble, Private
Eyes strains to be a comedy and a mur-
der-mystery. But the laugh are too few
and far between and the plot is cliche.
What is left is a mediocre murder-
mystery that is good clean fun.
The highlight of the evening was his
duets with those of pianist Mark Braun,
who opened both sets. Braun, also
known as Mr. B. in his role as pianist
for Steve Nardella, joined his churning,
insistent rhythms with Hammond's
more mellow approach for several
stirring tunes in the second set.
HAMMOND'S MUSICAL talent is all
it's cracked up to be and then some
he has too little stage charisma to carry
off the one-man band routine as effec-
tively as his talent permits. A solo show
demands either establishing intimacy
with the audience or overpowering
them with sheer presence or impact.
Hammond could do none of these, and
the audience responded by talking and
socializing far too audibly throughout
most of the evening.
Hammond would be awesome, I
think, in a small hall or any other venue
in which the patrons would be willing
to shut up and just listen. It took him a
long time to win that kind of support
and attention from the bar crowd at
Rick's, and that's a damn shame, for he
is an intricate and variously talented
blues performer. He simply isn't a
showman.
p
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