 ©1999-1999 ICFTP What're you, kidding? |
It was a good, mellow, long weekend. Derby Day was very cool, a mellow gathering of people, food, booze, guitars, a mandolin, and a bunch of noisy toys... woodblocks, monkey skulls, bongos, a doumbek, two tamborines and a shaker or two. We made lots of noise. :) Check out the pix on Rich's site.
Woke up on Sunday and cleaned up, then went over to Lezlee's and laid out on a blanket in her back yard with a drink, a book and a guitar. Towards the end of the afternoon, Lezlee sat up and told me that Kung Fu Mama was playing down at Pelican Point, so off we went... a long pretty drive across the Bay and down highway 98 to the Pelican Point Grill at Week's Bay.
Chris Spies, keys...
... and the one and only Corky Hughes on lead and lap steel guitar.
These guys are pretty amazing. They're a very accomplished jam band, who throw a little bit of everything, all extremely well done, into the mix. Jazz, funk, Southern rock, reggae (Van Halen's "Ain't Talking 'Bout Love" done as a reggae tune... hoo boy)... trying to classify them isn't really gonna get you anywhere, since they'll go from Dr. John to a jazz/funk/rock/triphop version of "Also Sprach Zarathusthra", take that out for a spin around Pluto, and kick right back into "Iko Iko". Grizzard's bass is rock-solid and eloquent, Parker's voice is a low, gravelly growl reminiscent of Mac Rebbenack... Milham's drumming is expressive, tight and fun... Milham and Spies have been playing together for so long that watching them play off of one another is like watching a married couple finish each other's sentences.
Each member of this group is one of the best that the Mobile area has to offer, so it would be wrong to try and say that any one of them stands out above the others... but Hughes and Spies can bring tears to your eyes any time they want to. Spies can go from down-and-funky, trembling and squealing Hammond licks to beautiful, rippling piano runs that make you feel like the sun just came out from behind a cloud. Hughes is innovative and expressive, casually pulling off things I've rarely seen another guitarist even attempt. He's a polite lead guitarist, never getting in the way of the others while they play, but stepping right out front when it's time for him to shine. He plays a seemingly never-ending succession of guitars, from a beautiful PRS to an ancient Sears mail-order Silvertone... but most often he's playing a baby blue Yamaha Stratocaster copy. I asked him why he played that guitar so much, when he has a vintage 60's Strat. "It's just set up right," he replied. Like the rest of the band, he doesn't play in any one style, instead fluidly changing from fingerpicking to flatpicking to stroking the strings above the nut, striking the body of the guitar in various places... making that Strat copy sound like anything he wants it to.
My personal favorite Corky experience is watching and listening to him play his blonde Fender 8-string lap steel. Liquid solos and growling slide... when he starts playing that thing, I smile so hard my face hurts afterwards.
I'm planning on going down and seeing them again at the ZEW's Second Tuesday concert on, duh, Tuesday, at the Original Oyster House on the Causeway, same place I shot Fez last month. Show starts at 7 - check it out if you get the chance.