Henrik Freischlader – A man with a Cap & a Plan

Never mind ‚Can a white boy sing the Blues?’ how about ‘Can a German white boy do it?

If anyone fits the bill right now it’s self confessed Autodidact Henrik Freischlader.  Germany’s Nr 1 Blues icon was in town on Sunday so Bonn’s Nr1 Blues fan (me!) had to check him out out the Harmonie and see if he deserves the attention.

Germany with a Blues Hero?  Sounds unlikely.  People like Herbert Grönemeyer have been more mainstream but still gone largely unnoticed away from the Fatherland.  I was surprised then to hear from a journalist  in England who was asking about info and pictures for an interview with Henrik Freischlader to be published in a British magazine.

A bit of research of my own revealed that Freischlader is big news lately, having shared stages and supported the likes of BB King, Johnny Winter and Gary Moore in recent months as well as coming up with a corker of an album produced by Martin Meinschäfer that sounds like it’s got all those celebrated guitarists in as session men but is actually just Freischlader himself – right down to the drum solos.

Not surprisingly then the Harmonie on Sunday was pretty well a sell out, as were both the opening shows in Wuppertal, and probably every show this Tour will be.  Showtime and HF steps onstage with the minimum of fuss and his mild mannered voice says Guten Abend.  As he smiles a Han Solo smile that suggests he (and we) are in for some fun.  The smile doesn’t lie as Henrik Freischlader lets his fingers do the talking.

There’s no doubting Fleischladers eloquence on six strings.  Or thirty strings more appropriately.  A guitar technician sits out the show in a dark stage corner.  Which guitar is for which song is taped to a printed list on the corner wall and the appropriate ‘axe’ is freed from the long guitar stand as appropriate.  A Peter Green number?  It’s the Les Paul.  Jimi’s ‘Foxy Lady’? got to be the 1963 Stratocaster.  I later asked Freischlader if he’s considered doing say Hendrix on Gibson as a groundbreaking idea.  Yes he did once, he recalls.  It didn’t sound too bad.  Onstage though ‘too bad’ clearly isn’t good enough so The guitars are switched around with Bonamassa-like speed (a new adverb?!)

I have a mere second to glimpse a handwritten greeting on the Les Paul’s rear – “With love from Gary Moore” as Peter Green’s ‘I loved another woman’ is announced.   Freischlader came to the Blues through Moore’s 1992 ‘After Hours’ platter which makes me, who saw Moore with Thin Lizzy in 1979, feel rather like a large, should be extinct, cold blooded reptile.  Playing support for BB King must have been like having a kick around with Cro-Magnon man to HF!

The sound quality on the new CD is wonderful but here at the Harmonie it’s rather less wonderful – which is odd since the Producer, Martin Meinschäfer, is also the Tour’s soundman.  At one point Freischlader announces there are ear plugs available on the merchandise stand.  I never found out if he was kidding but if they were available I saw none later. Maybe that’s not surprising given the shrill tone in the Hall they would have been instant best-sellers.

The set, like the new CD, kicks off with ‘I’ and the shrill, muddy sound fits it nicely.  Problem is that the sound doesn’t improve much afterwards.  ‘I Got It Made’ is in similar vein soundwise.  ‘So Damn Cool’ sounds a ringer for BB King on CD but here there’s no danger of thinking the big man is onstage as the sound system roughs up the smooth intentions.

The best moments are inevitably quieter ones when the sound is more under control.  ‘Cry Again’ lends more than a small nudge to Gary Moore’s ‘Still got the Blues’ with the added benefit that Freischlader is a better singer than Gazza.  He reminds many people of John Mayer vocally but to me there’s a lot of Elvis Costello at his ‘Almost Blue’ best in Freischladers voice.  Outside of referring to the plural of sheep as ‘sheeps’ in one of the texts he is undetectably German – a paradox really that his best chance of being Germany’s first Blues star lies in not sounding German.  Star?  Well consider this people – The Stetson Company, those fashionably ever in vogue people responsible for dressing the heads of George Custer and Wyatt Earp,  are planning a Henrik Fleischlader signature Cap for their headwear range.  Does it get bigger than that?

Well possibly it does.  And very possibly it will for Henrik Freischlader.  The concert sound was disappointing and the band never really seemed to catch fire but the CD is one of the best I’ve heard in a long, long time.  A white Boy CAN play the Blues – as long as he drops the German accent, you can bet your last sheeps on this man going places.

Footnote:

The English interview mentioned above is by Duncan Beattie and scheduled for the July/August (Nr 54) issue of ‘Blues Matters’

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