3 J’s – 3 Different Blues

The three J’s – maybe that should be the three G’s as three different generations of Rock Blues guitarists took the Museumsplatz stage by storm on Monday.  Jimmy Bowskill, Joe Bonamassa and Jeff Beck.   We sent two J’s to cover the event.  John Harrison provides the words and John Hurd the pictures at this one off musical event with a past master, a current icon and a tip for future fame all under one hot Bonn Tent.

Sometimes less words = more understanding:

Proof of that is Jimmy Bowskill.  Still only 19 and Canadian, but playing with a passion that most people will either never ever know, or have long since lost! If the blues have a future it is intrinsically here, raw, emotional and practiced with both skilful feeling and innovational talent.

Jimmy’s been straight back to the source and listened to Robert Johnson and Son House, he’s worked his way through the old Delta blues players as a young boy and expresses his contemporary feelings in a modern way, but you can still hear the old masters’ voices coming through when he plays.

Mid-set he swaps his Gibson Les Paul for a twin necked Gibson and lets rip on the 12 string arm, because it’s a fun thing to do. Jimmy enjoys playing and this comes through in his music.

His instrumental rendering of Summertime on a Fender Telecaster, audaciously tuning the guitar to a minor key and then playing bottleneck slide was both visually and audibly mind boggling, he didn’t tune it just two frets down to Dm, he tuned it 4 frets down to Cm, Jimmy likes a fatter sound and he certainly gets it with his instrumental ‘Tour de Force’ that prepared us mentally for Jeff Beck later in the evening.

“Gold in its native state is but dull, unornamental stuff, and only lowborn metals excite the admiration of the ignorant with an ostentatious glitter. However, like the rest of the world, I still go on underrating men of gold and glorifying men of mica.”

-Mark Twain, author and humorist (1835-1910)

Twain might have been at tonight’s set by Joe Bonamassa when he wrote that.  Bonamassa is good.  Very, very good in fact.  But he comes across tonight as possessing more quantity than quality, with uncountable notes that seemed tapped out like morse code on a railway station with a telegrapher one hundred years ago.  He changes guitars like he has to, but he doesn’t really.

Joe is certainly a great polished professional showman, with the shades to match, but I missed a feeling, a raw simple gutsy feeling, that comes sometimes through the axe of a great player when everything falls magically into place and the soulful sounds totally enchant the listener.

Sometimes less words = more understanding(reprise):

Jeff Beck of course doesn’t sing a lot, but then he doesn’t have to.  He lets his snow white Stratocaster cry, then he lets it gently weep, and then he lets it sing for him.  It sings like a nightingale.

He doesn’t throw plectrums into the audience either.  Why? Because a hard cheap piece of far eastern manufactured plastic would reduce his feeling.  His strings are gently stroked by the skin of his thumb and his naked finger tips. This gives him a much a warmer sound than most of his peers and this and his almost unique use of the tremolo arm on his guitar contributes to the lead guitar sound which is Jeff Beck. I think Hank Marvin of the Shadows was the last guitarist I saw actively using the tremolo.

His music is driven by passion rather than aggression, fire rather than anger, love rather than desire.

Sheer boots and braces music – which oddly enough is how he is dressed tonight:  White calf length boots and, due to the heat shirtless under the white waistcoat, grey braces hanging like pendants -almost as if he’s only half out of bed, and, totally nonplussed before dispatching the young whippersnappers, pretentiously nipping at his heels, who walked the same boards earlier in the evening.

If ever there were an apprenticeship for blues guitarists it would be the Yardbirds, Jeff Beck was lead guitarist as was Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton left because it was becoming too commercial and losing its blues roots.  What a schooling!

Jeff Beck doesn’t just play songs, he carefully selects them, and then wears them like a tailored suit.The fact that he doesn’t sing would be a drawback to lesser men. He has a knack more recently of picking songs where the melodies and the words are already in the heads of his audience. He merely plays a wonderful instrumental and triggers the latent words to spring into being in the listener’s mind.  Short and simple: A genius!

He simply plays, and the words are in our heads, found, addressed and mysteriously activated after just a few bars.

Early in the set he, in a rare moment of explanation, said that the next piece “Corpus Christi “ was an old carol from 1660, the white haired man next to me aspired, “why doesn’t he play some blues?” Blues are supposed to make your eyes water! You can find the blues anywhere, even in the body of Christ.  Jeff really did square the circle as the tears welled in my eyes.

Then such a wonderful bass solo with harmonics and goose pimples.  “People get ready” is a great gospel song from Curtis Mayfield and is somehow even more heart rendering, when the only words are self supplied.

In “Rolling and tumbling” some wonderful vocals from Princes former bass player Rhonda Smith, as if almost an after thought to her superb bass playing.

Jeff Becks interpretation of “Somewhere over the rainbow” led us like the Pied Piper down the yellow brick road.  And later “Day in the life” from the Beatles Sgt. Pepper album came to life, despite of, or perhaps because of, the lack of vocals.

The mystique in Jeff Beck’s music is what he does not sing, his guitar simply knocks wordlessly on the mind’s door, and invites everybody in.

Review: John Harrison

Photos: c.John Hurd

John Harrison is MC and Regular Guest at the Bonn Folk Club



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