Blues: John Hammond Live at Acoustic Fest, Manitowoc, WI, Sunday, July 16, 2006

I went down to see a one-man cover band, and I came away believing that all of the songs were his own. When John Hammond plays the blues, it doesn’t matter that he didn’t write the tunes. Hammond is such a student of the blues masters that he brings the original artist to the stage. So while Manitowoc, Wisconsin, is a far cry from the crossroads of Mississippi or the blues societies of Chicago, Hammond transformed the Acoustic Fest stage on Sunday, July 16, into a country juke joint from another time and place. The weather supplied a sweltering heat for the evening, and Hammond supplied the red hot blues during his 75-minute headlining set.

Beginning on acoustic guitar, Hammond laid down the rhythm of Little Walter’s “Just Your Fool” with a Robert Johnson guitar lick solo and harmonica played like a bottleneck slide. It’s like seeing a virtual Smithsonian recording, but at the same time, the show could be beneath a railroad bridge dealing with Manitowoc’s current struggling blue collar economy.

Hammond’s been a student of the blues since he was young, and really his life and career are like an Alan Lomax archive. At age 10, he was listening to Sonny Terry records and others. At age 15, he was going to clubs to see Jimmy Reed and Muddy Waters playing. By his 20’s, he was playing with Howlin’ Wolf. As the introduction to this month’s issue of Music Spectrum shows, Hammond is a linchpin in the history of blues and roots music and a living connection to the past.

Making up the set list as he went, you could call it the “Dear John Letter Set,” as Hammond pulled out all of those anguish, brokedown over a woman blues songs. Robert Johnson’s “Kind Hearted Woman Blues” was a total miserable heart version. Hammond captured a sparse way of playing for Johnson’s “Come In My Kitchen,” agonizing each of the chords. That was followed up by the Grateful Dead’s “Tastebud,” a fast walking blues that’s like the panic before the agonizing.

For 45 years, Hammond’s been making these blues songs his own, but it wasn’t until 2003 that he wrote a song of his own (“Slick Crown Vic,” Ready for Love). With his 2005 release, In Your Arms Again, Hammond penned two more tunes, one of which he played at Acoustic Fest. Saying, “I never thought of myself as a songwriter, but who knew?” Hammond played “Come to Find Out” which shows how he’s absorbed it all from the masters, including the “woman leaving” blues narrative, which made it a perfect song for that night’s set. The Tampa Red song, “It Hurts Me Too,” it seems that the old bluesmen were offering their version of a divorce support group. Before divorce was common, before the Church embraced people hurt by broken marriages, the blues came along to soothe. Fortunately for the people hurt along the way the blues gave words, music, and rhythm to something no one wanted to talk about except in hushed, judgmental tones.

When the 9:00 PM ending time came, it didn’t stop Hammond from picking up his National Steel guitar for more. As he launched into a Muddy Waters tune, “I Can’t Be Satisifed,” all his limbs were moving, his whole body making the music and rhythm, with the steel-bodied guitar reflecting the stage lights, flashing every which way.

Watching Hammond play in the bandshell at Manitowoc’s Washington Park, which is also the site for MetroJam, I realized that Hammond was opening up the dusty trunk in the attic stored in the music that had been played on the very same stage. For 2006’s MetroJam, the Romantics laid out a clear connection between rock ‘n’ roll and the blues of the past. For 2005’s MetroJam, the Smithereens hinted through their rockabilly modern rock that the blues weren’t forgotten up there in musical history storage. Hammond’s blues made that connection, but he went even further by getting out that old trunk for everyone to stare in wonder at the treasures inside.

Interestingly, while Hammond often ends his songs by strumming on that last chord, he doesn’t hit the resolving chord on the end. He just lets the song sit there in the air. Perhaps that’s another way of making the masters still be present in every place Hammond goes, waiting for them to strike that final chord.

After all that I’ve tried to say about John Hammond really the best words are from Tom Waits, the liner notes for Ready for Love:

Used to be songs weren’t written down, they circulated like rumors or humor, scary stories, bad news, good news, and everyone whose hands they passed through put their mark on them and the songs put their mark on you, songs that were filled with truths that are as true today as they were in Muddy Waters day, songs about cheap wine, prison, women, depression, desire, liquor, trains, death, and momma. Songs that grew wild all over this country, along ridges, under bridges, in road houses and train yards, in creek beds, in motel beds, along highways, John Hammond learned from the masters, Muddy, John Lee Hooker, Skip James, Son House, Johnny Shines, Sonny and Brownie, Albert King, Hendrix, James Cotton, and now he is a master. John Hammond has made all these songs his own; songs that carry secrets and cautions, truths, confessions and shadows. Hollered, shouted out and moaning low. Songs have fingerprints on them and there are places where they are worn down or broke in, like a shovel or a saddle or a guitar or a gun. Because songs migrate like seeds do on the wind, in the water, and in birds. John is one of those birds that picks up a song here and carries it to another town and like the wind, like the water, like the birds, he carries them with him and sings them from New York to Tampa along Highway 95, Highway 61 to Slidell, Baton Rouge, Hattiesburg, Winona, San Berdu, Sulphur Springs, Cleveland, Rochester, Buffalo, Ann Arbor and Detroit. John Hammond with his guitar and a slide, a harmonica and a voice that can make a sound like a whole train going by at night or like he’s tryin’ not to wake the baby. The road, the song, one is plugged into the other and they are both plugged into John Hammond and it’s the same thing, it’s the same thing.

For more on a connection between John Hammond’s show and the Christian faith, see my article from the Manitowoc Herald-Times Reporter (below).

Acoustic Fest
Many incredible talents have graced the Acoustic Fest stage, playing to a relatively small audience in an intimate, downtown park setting. If you’re a fan of seeing musicians work guitars and instruments, bringing out incredible songs and sounds, then mark your calendar for next year’s Acoustic Fest.

Thanks to John Hammond and Backporch Records for their help. And thanks to the organizers of Acoustic Fest for another incredible event. If you’re a musician, Manitowoc, Wisconsin, should be on your list of places to play! Picture courtesy of Sugar Magnolia Photography.