Monday, May 12, 2003
Well, Gary, last night when I should have been rehearsing for our gig, I decided at the last minute to head over to the Silver Dollar and catch the first set of Junior Watson. Larry Garner was down at Healey's too, so I though maybe I'd end up there, but Junior was irresistible. I had to stay till the final encore (at 1:30 or so). Junior put on a great show, better, I thought, than when I saw him at the BBQ Festival last summer. Beyond his playing though, there was the wonderful Sax Gordon Beadle playing with him - my favourite all time sax player! I've seen him with Luther Guitar Junior, then many times with Duke Robillard - He tells me he's playing on the new Toni Lynn Washington album which Duke produced. Another pleasant surprise was to see Tom Bona on the drums - it seems their regular drummer couldn't get across the border. Tom did an amazing job - it was something to watch as he tried to feel his way into the groove within a bar or two - but he does it no problem. He is a groove-meister. Raoul and Terry got up to do a couple of tunes - I was amazewd to hear Terry speaking positively about the amplified bass sound - something he usually hates! We chatted a bit - he is a good mentor. As we talked about digital versus analogue recording he kept saying there was no "aya" in the digital recording. After he said it a few times I figured out he meant "air". The city's cruelest reviewer was in the house, I'll be interested to see what he writes about the evening. I remember one time you wanted to bring me over and introduce me to him and I said "I don't think I need to meet a guy who, one day, is going to have to say some bad things about me."