A crazy week full of deadlines but in the midst of things I think weève got the OK for the final master - except weère going to change the sequence again. Photographer (and phenomenal drummer) Don Vickery took a few snaps of me at the Montreal Bistro and I sent a couple tp Èthe manÈ whoès doing the CD design. This is as much as I want to harass him. You canèt rush genius.
And here in Toronto on the same night we had Lucky peterson and Ike Turner. I heard the first part of his show it it was non-stop flashy-guitar power trio, and it would appear one of his trio didnt make it across the border because drummer Tyler Burgess was sitting in on drums and Rick Levinston brought over a keyboard and they got it set up for the second set.
meanwhile I took off down to the Reverb Room to hear Ike, thinking he would be starting last but alas, at midnight they were winding down. We heard a couple of tunes and what a tight 10-piece ensemble fronted by a Tina Turner clone. I ke was resplendent in a white pop-art jumpsuit which only accentuated his hardened lines. Somebody said he might be seventy-five. I dont believe it. What I heard was a veryt tight band with Ike on the wah-wah leads playing the Tina-era hits.
When we got back to the Dollar, Lucky was at the keyboard and played some funky then beautuful tunes. Then he grabbed the mikestand, dragged it onto the floor and sat at the edge of the stage and got up close and personal wityh the audience. Nice vibe. He said ’two weeks ago I was a no-show but tonight i was a SHOW’ and he was telling the truth. He played some amazing stuff till way past 2:00 and even thogh he probably avoided some of the newer material, he put his own stamp on every blues nugget he pulled out.