High energy swing. Nothing wrong with that. The audience sure liked what they were hearing, and danced their socks off too. Nice stuff. ---------- Matthew
Excellent! Great big tone and lots of sweet-spot focus on the major third and major sixth. Big and bouncy. Great energy and the crowd felt it and responded. This is the best kind of party blues. He's really in the pocket and knows that the groove is most of what the crowd cares about. He and the drummer are really tossing it back in forth.
I would love to know exactly what rig he's using. He would kill at Hill Country Harmonica. Next year!
Here's another recent video in a slightly different bag:
Now in this video, the groove isn't quite grooving. It's good, but not great. My gut sense on first listening is that the drummer is pushing just a hair too fast, chasing Weston rather than holding him down, so that swing evaporates. It's really useful to compare the first video to this one. WW has terrific chops and imagination in both, but the first video really IS top-shelf stuff, and this is just very good. A harp player can't do it all; the band--and particularly the drummer--needs to create the space within which he soars. NOTE TO BBQ BOB: I'd like to hear whether you think I'm right about the perceived groove-difference between these two videos:
Hi Adam, I know Steve very well and have loads of video's on my You Tube site. Of all the UK players I have met Steve has been the most generous and helpful to me with his knowledge and he make excellent marine band harps. Adam you should try one. As for his rig he is using a Stock Fender Bassman 59 RI I think he has had it point to point wired but that was to overcome some problems and not because it sounded better. He also uses a Boss DM 2 Analogue delay. He may have been using an Ibanez AD9 in one of these vids I am not sure because he swaps them. I recently swaped stevs's Ibanez AD9 for one of my mics and I am very glad I did. The warmth and old school sound you get out of the vintage delays is fantastic and my sound is now getting closer to the sound I hear in my head. The mic he is using would probably be either a CM or a CR. He has some wonderful mics. Just as a side note he does have a tremendous set of chops and I know for a fact that he does not play the Bassman above 3 1/2 because he can get really loud using his cupping technique. I have watched his style intensly from my vids and if you watch him he is very relaxed and enjoying himself in his playing and he kind of coughs on the beat to get some air out (I think) or to keep him in the groove.Have a listen Adam and tell me why you think he does that I would be interested to hear your thoughts on this. Cheers
Russ ---------- Oxharp
Last Edited by on May 03, 2012 10:16 PM
Here is a vid of mine with a guest from Spain West Weston & Victor Puertas Its interesting to listen to how different they sound using the same rig. Steve still sound great through a vocal mic. I think maybe that physical aspects of they body may have something to do with the sound you can produce? for example do you think that if we all were built like Little Walter or Sonny Boy II we could sound just like them, but because we are physically different we can only get close to their sound?? I have thought that for a while now what do you guys think? Russ Enjoy the vid
Off to see Steve tonight playing with Mud Morganfield,Muddy's son. :o)
Tone is in your chops. The amp is a tool that allows you to be heard. We all have a preference to what sound we like,lots of distortion, or a clean sound,lots of bass or middle etc etc The amp can give you that.
BUT............... bad tone into the amp = LOUD bad tone out
PS For my ear, Steve is the best player in the UK, and is up there with the best in the world. Referring to the Kim Wilson thread. Steve is very similar in abilities to Kim, but has a nicer tone.
Optimal amplified live harp tone isn't just in your chops. It's in your chops, your amp, your mic, your harp, your way of cupping, the way you place your amp in the room, the volume of your amp relative to the guitar, bass, and drums. That's why Kim Wilson, for example--or so I've been told--takes such scrupulous care during his sound check to place his amp in the optimal spot on stage and to tweak the dials to get things just right.
I assumed that it went without saying that West Weston would have to have great chops, a great un-amped tone, in order to deliver a great sound out of his amp. But my thirty years' experience getting live sound out of harps, mics, and amps and watching pros at work tells me that the best players--with a few exceptions--tend to optimize as many elements in the acoustical chain as they can. Sometimes, believe it or not, (and I'm being sarcastic here), they've got tricks up their sleeve--like, for example, putting Green Bullet elements in Astatic mics. That's why I asked the question about his mic and amp. I figured I might learn something new.
Last Edited by on May 04, 2012 6:59 AM
I'm not BBQBob but I would have to agree on the difference between the groove in the first vid and the second. It does to my ears and only one listen feel as if the drummer is chasing him in the second video..just not quite in the pocket together. Where in the first video they have it locked in and locked in tight. The bit in the first video at 6:53 where he dips into You are My Sunshine made me smile. Brilliant stuff.
In the second video when the drummer slips to just the hat/cowbell groove it gets better but it still doesn't lock in as tight as the first groove. although they finally seem to lock it in about halfway thru Saints in the second video he then looses it going into sunshine and at one point nearly collapses altogether. I call that the try to get to complicated syndrome. Sounded like he went for a fill that didn't roll out as he wanted and then stumbled slightly. hahaha I know the feeling well.
Speaking of... I found that when I started playing some percussion(hand drumming) with the band it made my harp groove a lot tighter. We have a song or two where the groove is held down by the harp, the rest of the time I am on the drum these days. But it really helped our tightness a lot. When we were just guitar and harp the groove was not nearly as tight as it is now. morale to the story - want to groove tighter..play a little drum on the side for a bit. Even if it is just keeping a beat on a set of cheap bongos in your room. Banging a drum will help you start to feel the pulse.
Different amps used on each of these recordings...yes, Steve can be 'particular', but when it comes to laying it down, he just "has it"...great grasp of his instrument, fluency & flawless execution.
Steve switched from crystals to CM/CR elements (he has all sorts of different mics) mainly due to reliability, he had noticed some deterioration &, like the PCB to handwired conversion on his amp, wanted something the could count on.
tmf714 - Well spotted, he is very impressed with the AFB+ as a problem solver/noisegate but it is in no way an essential component in his sound. Oh, and he'd probably be the first to agree with you re. Kim. (But you know what they say, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder..."). ---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on May 04, 2012 8:28 AM
"Now in this video, the groove isn't quite grooving. It's good, but not great. My gut sense on first listening is that the drummer is pushing just a hair too fast, chasing Weston rather than holding him down, so that swing evaporates"
True Dat! you can search high and low for a drummer like the guy in the first vid and never find him. kudos to the rest of the band too.
westons talent is obvious, but best supporting actor has got to go to that incredible drummer- even when he was hitting the ride - right next to westons coat tails,and pounding the crash- he wasn't "chasing him down"- (personally, i try to stay away from cymbals, if at all possible. ---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
click user name for info-
Last Edited by on May 04, 2012 12:06 PM
That "incredible drummer" is Mike Thorne, who has just finished a stint touring with Paul Lamb & the Kingsnakes to focus on his new recording studio (Rimshot Studios in Kent, UK).
Mike has played with just about anybody who is "anybody" on the UK blues scene. He manages to make his snare sound like notes as much as beats, very musical.
Superb drummer & studio engineer & very nice guy to boot.
@Oxharp "He also uses a Boss DM 2 Analogue delay" looks like that one stayed in the case on this day Russ, that looks like a DD3 digital on the amp in the first clip. He switches them about.
---------- www.myspace.com/markburness
Last Edited by on May 04, 2012 2:25 PM
"That "incredible drummer" is Mike Thorne, who has just finished a stint touring with Paul Lamb & the Kingsnakes to focus on his new recording studio (Rimshot Studios in Kent, UK)."
thank you 5F6H!
Modern Blues from the UK is a far cry( i'm not slamming them) from pioneers ala John Mayal, Fleetwood Mac w/ Peter Green, Uncle Eric etc.
cats like weston have raised the bar and i applaud him.
it's like when i heard the first T-Birds record. i said to myself, "Wait a minute! a Blues Band finally got it right".
---------- MP affordable reed replacement and repairs.
"making the world a better place, one harmonica at a time"
Brilliant set by Mud Morganfield and Steve Weston on harp last night in Darvel. I got to meet Mud and the band backstage. He's a larger than life character, who is most definitely his fathers son. Steve was superb and inspired me to up my game.They got me up to play Mojo, which was an absolute pleasure. Playing with Mud is as close as I'll get to playing with the great man himself, and I will never forget it. ---------- The Pentatonics Reverbnation Youtube
"Why don't you leave some holes when you play, and maybe some music will fall out".
