It was good performance, although the camera microphone wasn't doing you justice? You can tell the crowd were into it.
Some work ons - I think your singing is good, but perhaps try working on your phrasing. Where the syllables land can really drive a song. Also in a personal view I think that you could ease back on the gravel in the vocals, but that's just my very subjective opinion.
As for the harp, it didn't come through the mix enough, although probably just the recording. What set up do you use?
First up, kudos to you for getting a band up and fronting it. You all work well together and produce a unified sound.
As a big fan of Howlin Wolf, I don't think you need to ease up on the gravel in your voice.
It seems apparent from the effort needed to make your sound on harp that you are using way too much breath force. This is a hard lesson to learn, especially in a live situation, but believe me, when you get the breath and mic technique right, you'll get better tone and volume much more easily ( a good showman will sometimes still make it look like its really hard work, but it shouldn't be).
On 'Juke'; apart from the groove of the band, I couldn't hear anything of Juke in what you played. Have you really studied it? I think you should be able to come close to playing a song in its original form before you rework it. Its all very well to 're work a classic', but there must be some essence of the tune retained, especially with such an iconic tune as Juke. This is not a negative comment on how you played, but what you played. You could think of what you did as an original inspired by Juke; call it Bean Karma Jive or something, but to call it juke sets you up for unfavourable comparison with Little Walter in my opinion.
---------- Lucky Lester
Last Edited by on Oct 12, 2012 4:02 PM
Maybe you're right, my ears may be failing me; or maybe yours have yet to develop enough to recognise subtle nuances of tone, pitch and phrasing. Maybe its a bit of both. May I suggest that you revisit this in a few years time and see what you think.
Incidentally, I don't think George Smiths version really does it justice either