It's been a fun three days down here in St. Pete with Sterling Magee. Rehearsal on Thursday, club date on Friday, the streets--first time in more than two decades!--just now. We've got most of it on HD video. Here's a clip from Friday night. Sterling is doing pretty well for 80 years old. This is our first gig since February 2014:
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 21, 2016 7:53 PM
The whole show was terrific. TC Carr is a powerful entertainer. Adam, your set with Sterling was excellent. The love and appreciation that you and everyone showed for Sterling was touching. And the music was damn good. And then closing the show with both you and TC doing the last set together and trading licks was awesome. I recorded the first 30 minutes of your set and will send a copy to you on Monday via a thumb drive. You can do what you please with it. ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on May 28, 2016 2:27 PM
Here's another clip, courtesy of a second videographer, Tom Halchak. One thing you'll notice if you put headphones on is how balanced the mix is, with the kickdrum notably louder than the tambourine pedal, and with the low end of the guitar holding down the bottom end of the sonic range. If you don't wear headphones and just play it on your laptop or desktop, you'll presume the reverse: that the tambo pedal, on the spare-tire upbeat, is completely dominating the mix.
I've learned over time that miking the kick and putting it through the PA is absolutely vital to getting a nice balanced sound out of my percussion setup. This video really proves that point. (The tambo and snare were NOT miked, btw. I'm only playing the kick and tambo pedal here; no snare.) When the low end disappears--when you listen to it on your laptop or (god forbid!) your smart phone speakers--you'll be tempted to say "Way too much tambo pedal! Too sizzly, too bright!" But that's user-error, not a rational judgment of the mix that people at the club actually heard or the mix that's actually there on the recording. I offer these observations because I lot of people these days are in the habit of making snap judgments about sound mix based on precisely this sort of user-error. Call it the YouTube fallacy.
Thanks to Tom's Samsung smartphone for the great mix--and visuals, of course.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 28, 2016 9:18 AM
"Too much harp." Ah, my dear Jinx. You've proved my point about YouTube kibbitzers. Where do you suppose Tom was standing when he shot this video? He was standing on my side of the stage, directly in front of the PA speaker. I was using very small amps--much smaller than the guitar amp--and so the sound man was pumping my harp amp through the PA in order to keep the harp level equal to Sterling's guitar. The harp is loud here because Tom's Samsung is getting incrementally more direct harp from the amps and a whole lot more harp from the PA than anybody would have gotten sitting directly in front of us.
Thanks for proving my point. As far as the swing of the kickdrums: we'll, there just a bass drum and a tambo pedal--I'm not playing the snare--and I think if you listen on good headphones, as I suggested, you might have a different opinion. But perhaps not.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 28, 2016 9:09 AM
I don’t know about the “too much harp” comment but I will say that as I watched and listened to this performance live some thoughts occurred to me. When Adam first met Sterling it is a safe bet that Sterling was the more accomplished musician. He had played with a considerable number of “Name” musicians and had legendary status on the streets of Harlem – attracting large audiences daily. Adam was this young college student who amazingly had enough guts to ask Sterling if he could sit it. That casual jam session evolved into a relationship that has (so far) lasted 38 years. In the early days, I would say that Sterling carried the load with his guitar, vocals and foot drums. He was a one-man-band with a little harp on the side. Fast forward 38 years and Sterling is retired, living in Florida, no longer performing live except on rare occasion when Adam comes to town or perhaps whenever TC Carr stops by for a visit. His guitar skills and vocals are somewhat diminished. He no longer plays the foot drums. Now Adam plays the drums and his harmonica playing pretty much carries the load with Sterling, more or less, tagging along. Before anyone passes judgement on the quality of the mix you should understand what you are seeing. You are watching a tribute performance for an 80-year-old man – on his birthday - who is slightly past his prime and the guy sitting on his left is a man who loves him dearly and is happy to have the opportunity to play with his good friend again. What I witnessed last week was something beautiful. The amount of love that poured out of the people in that room for Sterling was palpable. Was it the Satan and Adam of when Sterling was in his prime and Adam had 10 years under his belt? No. It was better! ---------- Tom Halchak www.BlueMoonHarmonicas.com
Last Edited by florida-trader on May 28, 2016 12:19 PM
Having had a similar experience with an older jazz/blues musician, one has to take the age into consideration whan critiquing.
Jimmy Fields was a 94 year old guitar player/singer when I met him (at a farmer's mkt) in 2004. We did quite a few duo gigs for a bit. Jimmy was one of the original jug band stylists who moved over towards jazz - his real life experiences and stories were outstanding, as being the "real deal" placed him in the center of so much history.
Jimmy is the one that told me "No matter how good or bad the band, if you put a pretty girl out front, it will bring down the house!"
It was also a real learning experience for me to find that I had to back off in so many areas of accompaniment/soloing in order to let him shine through, as his playing had developed a subtlety that is only gained through a lifetime of devotion to music. ---------- The Iceman
I agree, Goldbrick. Sterling is a soulful musician and I'm amazed we're still doing this, 30 years later.
I'll make one last point in connection with Jinx's "too much harp" comment, since I realize that something was going on here that nobody understands. Ordinarily I would remain quiet about this, because I'm protective of Sterling, but my hope is that some younger musician, looking for guidance, will learn something from what I'm about to say.
The video I've posted above features one of Sterling's original tunes, "Ain't Nobody." The song opens with a version of the "Chicken Shack" head. This was our first gig in more than two years. The rehearsal we'd had the day before made me wonder whether Sterling would be able to play the gig at all. He had very little ability to strum in time. His groove was almost gone. But you have a show, so you play a show, hoping you'll be able to handle what comes up.
Every other time Sterling and I have performed the song in the past 20 years, he's started singing the first verse at the beginning of the second chorus. This time he didn't. In a split second I had to realize that he had most likely forgotten the words, at least temporarily, and that I would need to play a second full chorus of harp without letting anybody in the audience know what I was doing. It would have to seem to the audience that in fact the song was SUPPOSED to begin with two strong choruses of harp.
This is what blues musicians do. They cover for their pals. They do their best to keep the show rolling. When you're both the drummer and the harp player, as I am, you carry the weight. The default option is always to play powerfully, with assurance, rather than backing off, hesitating, and allowing anybody to sense that something might potentially be off. It would be fair to say that the last thing in the world that was affecting my playing, in that moment, was fear that somebody on the Modern Blues Harmonica forum would opine in the fashion that Jinx and Iceman have opined. That sort of stuff just doesn't carry any weight in that moment. The song was on my shoulders. It was the first song of the night; Sterling's three sisters were in the house, along with their husbands and least two of Sterling's nephews. It was important that I not make him look bad--which is to say, to cover for his lapse.
We got to the end of the second 12 bars. If you watch the video, you'll note that I glance very quickly at Sterling, wondering if he's remembered the words yet. I slightly stutter-step the beat when, as the third chorus begins, it becomes clear that he hasn't. So I kept motoring along--and this time quickly improvised a version of "One Mint Julep," doing my best to convinced those in the audience that this strong, loud, three-harp-chorus intro was intentional, not improvised on the spot.
That's how the first song of the first and only set of our first gig in more than two years started. Too much harp? I did what I had to do.
I don't mind constructive criticism, although that's not what I was looking for and certainly not what I asked for when I posted here. I was simply sharing some video you guys because the song, and the gig, went off much better than I'd hoped, all things considered. When the criticism, however, is based on a complete lack of understanding of what was actually going on on the bandstand, not to mention what had transpired in rehearsal the day before, I'm forced to set the record straight.
I carried more of the weight in this case because that's what friends, and longtime fellow musicians, do. It's just what we do.
I was gratified, by the way, by how much Sterling's rhythm guitar playing improved in the course of the three days (rehearsal + club + street) that we played together. He came on line and actually began to strum in time because I gave him some loud harp and a solid downbeat to hang onto for two straight days. The subtleties can come later; they came, in fact, during the street gig on day three. They're not happening here--and that's one reason, I suspect, that the experienced soundman in this self-styled "listening room" had the guitar slightly down in the mix relative to the harp. The vocals were a little low early on--and that's why TC, who gets it, jumped up and made sure to get a good mic on the soul man. It's also why, in the cutting-session video that I posted in another thread, TC left the bandstand to turn up my harp when it was too low.
That's what blues guys do. We do our best to serve each other and make the music work, especially when problems crop up. And we don't brag about it. We don't talk about it, in fact--at least to outsiders--although we grab hands a lot after the gig, and thank each other for the help. But occasionally, when people sitting in front of screens opine in forums in ways that betray an absence of understanding about what was actually going on on the bandstand, we set the record straight.
Last Edited by kudzurunner on May 29, 2016 6:18 PM
"last thing in the world that was affecting my playing, in that moment, was fear that somebody on the Modern Blues Harmonica forum would opine in the fashion that Jinx and Iceman have opined."
Understanding your Jinx comment, but not understanding why you opined me into it.
My posting regarding Jimmy Fields had absolutely nothing to do with Satan's and your performance video. (I have actually not yet watched it).
I was merely reminiscing about the time I had with a similar artist and what I learned from playing with him.
Adam, I think what you did was very honourable, and you should be proud of everything you did, it couldn't have been easy. The playing was great by all, in my opinion, and remember nobody really cares what jinx has to say. Seems to me he says something negative about everything you do, which leads me to believe he just doesn't like you. That's fine, but I wouldn't let a comment from someone who can't play harp bother you.
Last Edited by