This is from a rare DVD that I just found in an old drawer. 1996, Syracuse NY. One of the first live shoots we did for the documentary--and virtually none of this footage ended up in the doc. This particular version of "I Got a Woman" just jumped out. It's a 16 bar blues at heart; a famous track by Brother Ray. But Mr. Satan chopped it up and spit it out, and I hung on for the ride.
If you've enjoyed the studio version of this in our album LIVING ON THE RIVER (1996), which was recorded a few months before this performance, then you'll groove to this, since it has exactly the same energy. And you'll see what I saw every single time I took the stage at his side, which is a guitar and percussion phenomenon who just doesn't have any obvious peer in blues history. He's a funk machine, a soul-blues shouter, and a guitarist who does things that other guitarists haven't come close to touching. Even if they could find the fingerings and sound the same notes, they wouldn't come close to manifesting the same stomp-down energy. If you doubt me, put on headphones and turn it up. Then tell me who he sounds like.
I'll be happy to take all that back, if somebody would just show me the instructional book that somebody has written teaching people how to play in the Mr. Satan style. You can buy a handful of books that teach you how to play like Robert Johnson. Hopefully I'll live long enough to see somebody write the Satan book. But I'm not holding my breath.
Yeah! Y'all killing it! Your riffing is fantabulous. Satan's vocals always remind me of Jame Cotton. The old dudes that played alone always have an idiosyncratic guitar technique that can certainly be hard to follow and keep up with...unless you're Adam Gussow. He made a man out of you, didn't he. ---------- Ricky B http://www.bushdogblues.blogspot.com RIVER BOTTOM BLUES--crime novel for blues fans available at Amazon/B&N, iTunes, iBook THE DEVIL'S BLUES--ditto THE OAXACAN KID--available now HOWLING MOUNTAIN BLUES--Ditto too, now available
@JTThirty: Yes, he definitely made a man out of me! Trying to keep up with him made a man out of me. Since he played guitar like nobody else, he forced me to come up with harp riffs that sounded like nobody else. The traditional stuff just wouldn't fit. He also swung like a mother-----r, which helped drill that into me. Interestingly enough, as hard driving as he was, he almost always locked down the tempo and kept it there. He didn't speed up or slow down; he didn't sur--although it's also true that when we played live, he would occasionally do a song at a different tempo, or in a different groove, than we'd been doing it up until then. That particular quirk drove me crazy. But it was good training. You can see why I learned not to worry too much about making mistakes! I recognized that I'd been given an impossible assignment, which was to keep up with a genius. So I woodshedded hard, tried to hit stage with my chops in shape and my harps in tune, and then I just went with it.
In this particular song, when he's doing his solo, the riff I throw in is much more in a jazz way of playing a song. I'm like Albert Collins's band coming in from time to time with punch horn riffs while he's soloing, then laying back. It's a kind of Kansas City thing; a big band jazz thing. It just felt right.
A lot going on. I agree with robbert. Sounds like a whole band and the groove is infectious. I guess you've just got to keep riding the (groove) tiger sometimes, and you showed us how it's done. Thanks for sharing.
