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From: "John W. Sawyer"
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 1996 11:39:58 -0400
Subject: Review: Carleen's, Wilmington, DE (long)

Y'all,

Last evening (Thursday), I had the pleasure of visiting Carleen's in
Wilmington, DE to watch Steve Guyger and the Excellos and to meet fellow
Harp-L'er Bill Grogan after months of electronic correspondence. For those
within reasonable driving distance of Wilmington, Carleen's is an excellent
venue for the blues. Nestled between a first-class restaurant and one of
the finer CD stores on the East Coast, Carleen's features excellent food,
the usual assortment of adult beverages, and a friendly, enthusiastic crowd.
Bill and I each drove two hours to get there and it was well worth the trip.

As I've said before on this list, Steve Guyger is one of the world's best
blues harp players, and still one of the best kept secrets in the blues.
I'd been bugging Grogan for months to go see him and I think he'll attest
that Steve's playing was as advertised. The evening could have been
subtitled "An Evening With Little Walter", as Steve and the band ran through
many of Walter's classic tunes, giving them their own stamp. There was a
reason for the choice of repertoire, however, which I'll get to a bit later.
The rest of the band consisted of Rich Yescalis on guitar, Gary Phillips on
bass, and John F. Kennedy (really!) on drums.

Steve plays Hohner harmonicas, ranging from the typical Marine Band, to Big
Rivers, to a Chromonica 64. One unusual harp he had with him was an thing
called an "Educator I". This harp is shaped like a Golden Melody, but is
chromatic and has valves on at least the first four holes. Steve played
through an Astatic bullet mike plugged into a 60's vintage Fender amp with 4
10's and an equally mature Fender reverb unit. I'm going to let Grogan fill
in the details on equipment as he has a better knowledge of amps, etc. than
I have.

The highlight of the evening was the presence of one Walter Smith, better
known as Big Guitar Red. Steve had brought Red with him as a guest and had
him sit in with the band on guitar for all three sets. Red is 71 years old
and has played with virtually every harp player and bluesman known. He
regaled us with stories before the gig and between sets about everyone from
the Walters to One-armed John Wrencher. The man could literally write a
book. Were I an author I'd be all over him like a cheap suit. :-) One
example that I can recall with my less than photographic memory is that he
confirmed that the timing anomaly in "Juke" that was discussed on the list a
while ago was very likely done purposely by LW and that it was the band that
had trouble following him. Red told us that at one time Luther Tucker
taught him how to play behind Walter and allowed that "If you could play
behind Walter, you could play behind any harp player."

At any rate, it's been a long time since I've seen anyone have as much fun
on stage as Red did last night. In between stinging guitar licks, he
whooped and hollered and bantered with the dancers and the crowd and just
had a high old time. The crowd loved every minute of it. He had the whole
room jumping by the time Grogan was called up to sit in during the last set,
acquitting himself admirably, I might add. :-)

All in all, a great show and a great time worth the two hour drive home at
Oh-Dark-Thirty.

Chon
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