Samuel James sings the blues.
We don’t often get blues singers in this neck of the woods. It’s not really our metier. So, when one comes along the calibre of Mr James, we should be counting our blessings.
Not yet out of his twenties, he’s making a name for himself Stateside, being compared favourably with blues artists like Keb’ Mo’ and legends such as Son House and Mississippi John Hurt. No mean feat.
He recently completed a mini tour of Ireland, taking in a few gigs in Cork, Dublin & Clonakilty). The night I caught was a free midnight gig in the Crane Lane (Cork) on Wednesday 16th last, following Alabama3’s earlier session. He was, understandably, nervous; not least due to their (totally) justified reputation. But there is nothing to do in a situation like that but get up on that stage and start making some noise and, hopefully, an audience for yourself. When I arrived, the crowd was still milling around, buzzing from the Alabama 3, and only just beginning to focus on the new arrival (SJ), who was up on stage with just himself and a guitar and a whole lot of foot-stomping. By a couple of songs in, the crowd was being very much won over, helped by a couple of musos literally hauling people forward to the stage to bridge the gap between Mr James and his burgeoning audience. This helped no end, as he looked less isolated to the crowd at large and more and more were being hooked in all the time.
As an audience, we were definitely more interested in the very fast and the very complicated, which was good as Mr James is very good at both. He is a superb guitarist. And he spears to get totally lost in what he’s doing, to the extent that at times you were not sure whether he had not forgotten the audience entirely, until he speeded up again and the crowd started whooping. [If you’re trying to get a picture of the sound/feel for what he was producing, my mind kept thinking Cohen Bros films, esp. their most recent. Does that help? Maybe not. You can check out his myspace anyway (see below).] At one point, there was a rather entertaining pass where a member of the crowd started doing what can only be described as interpretative line dancing, while Mr James slowly rotated the guitar upside-down and around, while not missing a beat (but making life a little difficult for his happy helper who had to spend some time hanging on the edge of the stage trying to make sure he was still mic’d up for the duration. Well, we know this much: he knows his instrument backwards! Boom Boom! OK, I apologise for that one. Bad me.
Blues, at least the kind sung by Mr James, originated in the Baptist Church, as Mr James explained, before taking us on a roaring encore of Q&A called “John the Revelator”, with the audience hollering (only word for it) the responses to Mr James’ on-stage who was playing at prosletysing. Bloody good stuff!
I found out later that apparently, after Mr James had finished his gig and left the stage, Harpo Strangelove, (the harmonica player from Alabama3) and himself returned to the stage to do a number together. And I missed it because I was being good and getting to bed before half one on a school night. Curses!
P.S. Now as the Irish leg of his mini-tour this side of the Atlantic was organised by my flatmate, I met Mr James a number of times, like when he was getting over jet lag by having a doze on the couch or stopping off en route to a sound check. And, ladies, he is as lovely in person as he looks on stage. Just in case you’re curious. You may not be. But you might. (www.myspace/sugarsmallhouse)
