The freshly written graffiti in the men’s room at Johnny D’s last Saturday, February 10, read, “It ain’t blues . . . it ain’t shit.” Out on the dance floor, the clutch of people swirling to the Racky Thomas Band most likely agreed. But Thomas, a mellow-voiced singer and harmonica player, is part of an endangered species: a diehard regional bluesman whose style is original enough for a national breakout. Trouble is, as Johnny D’s booking agent Dana Westover acknowledged, fewer people come to hear blues in the bars today than in the ’90s. And that makes the music a tough sell.
A major reason is that blues has in general lost its snap. In its golden age — say the late 1920s through the 1960s — there was a great variety in the sounds of Delta musicians like Charley Patton, Son House, and Robert Johnson, and in the work of influential electric artists like Little Walter, Sonny Boy Williamson, Howlin’ Wolf, and Otis Rush. But after the first generation of white artists brought the music to a wider public, it became codified into lazy shuffles and 12-bar toss-offs. Now there’s a generation who think that’s the blues. Period.
Thomas and his four-man crew’s suit-and-tied look may be dated, but they’re the rare breed who aim to give their vintage sounds a timeless edge. Guitarist Nick Adams played a long, sweet, slow sensitive solo in “Standing on a Corner” that drew in the half-full room, and Thomas exhibited casual charisma blowing harmonica lines and growling vocals through his amped harp mike. They played standards by Wolf and Waters, but the highs came when they tore into originals like the stomping rocker “Dance with Your Daddy.” It was blues, but full of energy and soul. The way the music used to be.
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