Living history

“People ask me what this ‘True Blues’ thing is all about,” Guy Davis said from the Laxson Auditorium stage. “So I say, [affecting a professorial voice] ‘Well, do you mean that in the existential or the Presbyterian sense?’”

Though Davis’ retort garnered the intended laughs, there’s a deeper wisdom to his answer. “True Blues”—the title of the tour that brought Davis and fellow bluesmen Corey Harris and Alvin Youngblood Hart through town last Thursday (Feb. 13) evening—means a lot of things to a lot of different people, and arguing with fans who have different interpretations of where the form begins and ends ultimately leads nowhere.

Davis and company instead used music and stories about the people who pioneered the blues to share their particularly informed idea of what true blues is. Considering Davis’ commentary fell within a set that consisted of a song written by a dude named Bumble Bee Slim and a tribute to harmonica legend Sonny Terry—who began recording in the 1930s—it’s apparent where their opinions lie.

Each of the performers played separate half-hour sets before combining forces for the finale. Each also brought his own distinct flare to the form, and punctuated each song with personal and historical commentary. The tour is part of a multimedia project that Harris organized, focusing on modern performers whose style is deeply rooted in traditional blues; the performances are intended as an extension of the True Blues CD released on Telarc Records last year and an upcoming DVD of the same name (scheduled for June 1 on Concord Records).

Davis kicked the night off, his set including the aforementioned highlights as well as a rendition of “That’s No Way to Get Along,” which he joked he learned from a preacher, referring to Reverend Robert Wilkins, a 1920s- and ’30s-era Delta bluesman. He also explained the song is better known nowadays as The Rolling Stones’ “Prodigal Son.”

Hart played next, his commentary leaning toward the more personal side. Prefacing one of his own songs, for example, he told a story about the friendship he’d struck up with late St. Louis blues legend Henry Townsend (“In my opinion, he blows Robert Johnson out of the water,” Hart said) when Townsend was 90. He explained Townsend first recorded at age 19 in 1929.

“People think these songs were written and played by old men, but that wasn’t the case,” Hart explained. “It just took until they were old men for people to realize what they were playing back when they were young men.”

Hart’s set included a cover of Skip James’ “Illinois Blues.” Harris also paid tribute to James with “Devil Got My Woman.” Illustrating how traditional blues can be just as relevant today, Harris also played one of his own songs that sounded as if it could well have been written 70 years ago—“Fulton Blues,” an homage to his neighborhood in Richmond, Va.

The performers’ separate sets complemented each other well, and set the stage for the finale. All three came out to play together, trading verses on standards like “Little Red Rooster” and “Hoochie Coochie Man,” both written by Willie Dixon but made better known by Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters, respectively.

Though the performances were excellent, they were sometimes hampered by sound problems. This was most severe during Davis’ set, as he was sometimes accompanied by an offstage bass that sounded spongy, undefined and overpoweringly loud. The sound problems resurfaced later in the night, as Harris’ vocals were at times screaming above the rest of the mix. Considering the evening’s relatively simple setup (mostly just one voice and one guitar), it seems these glitches could easily have been avoided.