Show Review

Listening to John Hammond is like stepping into a college level course on the History of the Blues. Hammond gives you the inside skinny on the musicians who created the blues style, before showing you why the music is so special and historic. From Skip James to Jimmie Rodgers, Buddy Guy to Howlin’ Wolf, Hammond is a professor. When he sings, his exceptional voice is that of a man who is cast under a demon spell. It is almost as if he leaves his body when he starts a song and his guitar playing comes across so naturally, that he surely must have strummed a six string in his crib.

Hammond’s magical set started with a nice combo of John Lee Hooker’s "Ride ‘Til I Die" and Ray Charles’ "I’m A Fool For You." Hammond immediately started schooling the audience in between the songs with stories and jokes about the songs and the artists who originally wrote them. Next up was "Get Behind The Mule", one of the tunes from Hammond’s critically acclaimed 2001 album of Tom Waits’ tunes titled Wicked Grin. Hammond’s interpretations of other people’s works breathe a fresh life into the songs. When he does Waits, he doesn’t simply copy the inflections or growls, instead he gives his original take on the story. Later on in the set, his bare bones, foot shuffling interpretation of Robert Johnson’s "Come On In My Kitchen" was the subtle highlight of the evening.

While singing other people’s songs is the mainstay for Hammond, writing songs is relatively new for this bluesman, as he told a story about his wife prodding him lately into the song-writing discipline. After the story he played the self-penned title track from his new record In Your Arms Again. Later in the evening he closed out his set with another of his own songs about his automotive pastime pleasures called "Slick Crown Vic."

When Hammond came out for the encore and played "Fannin Street," no one in the audience could have asked for a more heartfelt way end to the evening. The tune written for Hammond by Tom Waits weaves an introspective tale of growing up, and says, "When I was young I thought only of getting out. I said goodbye to my street, goodbye to my house. Give a man gin, give a man cards, give an inch he takes a yard. And I rue the day that I stepped off this train." A fitting end to a show from a man that has seen and traveled many roads in his life and paints beautiful pictures of those experiences.