ROGER HUBBARD (Baars, March 4, 2017)
Roger Hubbard is coming to Speelplaats Baars*, I read “en passant” in the newsletter. Roger Hubbard? And then I saw the National Steel guitar, the perfect instrument for “the early blues alone”. By return of mail, I reserved a seat. March 4, 2017, would be a memorable evening!
Source Reference: http://www.rogerhubbard.co.uk
I am present-as always- very early. At the entrance, I am kindly greeted by Anna van Dam*, our hostess, who checks my name and ticks it off in a notebook. Admission is EUR 12.50 plus a cup of coffee or tea of choice. On the stage (which is as high as the rug over it) is a microphone, an amplifier, a chair, a mandolin ,and two guitars. And yes, Roger’s 1935 National Duolian is one of them! The front row of seats is still virtually unoccupied, even the one directly across from the microphone (usually there is a “reserved” note on it!). So that will be my “almost on stage” seat.
After the introduction by Henk de Vries* Roger Hubbard comes on: An unassuming Englishman of my age.
He greets us (it’s almost sold out now) friendly, grabs his Duolian, tunes in briefly, and then gradually moves into his
(instrumental) Brighton Belle Blues. (Roger is from Brighton.) This is followed by beautiful renditions of greats such as Robert Johnson, Kokomo Arnold, Willie Mc Tell, Mississippi Fred Mc Dowall and Son House and a several fantastic songs of his own including the texturally slightly “floaty” Lodestone Rainbow. Roger Hubbard plays (with his blue plastic slide and on the Duolian!) and sings Willie Dixon’s evergreen “Little Red Rooster” to one of the many highlights of the concert.
13 Songs will be recorded that night and captured on a very special CD, titled “Live Tracks”. Very special? Yes, because I know many of the songs very well (for years), at the end of many of them, I am the first, who deploys a well-deserved and encouraging applause for Roger. Although I don’t remember precisely at which one. Anyway, it has become a wonderful blues CD and so far the only one on which I can be heard “live”!
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*Henk de Vries & Anna van Dam are the operators of “Speelplaats Baars” (Music Farm Baars), a farmhouse converted into an intimate, small-scale music theater near Steenwijk.
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JOHN JACKSON & HOUSTON STEAKHOUSE (‘huize Maas’, GRONINGEN, 1976)
A year and a half after our (last) move, I discovered a brown box in the garage -hidden behind a stack of books destined for the thrift store- on which I had once written in big letters, BEWAREN -NIET WEGDOEN! ( “KEEP-DON’T THROW AWAY!). Protected by that note, the box must have survived several moves. Inside, I found this fading and discolored photo of a bluesman.
Time for some deep thinking…
This must be John Jackson.
*
“Huize Maas,” circa 1976. Half a century ago. An NBBO* Blues Night featuring John Jackson and Houston Steakhouse.
*
John Jackson played and sang in a fluid Virginia style. For the first time, in addition to blues songs, I also heard a “rag”: “Too Tight Rag,” and the ballad of “John Henry.”
*
Houston Stackhouse (from Arkansas) sat at a table in front of me, nervously waiting for his turn; it was his first tour outside the U.S., and he was quickly downing one glass after another from the whiskey bottle. When it was his turn, he didn’t get past three songs. (I now think at least “Worried Blues” and “Canned Heat”; those were his best-known songs, Google told me.) He sat hunched over his guitar and seemed lost in thought. Apparently, no other songs came to mind, so he just started over with the first one. He was surprised (“Well, well, how about that?”) when the audience gave him a round of encouraging applause. And again: “Well, well, how about that?” (“We should have taken the whiskey bottle away,” was the organization’s apology.) They just gave the floor to John Jackson again.
Admittedly, not only the photo, but also my memories have faded somewhat**.
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John Jackson (1924–2002)
Houston Steakhouse (real name Houston Goff) (1910-1980)
- NBBO: Dutch Blues- and Boggie Woogie Organisation.
** I wrote this passage about it in my book “A Blues Life” (2014). That was 12 years ago, too.