A Blast From The Past

Welcome To A Blast From The Past.

These articles are archives published online at BluesWax as The Blues Beat, we hope you enjoy reading them.

Originally Published May 12, 2004

New Orleans Music Festival Wendelstein

By Vince Abbate

At first glance, the Bavarian town of Wendelstein seems like a most unlikely setting for a Blues and Jazz festival. The German phrase tote Hose comes to mind. It literally means “dead pants” and is a way of saying there ain’t nothing going on here. Even during the festival, the streets outside the various venues are pin-drop quiet at night. But thanks to some local music lovers and sponsors, the New Orleans Music Festival Wendelstein is in its eleventh year and going strong. Germany’s top Blues bands are always part of the mix and play to large crowds here; the Blues Company, for example, hardly a household name beyond the country’s borders, drew over 500 to their Tuesday night show. American and other international acts – including Tommy Castro, Tad Robinson, and Tino Gonzales - rounded out this year’s program. Mother Nature blessed us with a week of sun and temperatures in the seventies…making me wish some of the shows had been held outdoors and not inside tents, bars, and converted barns. But at least we had afternoons to soak up the rays. Music got going around seven each evening. I caught the middle six days of this ten-day event, starting out on Sunday, April 25, the evening of the infamous… 

Schnitzelsandwich… 

At a bar called Der Park, one of Germany’s coolest young Blues bands played, a trio from Berlin called Lars Vegas & the Love Gloves. They cover classic Country Blues – Robert Johnson, Charlie Patton, John Hurt - but take it into the young Elvis era of Sun Studios and Scotty Moore. The resulting sound – they call it Deltabilly – is fresh, fun, and occasionally dramatic, as on the band’s minimal and ultra-slow “Sweet Home Chicago,” which singer Lars delivers in an otherworldly falsetto that never fails to get an audience’s attention. This Sunday night gig was out of place, though; the trendy nightspot played Top 40 during the breaks. Still, it was the right foot-tapping topping for the concert that preceded it: New York-born Soul-Blues singer Tad Robinson at the Saal im Jugendtreff. This low-ceilinged room with concrete walls painted dark blue featured a snack bar serving good beers and, yes, the Schnitzelsandwich. Most of the patrons were too busy snapping up Robinson’s CDs to notice. The man can flat out sing. Onstage, he looks like a kid who’s been given this great toy to play with (his voice), still excitedly discovering all the things he can do with it. His sets showcased the current CD, Did You Ever Wonder?, and featured exquisite accompaniment by an Italian back-up band with whom Robinson is touring for the third time. One night later, Tad, Maurizio & Co. jammed with musicians from France, Germany, and the States at the Nightcafe session, the after-show meeting place for the festival’s artists. 

She’s Got The Devil In Her… 

I’ve got mostly good things to report – the uniformly high caliber of the music, the small-town setting which allowed for chance encounters with the musicians, good food, and drink. What’s missing in Wendelstein is a ticket valid for all the shows on a particular evening. As a guest of the fest, I could move from venue to venue. Others had to pay anywhere from 10 to 25 euros (about 30 dollars) for each concert. A shame since most bands did two or three sets. The artists who played the well-hidden Saal im Jugendtreff surely would have been thankful for strays: Shows by Texan Paul Orta and one-time Savoy Brown leader Kim Simmonds were shockingly empty. My other gripe? The overall atmosphere was kind of…tame. Not surprising for Germany, maybe – and many musicians like it here because audiences listen, applaud generously, and buy lots of CDs. But sometimes you wish they’d loosen up a little. Which is tough when the venues are crammed with chairs and tables. The next festival I’ll be reporting on, Moulin Blues in the Netherlands, is a different beast entirely – a wide-open, muddy, all-day affair as much about partying as about who’s playing what. If you come to Wendelstein, consider leaving your biker jacket at home.  

Best of the Fest… 

My vote goes to the Tommy Castro Band. I’m dragging and sore throaty on the Wednesday these guys play the biggest venue, the Sternenzelt. Their show does more for my well being than the aspirin I took beforehand. Castro begins by advising the audience at the “Electric Blues Super Night” to relax and enjoy. “People work too hard. That’s what the Blues is for. Have a couple of beers. Have fun. Relax.” Thing is, Castro’s music isn’t the kind you sit back and chill out to. It’s Blues that makes you want to jump for joy, as soulful and solidly built as the man himself. It baffles me how anyone can sit still through the band’s dynamic versions of “Serves Me Right To Suffer,” “Mannish Boy,” or the Chuck Berry rave-up finale. But they do. Except for one young man in the front row, so moved by the spirit that he leapt from his chair with his hands in the air. Backstage, I use an expletive to stress to Castro how much I’ve enjoyed the show. He shrugs in an “aw shucks” kind of way. C’mon guys. You know you’re good.

Tino Times Two… 

Part two of the “Electric Blues Super Night” is a slight come down from those ecstatic heights. Guitarist/songwriter Tino Gonzales seems tense onstage and he has reason to be. The cameras are rolling. A live CD/DVD is being taped. He’s brought nine musicians together for the occasion, including an arranger who arrived for just one final rehearsal. It doesn’t quite come together, though the set does contain strong versions of the Latin-Blues “Mi tierra” (here, one understands the Santana comparisons) and Stevie Wonder‘s “Higher Ground.” Two nights later, on his 53rd Birthday, Tino’s experimentation pays off. His Acoustic Latin Project, featuring guests like cellist Hank Roberts, accordionist Lionel Suarez, and saxophone player Fuasi Abdul Khalib, sends out a relaxed, infectious groove to an appreciative crowd of several hundred. From a sincerely sung “Everything Must Change” to Marvin Gaye‘s “What’s Goin’ On” to a batch of Gonzales’s own new songs preaching love as humanity’s last hope, this concert was a winner. It should make for a great DVD. (Note to DVD editor: don’t forget to include the crowd singing “Happy Birthday” as well as Tino’s attempt to chugalug the contents of the memorial Bavarian beer mug.) 

Speaking of Beer… 

Whose idea was it to book Billy Bacon & the Forbidden Pigs into a tent only serving wine? I for one can’t listen to Tex-Mex while drinking Loire Cabernet D’Anjou. Especially after enjoying a tasty pint of Pyraser Dark Ale in the beer garden around the corner. It’s seven thirty on Thursday, and the Pigs look bored. “When can we finally take off these silly sombreros?” say their faces. I move on to hear a bit of Chris Jagger & Atcha Acoustic, a likeable old-timey trio headed by Mick’s brother (don’t mention this to him), then scoot down to the Jegelscheune just in time for the first notes of guitarist Aynsley Lister‘s second solo set. This guy is good! A young, handsome Englishman (it’s kind of like watching Ethan Hawke play the Blues) who usually tours with a full band, Lister humbly admits where he has found his songs and licks – Delbert McClinton, Rory Gallagher - and doesn’t for a second pretend the tales of riding the blinds and Willie Brown are his own. He plays the Blues in a fresh, technically sophisticated manner.

Late Nights… 

It’s fun watching artists converge at the Nightcafe sessions. They straggle in skeptically, watch from a distance, size each other up, and finally can’t keep from joining in. On Wednesday, the members of the Niagara Falls-based Funk-Soul trio LMT Connection joined Horst Bergmeyer and Ralf Nackowitsch, the German duo hosting the session; a loose jam with some major car wrecks along the way ensued, but like so many bad things, it felt right. One night later, Chris Jagger & Atcha Acoustic and Billy Bacon & Forbidden Pigs showed up and this time the Pigs shone. Blues and Country sounded just fine in the hands of the now sombrero-less trio from San Diego. (On the strength of the session, I’d go see ‘em again.) The image I want to leave you with, however, and one of the defining moments of the festival, is of singer Lonie Walker sitting alone at a piano at two in the morning. Hardly anyone is left to listen and there’s laughter off in other corners of the room, too far removed from the music to feel what Walker, a Joplinesque chanteuse from Chicago, is feeling and making us feel: “Ooh, I feel lonesome tonight,” she blurts between songs. Damn straight, Lonie. 

Vince Abbate is a contributing editor at BluesWax.