Kristofferson concert wasn't slick, but done honestly

Those who check out Kris Kristofferson's latest concert circuit may notice what's missing: No fancy lighting, no top-of-the-line equipment, no gorillas in security outfits. Shoot, not even a band. It's just Kris.

And it was this minimalist, for-real aspect that helped Kris connect with the audience. He was up there on the empty stage of the North Charleston Performing Arts Center, standing in the circle of light with two monitors at his feet, a microphone stand, and a music stand next to him. Just him, with a nothing-special acoustic guitar, occasional harmonica on the neck rack, and his songs. Take away the usual venue trappings and it could have been him playing in a coffee shop, some smoky tavern someplace, or your living room.

He's 73 now, and he's lived some hard miles. A songwriter in the 1960s and 1970s. A few albums on his own. Time as an acclaimed actor. Some tours with The Highwaymen, a country supergroup (with Waylon, Willie, and the Man In Black). A drinking habit that would have pickled anyone else's innards. I understand he's clean now.

Friday night, perhaps a form of redemption. It was just Kris Kristofferson, songwriter, warts and all, delivered in a personal manner you don't see on the concert circuit. And the crowd at the Performing Arts Center, mostly baby boomers who remember him more for his songs than for that bathtub scene with Barbra Streisand (A Star Is Born), was appreciative and often helpful.

You can't say he'd lost much off his voice over the years because, honestly, he never had that much of a voice anyway. His rhythm was sometimes off, and there were a couple of times where he forgot words or guitar phrases. But he'd already connected so solidly with the audience, so that really didn't matter.

Pastor Sonny, who accompanied me to the concert, knows something about this aspect. Sonny's a baby boomer in good standing, and makes his living speaking in front of audiences. He knows his music, too -- he's a fine rhythm guitarist, and it's always a pleasure throwing down some songs with him. He suggested the smaller venue and being up there alone, without the protection of a band and all the usual concert trappings, is really doing it the hard way.

Kris started slowly, apparently wasn't feeling too well for this show, but started to catch his stride with "Me And Bobby McGee." Janis Joplin made that song famous, it's pure Kristofferson. He noticed the audience response, and offered an apology. "When you're trying to sing along and we're not together, it's not your fault."

For this show, he just didn't seem to take this stardom business all that seriously. Or himself. "Don't try to clap along," he told the audience at one point, explaining his own sense of rhythm isn't all that great. "Don't even try." And on "Duvalier's Dream," he agan interjected, "don't try."

Between songs he'd occasionally check his set list on the music stand. "I already did that song," he said at one point, almost to himself. "Can't do this song, because then we'd be done."

But he broke out his songwriter's reportoire -- "For The Good Times," "To Beat The Devil," "Here Comes That Rainbow," "Sky King" (a ribald military chopper pilot's story that had Pastor Sonny, the Southern Baptist minister, rolling in his seat), "Best Of All Possible Worlds" (a shaggy-dog tale about spending a drunken night in jail, something Kris can probably sing about with authority). And my own favorites -- "Why Me Lord" and "Sunday Morning Comin' Down." A strong show, in all.

Those who are expecting a slick, prepackaged performer doing his songs just like they were on the album would probably be disappointed. Which is OK; there are plenty of musical acts that can cater to just that need.

This was just Kris, being honest.

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As a working musician, I got a couple of takeaways from this performance:

• Even if you're not at your best, connecting with the audience overcomes all.
• Keep things simple and straightforward. Sonny noticed Kris seldom strayed from the key of D.
• Like my old mandolin player Wil St. John (an incurable Bob Dylan fan) liked to say, the whole thing is just to deliver a song.

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Kris Kristofferson on Amazon

Kris Kristofferson on allmusic.com

From The Boot: What he's doing lately

Teddy Pendergrass 'still proclaimed he was a lover'

Here's one for Teddy Pendergrass, who died Wednesday at 59.

Pendergrass had one of those raw, powerful voices that ... well, many a young man's late-night agenda was set to Pendergrass' voice back in the late 1970s.

A 1982 car accident left him paralyzed from the waist down.

From the Associated Press:

... but instead of becoming bitter or depressed, Pendergrass created a new identity — that as a role model, friend and longtime colllaborator Kenny Gamble said ... "He never showed me that he was angry at all about his accident," Gamble said in a telephone interviewwith The Associated Press. "In fact, he was very courageous." Pendergrass left a remarkable imprint on the music world as he ushered in a new era in R&B with his fiery, sensual and forceful brand of soul and his ladies' man image, burnished by his strikingly handsome looks ...

The accident left him in a wheelchair, and took something off his voice, and off his image.

"He used to say something in his act in the wheelchair, 'Don't let the wheelchair fool you,' because he still proclaimed he was a lover," Gamble said ... but his career was never the same. Gamble said it was difficult for Pendergrass to project vocally like he once did: "The breathing aspect of it, he wasn't really able to deal with it."

He had colon cancer surgery eight months ago, and apparently the recovery was difficult. He had been hospitalized for several months.

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Elvis at 75: A country singer?

There's no way I can ignore this. The King himself would be 75 years old today.

I wasn't a great Elvis Presley fan, but over the years I've come to appreciate what he'd done. He'd crossed genres, popularized Las Vegas entertainment, and gave us a lot of great songs to listen to, enjoy, and learn.

To my knowledge, he never claimed to be a great musician. But he did all those things that a great musician does.

Name the genre and you'll probably find it represented in his body of work. Rock? Of course. Blues? Well, not like Muddy Waters, but he could sing 'em. Country? No problem. Gospel? Man, that's where I think he did his best work.

As I write this I'm listening to some of his gospel songs, and this gives me a real appreciation for his range. These songs, well, they're done respectfully, and you need to capture the right emotion and phrasing. And this is the same guy who pulled out the stops with "Hound Dog" and "Heartbreak Hotel." Elvis was no one-trick pony.

He's continued to break ground though he's been gone more than 30 years. Tribute bands are a big thing these days, groups that replicate a performer or group. Hey, the person being replicated doesn't even need to be dead -- some years ago I spent time talking with a guy who did a Garth Brooks tribute show in Nevada. You can say the first of about a zillion Elvis impersonators (see: Honeymoon In Vegas for a whole passel of them) gave birth to that industry.

Then, looking to the macabre for a minute, Elvis was one of the first to build a fortune and release top-selling albums from the grave. You're seeing this now with Michael Jackson; albums continue to sell and movies continue to be made long after Jacko had anything to do with it.

When the Postal Service deliberated over which image of Elvis to put on a postage stamp -- the 50s Elvis or the Las Vegas Elvis -- I preferred the younger version. That's when he was belting out old Arthur Crudup blues songs, creating another version of rock and roll, scandalizing polite society with his animated stage presence. When he was still not far removed from his truck-driving days, when he thought it was a real blast that folks were actually paying to hear him sing. That's the Elvis I'd rather remember.

Over the years I think he got a lot more jaded, bought too much into the stardom lifestyle, lost a little something off his skills, but he could still deliver a song.

Considering Elvis was still young and still had many songs in him at his passing, this begs the question of what he would be doing today if he was alive and in halfway decent shape. Oh, he'd still be touring. Many of his contemporaries -- the Stones, Willie Nelson, guys around his age -- still maintain killer schedules even though they may not look so good. I'm still trying to figure out Keith Richards. I'm amazed that guy's even alive, let alone able to handle small objects without assistance. He may look like wires are holding him up on stage, but Keith can still play that guitar.

If Elvis was still around, it wouldn't surprise me to see him making the rounds as ... a country singer. Seriously. Although you'd never confuse him with Johnny Cash, he'd always been real popular with those who listen to country. He'd always had the voice for it, and country is one of those genres that you can continue singing as your voice ages. I can hear him doing the kind of songs Charley Pride sang.

Got to give The King his due on a milestone birthday.

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Some Elvisiana:





... and let's not forget all those flying Elvi:

Playing weeks and weeks of Stormy Monday

I wasn't terrribly surprised to see that Stormy Monday is probably the most-recorded blues song of 'em all, with at least 1,134 versions out there. Without a doubt it's the most played by bar bands.

It's a great song. T-Bone Walker originally played it, and the lyrics take you through a week of the blues:

"They Call it stormy Monday,
But Tuesday's just as bad ..."

It was also the first blues I've played in public, if you don't count Miles Davis' "All Blues," which is a jazz piece from his Kind Of Blue album.

But in my first sessions on stage, this harmonica player discovered something about colliding perceptions and reality:

• All harmonica players do nothing but blues.
• All bar bands know "Stormy Monday."
• Therefore, all harp players end up playing "Stormy Monday." A lot.

It's hysterical. Every bar band in the world plays "Stormy Monday." In fact, with many it's the only blues they know. They play it to "prove" they know blues, but in actuality it just proves the band doesn't know much of anything.

So after years of playing it, and even hearing it in my sleep, I ran out of ideas. Got tired of playing it. There are only so many ways you can attack a slow-blues standard, and I probably used all of them at some point. Double-time in the solos. Long pauses and held notes, going into clusters of sixteenth-notes. I quoted other songs -- my favorite version was throwing a few notes from that other blues chestnut, "After Hours," into it. I had to do something with it. In 1994, I stopped playing it.

In a famous interview, jazz innovator Charlie Parker said he had the same feeling with "Cherokee." He'd played it so many times he could do it while nodding out (and apparently he often did). Got sick of that song. But he did break through that wall, by using the upper intervals of the chords. This gave him a larger pool of notes to work with, and he said he came alive musically at that point.

I didn't go that far; even in my fantasies there's no way I can get close to Parker's musicianship. Instead, I chose to "boycott" the song. Any time it came up on stage, I sat it out. Which was all right; I was working in more of a country/rock direction then. I'd do other blues every so often, but indulged my interest in other musical forms.

It wasn't until 10 years later that I consented to play "Stormy Monday" again. I was playing with a vocalist named Jayne Valentine, who had this really powerful, expressive voice. We also shared an intuituve musical rapport, and every time we got together on stage, sparks would fly. More than a few folks swore we were an "item," that's how high the energy level was. But one night she decided to sing T-Bone's song, and because it was someone with the talent level and emotional level of Jayne, I joined her on it. And again, the song came alive.

Working with folks like that would put muscle, blood, and breath to any song.

T-Bone is still one of the great blues guitarists, and Stormy Monday is still a great song.

I'd play it again.

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31 years past his death, Mingus is still great

Bassist and band leader Charles Mingus passed away 31 years ago today, on Jan. 5, 1979.

Simply put, he was one of the greatest in jazz -- particularly if you could stand to work with him. There are plenty of stories about that aspect of Mingus' personality.

Here's a twofer from Mingus: "Moanin," a song that first showed up on his Blues And Roots album (love that baritone sax there), and his version of Duke Ellington's "Take The A Train."

Right around 1960 Mingus had his own Ellington phase, switching over to the piano, going with slightly larger bands, and deploying trombonist Jimmie Knepper more frequently, in a role similar to what Lawrence Brown played for The Duke.

Knepper and Mingus later had an altercation and Mingus punched his trombonist in the mouth -- unforgivable stuff given Knepper needed a good lip to play. Knepper later sued Mingus but admitted from the stand that he did his best work ever under that lunatic.



But this video is from later, probably around 1964. That's when Mingus used one of his best-ever touring bands, with Jaki Byard on piano and Eric Dolphy on alto sax/bass clarinet/flute. Dolphy's featured here.

Mingus is definitely one of my favorites.

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