I just got back from the Strawberry Music Festival. On Saturday night, while we were jamming at Camp Crud (the name of our campsight) one of our usual guests noticed someone he knew in the crowd of onlookers. He asked the guy if he wanted to join us. The guy said he didn't want to because he felt that his skill was insufficient to keep up with us (we play lots of swing and traditional jazz and some of us (but not me) are quite good). But our friend was insistant and finally talked the guy into it.
Well, the guy was telling the truth, his technical skill was not impressive. It became clear when he was trying to tell us how to play one of his songs that he didn't know the names of some of the chords he was playing. But he was an adequate rockabilly and honky tonk rythm player. And the songs he has written......
In time we found out that his name was James Hand. He played at 09:00 in the revival and again at 13:00 on the main stage. The guy has no modern peers in country music. He is a cross between Hank Sr. and Johnny Cash. I give his music my very highest recommendation...or at least the highest anybody could get without having a steel in the band.
Reading Rockabilly Genius, I thought you were talking about somebody else.
I'm sure this guy is amazing, and I LOVE being at places like that at times like that.
One for me was opening in a sorrily paid gig for a guy that was just kind of standing there while we played our set.
Deke Dickerson. Never watched a guy play a LP through a Vintage Standell Double 15 so cooly, and with so little effort. I was in a trance for a week. I coulda watched him forever.
Those guys are out there, so unassuming that it totally blows you away when they "do their thing".
That's just what happened here. Mr. Hand was the talk of the festival in spite of not being one of the headliners. He sings a song called, "It's My Heart," in which I was absolutely certain that Don Helms was going to come in on steel at any second. But he didn't of course.
I haven't heard the recordings yet. But Mr. Hand's road band doesn't have a steel player. It's just that on a couple of songs you'd swear that Hank Sr. was back from wherever he'd gone to for so long.
i'm not sure but i believe the steel on James' latest was played by Lloyd Maines. the "Shadows" CD features the awesome playing of Gary Carpenter. there's one other CD not listed called "Evil Things" that Ricky Davis played some outstanding steel on.
