MUSICAL INTERLUDES

Recent months have included a number of musical hits and misses at this address. As usual (for one reason or another), we missed some of the major musical events of the summer . . . such as the late July concert in Boston by The Eagles: by all accounts a stellar event. We also missed some lower-profile shows that I had on the calendar, like local blues guitar legend Ronnie Earl making all-too-rare appearances both in Fall River and in Natick and flashy blues guitarist Walter Trout playing in Fall River. Also, at the Regattabar in Cambridge, Jay Geils, Gerry Beaudoin and the Kings of Strings, featuring violinist Aaron Weinstein (whom I happened to see sitting in with legendary guitarist Les Paul at the Iridium jazz club in New York City a few years ago—only 17 years old at the time, a true child prodigy, he stunned even Les with his Stéphane Grappelli-esque virtuosity). Also Hubert Sumlin and Steady Rollin’ Bob Margolin playing at the Regattabar. Heck, we didn’t even get to see Ernie and the Automatics—the blues band fronted by car dealer Ernie Boch, Jr.—playing at Firefly's in Quincy!

So . . . who did we hear and see? Well, we got the summer off to a decent start with blues guitarist Jeff Pitchell playing in Natick. Pitchell, who hails from Connecticut, is not really a household name (note: he channels Stevie Ray Vaughan pretty effectively . . . but there will never be another SRV), but his show was fine and entertaining and I’ve added his CD Heavy Hitter to my iPod.

Another evening well spent was a family outing to the South Shore Music Circus in Cohasset (about 20 miles south of Boston) for a performance by a band called Rain that does a Beatles show, essentially tracing their career start-to-finish by performing their tunes live on stage. They not only sound like The Beatles—they also look like them (at least from a distance) . . . and they do costume changes, hair changes, etc. A very impressive “sound spectacle”! We all enjoyed it immensely—thanks in no small part to the venue: the South Shore Music Circus is a big-top tent with a revolving stage and not a bad seat in the house. (We saw the classic Canadian rockers The Guess Who perform there a few years ago—Burton Cummings, Randy Bachman and company: probably the best concert I’ve ever attended.)

One of the musical disappointments of the summer was the concert at the Somerville Theater featuring Shelby Lynne, a sort of crossover country/rock singer. The Boston Globe had an interesting feature on Lynne, so I decided that we all should go. Well, as my eldest daughter observed, she was “hot”—blonde, sexy, slim—and a pretty good singer; but she had no stage presence whatsoever (for someone in the business 20 years that’s kind of strange), and her band was a bunch a self-indulgent noodlers given to long meandering solos that simply took up time and sucked the energy out of the show. (One of the solos was even on a bass flute—an oxymoron if I ever heard one!) Lynne is pushing a new CD of tunes sung by Dusty Springfield many decades ago—an okay album . . . but overall the concert experience left something to be desired. . . .

Without a doubt the highlight of the summer was getting to see our long-time musical hero John Pizzarelli perform at Scullers Jazz Club in Cambridge. We’ve been fans for close to 15 years—we tuned in to his crooning and his guitar-playing long before his Foxwoods Casino commercials on TV made him a household face and voice—but this was the first time his passing through town coincided with an open date on our family schedule. He was great—well worth the wait! In fact, he was so much worth the wait that having taken daughters 2 and 3 to see his Friday night show, we returned on Saturday night with daughter #1. She even got to meet him after the show!