This past Thursday, October 22nd, my little station brought in Steve Hill for a fundraising concert. Steve Hill is one of Canada's up and coming names in the blues, won the Juno for Blues Album of the Years and 4 Maple Blues Awards this year. But that's not what sold me on seeing him live.
I like musicians who do something different with their music. I've seen legends in traditional blues like John Mayall and Buddy Guy, but Steve Hill is a different sort of a musician. He's a one man band. He plays guitar and drums at the same time. I had to see how this works in concert.
Well, put simply, he's rigged up everything so he can stand and play everything at the same time. First, there's his guitar, which is pretty standard electric blues fare. He's got the bass kick drum set up his left foot, and a snare drum and hi-hat set up for his left foot, so he shuffles back and forth kicking drum pedals to create the beat. Lastly, he's got a drumstick strapped to the top of his guitar and uses that to hit a cymbal. And he does it all without missing a single note. You get a good example of it here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWay6zUJtzA
He also had a stage hand helping him go through his various guitars. I counted four of them. And there's an effect box he keeps near by to fiddle with in between songs.
All this makes it seems like he's a bit of a novelty act, especially watching him with the drumstick at the end of the guitar. His live show made me a believer though. This is straight up, balls out, electric blues and he deserves every allocade he's gotten so far. You're not watching a sideshow attraction, his is a true musician in charge of everything he does.
His first set was very high energy electric blues, with a strong Delta blues vibe going through everything. This is music made for dancing and grooving too. He reminded me of an electrified John Lee Hooker or the earlier work of ZZ Top. Gritty, driving, bruising blues.
The second set, he started with a couple of slow, acoustic numbers, then ramped it up a bit more for the rest of the set. I got up and stood right in front of the stage to see him operate all the equipment at once so I could see how it worked. Watching him play seems as if he slips into a musical trance. He's totally in the zone when he's playing. His work didn't seem mechanical either, that is, he's not focusing on making music. He's totally into it so he doesn't even think about what he's doing. His last song was a free-roaming 15 minute long medley that started in Delta blues, went through Jimi Hendrix's "Voodoo Chile" and ended up in Led Zeppelin territory. The things he was doing with his guitar defied description. I'd never seen anyone play guitar like that, and he was playing drums at the same time!
I urge anyone who loves guitars or loves the blues needs to see Steve Hill in concert. His next album is coming out in March 2016, so there'll be plenty of opportunities to see him!
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