Taj Mahal calls his music “pure pleasure and surprise.” Dave Becker of the Oakland Tribune hails him as the “most powerfully expressive blues artist to come along in a generation.” Critically acclaimed by established musicologists, journalists, and musicians around the world, Alvin Youngblood Hart garnered a 2003 Grammy nomination in a category alongside B.B King, R.L Burnside, and a multi-artist tribute to Fred McDowell.
Last weekend Starkville and the International Bistro welcomed the artist to perform the classic blues.
In anticipation of any blues concert, mental visuals are conjured up of overweight guitar players in double-breasted suits sitting down and singing about heartache or jail. Needless to say, 41-year-old Hart, wearing long dreadlocks, T-shirt and jeans, undoubtedly broke the B.B. King clich.
This lead guitar-playing counterpart of a traveling trio began the show playing a Gibson SG Special using a slide. On a guitar designed for the blues, rhythm was rapidly hard and half the audience danced as if it was rock n’ roll. The drummer, Ed Michaels, bassist Gary Rasmussen and Hart seemed to play music that overlapped traditional delta blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, such as that of Chuck Berry. After mixing lyrics rooted in blues with solid rock chord sequences, he picked up a Fender Telecaster of 1948 and dabbled in reggae with a cover of Tom Petty and the Heartbreaker’s “You Got Lucky.” His sixth song, “Ain’t That the Meanest Jukebox,” was lyrically and acoustically based in country.
Hart grew a little frustrated with the lighting problems, interrupting the warm red glow the Bistro has a knack for, saying, “Let’s get a little light on the subject; there are some really fine blind guitar players, but I ain’t one of them.”
The next song he dedicated to Rick James. When a listener below shouted, “Sell me some pain,” Hart replied, “Baby, pain is free.”
He eventually got around to heartache and jail. “How Long Before I Can Change My Coat?” told of dire prison conditions of African-Americans not long after the abolition of slavery.
Backstage the group discussed life on the road.
“We just go west until we come back,” Michaels said.
Hart’s wife, Heidi, laughed, adding that she liked touring “because problems don’t collect if you keep moving.”
Hart began playing at age 14. Without training, he mastered the art of self-teaching with Jimmy Reed, The Beatles and Smoke on the Water as his inspirations.
When asked to describe his music in one word, Hart finished the last of his bottled water and sat for a while, as if this were a new contemplation. “Eclectic,” he eventually said.
Michaels and Rasmussen further described the trio’s music as a constant reinvention, keeping the backbone of blues while simultaneously playing with immediacy.
After being congratulated on his Grammy nod, Hart’s thanks was a grateful, “I’m gonna milk it for all it’s worth.”