The (extensive, this year) pain of tax day was greatly alleviated by the Second Fiddles' Roots and Blues evening at the Living Room, featuring guitarist Del Rey, about whom I wrote last week, and blues mandolin player Rich Del Grosso.
Del Rey's set largely overlapped that of Friday's show, but with Fiddles Jon Vesey and Guillaume Guissault to back her up on banjo and guitar, she did a few songs on the ukelele. Uke players don't make faces like that every day, but she had good reason to. Wearing a dress that seemed almost to have been chosen to match the decor, she was alternately humorous, engaging and astonishing. At one point she made a very interesting casual remark, as she was playing a somewhat absurd 1920s blues tune, noting that at the same time this music was popular, so were cubism and surrealism. We too often have a habit of thinking of 1920s and 1930s blues as somehow "simpler" or "rootsier" when in fact, the atmosphere then was probably more adventurous and culturally rich than it is now.
Rich Del Grosso took us on a tour through the under-reported history of blues mandolin, playing tunes by Yank Rachell, Johnny Young and other players, and for one song picking up the guitar and picking the hell out of it, alternating delicate riffs on the high strings with aggressive bass snaps. "It sounds like he's beating up the guitar and then apologizing to it," said a friend who joined me for the show after my endless raving about Del Rey last week.
It was an outstanding evening, and I'm sorry I couldn't stay late enough to catch Blue Harvest's midnight set.
See all photos.
Del Rey's set largely overlapped that of Friday's show, but with Fiddles Jon Vesey and Guillaume Guissault to back her up on banjo and guitar, she did a few songs on the ukelele. Uke players don't make faces like that every day, but she had good reason to. Wearing a dress that seemed almost to have been chosen to match the decor, she was alternately humorous, engaging and astonishing. At one point she made a very interesting casual remark, as she was playing a somewhat absurd 1920s blues tune, noting that at the same time this music was popular, so were cubism and surrealism. We too often have a habit of thinking of 1920s and 1930s blues as somehow "simpler" or "rootsier" when in fact, the atmosphere then was probably more adventurous and culturally rich than it is now.
Rich Del Grosso took us on a tour through the under-reported history of blues mandolin, playing tunes by Yank Rachell, Johnny Young and other players, and for one song picking up the guitar and picking the hell out of it, alternating delicate riffs on the high strings with aggressive bass snaps. "It sounds like he's beating up the guitar and then apologizing to it," said a friend who joined me for the show after my endless raving about Del Rey last week.
It was an outstanding evening, and I'm sorry I couldn't stay late enough to catch Blue Harvest's midnight set.
See all photos.
