Even the most accomplished blues musicians often face a great challenge: to put together a show that will remain unique and interesting through an entire evening, especially if the musician’s own body of work is small. The usual standards by Muddy Waters, Elmore James, Junior Parker, Z.Z. Hill, et al have been covered by so many imitators in so many variations on the original styles that it’s almost impossible to bring anything new to them. Even an artist like Chicago’s Otis Rush, whose eight or ten classic sides on the Cobra label in the late 50s are among the most spellbinding and well crafted in all of recorded blues history, is forced in concert to rely upon recycled standards to fill the long spaces between his carefully dispersed signature tunes. All too often the result is a run-of-the-mill performance punctuated by moments of unforgettable brilliance.
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So blues fans awaited with great anticipation Neal’s recent appearance at Rosa’s Lounge. Although his son Noel, who plays bass, has been living in Chicago for several years, Neal and the rest of his family band still live in Louisiana, and most of their touring has been in the south. Despite all the good music in Chicago, it’s surprisingly seldom that we get to hear a fresh sound from out of town.
Neal has obviously worked hard to put together a show that will satisfy a diverse audience. His band–minus son Kenny, who’s currently gigging in Florida with a group of his own and has been replaced by another son, Raful Jr.–can play solidly in the blues tradition and yet branch out into contemporary pop-funk with equal enthusiasm and ease. Bassist Noel in particular demonstrates a remarkable technical facility, in his solos and his accompaniment, although he’s easily the one member of the band with the least allegiance to traditional blues and R & B. His popping, funky style brings a contemporary slickness to even the most low-key blues ballad.
This is not to say that the evening didn’t have some fine moments. Neal sang Howlin’ Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster,” another song that’s been reinterpreted and covered to within an inch of its life, in a no-nonsense, Wolf-like roar, and Raful Jr. updated it a bit with his sophisticated chording and rhythmic variations. The band rescued Elmore James’s “The Sky Is Crying” from cliche by transforming it into a harp showcase, not the usual guitar interpretation in the James vein. Neal’s harp work on this one captured the mournful essence of slow blues: every note of his sparse solo was shaded with just the right emotion and tonal variation. It’s a mystery, though, why he took it upon himself to alter one of the most poetic lines in all of blues–“The sky is crying, look at the tears roll down the street”–to “look at the tears roll down my cheek.”
Art accompanying story in printed newspaper (not available in this archive): photo/Marc PoKempner.
