I’ve done my research. I know. No matter how young you are, you will not be the youngest person at the Bedford Blues & BBQ Festival this Friday-Sunday. My facts? Get comfy.
A few weeks after I moved to Fort Worth from Houston (previously New York City, previously South Jersey, previously Pittsburgh), I went lookin’ for some action. Some hot, hot blues action! Because listening to some hot lixxx while drinking some cold brew is what every young unmarried dumbass does when he drops into a new city! Seriously, I got lost driving home from Fred’s Texas Café, I saw the giant neon guitar above 6th Street Live (the venue that in a couple of years would become Lola’s Saloon), and I said to myself, “Eh. I’ve got time for one more beer. And then I’m Audi 5000. There’s a new Smallville on tonight.”
I had just turned 30, and I would have been the youngest person at 6th Street Live by about 20 years if not for Hot Drunk Girl and her Super-Annoyed BF. As Dallas legend Rocky Athas laid down some cool grooves and scorching leads, his quicksilver fingers blowing back his luxuriously long gray-blond hair, Hot Drunk Girl, with her shoulder-length black mane and elfin features, “stood” down in front and bumped and grinded (“ground”?) in her tight faded jeans, and every guy in the bar stood up and applauded in his pants. And that’s when I realized that Super-Annoyed BF, who was sort of slowly circling her and touching her, perhaps to keep her from losing her balance, perhaps to try to shepherd her out the door, was just acting his age. And so was she. Unless you’re playing it, this trendy young couple seemed to be saying, the blues is old-man shit.
Correction: blues-rock. Blues music is cool. Robert Johnson, Son House, Blind Lemon Jefferson. That stuff is legit. But when you start messing with the instrumentation and the arrangements, you start heading down into Suckytown. There’s just something about rock and the blues that can’t be easily tamed. Maybe it’s the genres’ reliance on the pentatonic scale and 12 bars. Maybe it’s the well-worn lyrical tropes. Whatever it is, pulling off solid blues-rock appears to be as elusive as medium-tempo speed metal or non-rhyming rap. Unless you’re Ben Harper or Eric Clapton –– or even John Mayer or local legends the Quaker City Night Hawks –– steadily knockin’ blues variations out the blocks that aren’t sucky or derivative is not easy.
Rocky Athas, bless his heart, is not going to be performing at the Bedford Blues & BBQ Festival, and while his absence will be keenly felt (yes?), it will be allayed by a veritable army of international legends, most notably Fort Worth’s boys Delbert McClinton and Buddy Whittington (John Mayall & The Bluesbreakers), Buddy Guy, Tab Benoit, Ruthie Foster, and Texas Flood. Admission is only $7-10, and you’ve got to remember: You’ll be able to dig into a ass-pocket of barbecue on the cheap. The location is the Bedford City Hall Complex, 1951 L. Don Dodson Dr. Call 817-952-2128.
There will be babies at this festival. And kids in strollers. And there will probably be young drunks who see any opportunity to get out of the house as a good opportunity to get wasted. And listen to the blues.
Or blues-rock. On the way home from a Fredburger with cheese.
Happy Birthday (Again), S&R
I wrote about it last week, but it bears repeating. This Friday and Saturday at Shipping & Receiving (201 S. Calhoun St., 817-887-9313) are going to be off the chizzain. (We’re still saying that. Are we still saying that?) Quaker City Night Hawks, Telegraph Canyon, Son of Stan, Oil Boom, The Longshots, Animal Spirit, Shake the Moon, Oh Whitney –– the list goes on. Total greatness. Cover’s only 10 bucks each day.
Contact HearSay at hearsay@fwweekly.com.
