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Concert
Review by Nick Morgan |
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DAVID 'HONEYBOY" EDWARDS WITH DAVE PEABODY
AND MICHAEL FRANKS |
The
Spitz, Spitalfields Market, London, August 18th
2007
Well
I know everyone’s going to say it’s
been an awful summer –they always do,
don’t they? But it’s been another
blisteringly hot day in London and we’re
crammed like sardines inside a tiny airless
venue, melting.
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| We’ve
rallied across from the West at speed in a Sweeneyesque
vintage BMW (yes, I know they drove a Consul GT
but believe me it just feels like we should be in
the Sweeney)
with our hot-rod companions for the night. We’re
upstairs at the
Spitz, “a bloody holiday camp for thieves
and weirdoes”, nestled away in the corner
of the remaining late Victorian buildings of Spitalfields
Market in the East End – Gilbert and George
are just around the corner in their Huguenot weaver’s
cottage, and it’s Jack the Ripper heartland
– the Ten
Bells is just across the road. It’s sad
that having built up quite a reputation for alt.music
in almost every genre over the past few years the
Spitz, with its very nice downstairs bistro (yes
Serge, sad to confess, very good hamburgers) will
be closing shortly – to be replaced, one imagines,
by some sort of typically bland chain restaurant.
In all likelihood, the music venue will close. |
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David
“Honeyboy” Edwards |
| We’ve
been entertained for an hour or so by veteran British
blues player Dave
Peabody, and for the last few songs of his set,
by 3 Mustaphas 3 founder Ben Mandelson on mandolin.
It’s very superior folk club stuff –
Peabody has been voted ‘British Acoustic Blues
Artist of the Year’ three times and it’s
evident that he really knows his stuff – both
musically and historically. But the longer he goes
on the more I begin to get nervous. You see we’re
here to see David
“Honeyboy” Edwards. The
blues singer from Mississippi. He was born in 1915.
That makes him, by my reckoning, 92 years old. And
the longer Peabody plays the more I worry that we’re
being strung along, waiting all night for a ten
minute less than cameo appearance from a performer
way past his prime. I shouldn’t have worried. |
| After
a short break Edwards takes the stage at about 9.30
and he performs for almost an hour and a half. He
gets settled in his seat in the centre of the stage
with Peabody to his left accompanying on guitar,
and to his right on harmonica Michael Franks, founder
of Edwards’ current record label, Earwig
Records. They provide a subtle backing –
Franks is very accomplished and plays in what I
would call a narrative style, it’s a slightly
laid back Little Walter. Peabody gently fills in
here and there. Both struggle to keep up with Edward’s
unfathomable timing – but they’ve done
it before and know what to expect, or rather what
not to expect, which is a sustained twelve bar structure.
This is real “in the groove” hypnotic
Mississippi bottleneck blues, with a Chicago twist
(particularly after Edwards changes from acoustic
to electric guitar – which is also when thankfully
someone turns the air conditioning on). Edwards
is, as they sometimes say, “in the place”
and he changes chord at will. |
| If
you want to know about Edwards you can read his
autobiography, The World Don’t Owe Me Nothing,
which comes highly recommended, and there’s
also a
film about him. He took to the road at the age
of 16 beginning a career as an itinerant musician
that lasted ‘till he settled in Chicago in
the early 1950s. He travelled and played with the
likes of Charley Patton and Tommy Johnson, Big Joe
Williams (who was his musical mentor) and most famously
Robert Johnson, who courted (if that’s the
right word) his cousin Willie Mae. "He was
a nice person," said Honeyboy in an interview
with the Daily Telegraph, “he wasn't a hell
raiser, but he loved whisky and was crazy about
women: that was his downfall." Edwards, along
with, some say, Sonny Boy Williamson, was at the
house-party where Johnson was (by popular consent)
poisoned having flirted drunkenly with the jook-joint
owner’s wife. As such he has an indelible
link with the roots, not just of the blues, but
also of modern rock and roll – but it’s
a point that he’s reticent about. “You
can talk to Honeyboy after the show”, says
Peabody, “and he’ll be happy to sign
autographs, just don’t ask him about Robert
Johnson”. |
| I
couldn’t tell you all the songs he played
– his groaning voice is quite mesmerising,
more like a chant than singing, but it’s hard
to make out the lyrics to some of the tunes. I could
hear (I think) ‘Sweet home Chicago’,
‘Big fat woman’, ‘Shake ‘em
on down’, and ‘Rolling stone’
(he plays ‘Chicago’ again when he takes
up his electric guitar). But what with the heat
and the lack of space you could just about think
yourself back to a crowded cabin in the steamy Delta.
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Edwards may not have been, or be, the best blues
guitarist in the world but he carries the real spirit
of the music and the place with him, and his performance
is compelling – every minute of it. It’s
also dignified and thoroughly understated. And when
he does finally run out of steam he sits happily
for another thirty minutes or so chatting and signing
autographs on a rapidly diminishing pile of CDs
for a crowd of excited admirers whose ages range
from about sixteen to well above sixty. What a treat!
- Nick Morgan (concert photographs by Kate) |
Check
the index of all reviews:
Nick's Concert Reviews
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There's nothing more down there... |
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