I stayed pretty busy during most of the 90’s. Started out sitting in at blues jams, and then I started picking up paying gigs as a sideman blowin harp, and singing a bit here and there. I eventually formed a band of my own. A four piece in that classic Chicago blues style. We built up quite a following in the area and played about 4 nights a week for years. We stayed mostly local in Eugene, but managed a couple trips down to SF, many up to Portland, and one to Paris, France. After personal politics finally came to a boiling point, we disbanded in ‘98.
I got a few half ass projects up and running in the years that followed, but eventually became uninspired and quit playing all together around 2007 or so.
And then in 2016, out of nowhere, an old friend contacted me. He was part of the booking committee for the Waterfront Blues Festival in Portland. He invited me to do a set during a harmonica showcase there. A house band was all set up, and all I’d have to was bring the songs. I did it, cold and rusty, but it went alright and I had a lot of fun. It didn’t kickstart any motivation to put a band back together. But what it did do was inspire me to take my guitar picking more seriously.
I’ve been woodshedding since, and have a mind to start playing out again. Solo.
Anyhow, that was all long enough ago, that we didn’t have video camera cell phones to document all the action with. We did record a lot of shows however, and we made one studio album. The drummer has some VHS quality filming with horrible audio of our last gig in ‘98 on his YouTube channel. The playing ok, but the sound quality is not something I’d want to subject folks to here.
I’ve got a couple videos on my Facebook of some guitar picking I’m doing these days, but I deleted the original files from my phone, and Facebook won’t let me download my own videos to share here lol. Perhaps I’ll get around to recording something new sometime soon, I’ve been meaning to anyway, and drop it here when I do.
Why not a few pics though, to honor the thread, and to give a nod to the good ol’ days...
Circa’95. Guitar player on the left is traveling & playing all over the world these days. I’m on the right, sitting on a ‘57 Fender Vibrolux I wish I had never sold.
February 1998. We played a two week stint in Paris at the Chesterfield. We were all set up for a tour of Moscow and Madrid which would have taken place the following month but the guitar player quit last minute and we had to cancel.
Somewhere, deep in a box, inside my brother’s garage are tapes of the entire Paris gig.
Waterfront Blues Festival 2016. I hadn’t played out in 10 years, and I haven’t played out since.