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Topic: Doug Kershaw |
Ken Lang
From:
Simi Valley, Ca
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Posted 28 May 2000 2:12 pm |
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Every year at this time they have a "Cajun Festival" here in Simi Valley, sponsored by the Chamber of Commerce to raise money for charities. The two day event draws about 150,000 people and is fun to attend.
They have various imported Cajun groups, including one that had 9 pcs. No steel tho.
The headliner was Doug Kershaw and I thought I'd post my observations. We stood about 10 feet from the stage, close enough to pin your ears back from the volume.
The bass player was a fellow in his 50's, short grey hair and a little heavy set. He wore a t shirt and shorts. In a suit he could be mistaken for a banker. Couldn't tell the make of his ax, but it was wood grain with kinda fancy cut-aways top and bottom. Played well.
The drummer was Dougs son, 20 something and very good. His bass drum kicks on the crash endings were faster than I could tap two fingers alternately on my arm. His hair was very short and in the style of today.
The guitar player used a sunburst strat with a lot of compression. His brown hair was 6" below his shoulders and he looked like a young Willie Nelson. Hard to see at first, he did have a short, fully gray beard.
Doug came out and they cranked up. Doug looked good, like a 40 something guy with lots of energy and his fancy playing. These 4 people made more music than the previous 9 pc band.
The show did drop off, however, when Doug eschewed his fiddle and sat on a stool with guitar in hand. After a couple songs we left the stage area and went back to our beer...er chairs with the rest of the family.
If I had a complaint, it would be the band was almost always out of tune, sometimes so bad it hurt to listen, tho I didn't see anyone among the crowd grimacing as I was. The guitar player did go back and try to tune his g string but it didn't help much.
So the King of Cajun music reduced to playing less than small time venues in bedroom communities USA. Sad. |
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Mark Herrick
From:
Bakersfield, CA
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Posted 28 May 2000 2:21 pm
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| I've got some wacky pictures somewhere of Doug Kershaw at an Austin club in about 1972/73. He was wearing a red tuxedo! It was a great show then. |
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Smiley Roberts
From:
Hendersonville,Tn. 37075
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Posted 29 May 2000 6:52 am
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RE: Doug Kershaw
I've been told that,if you can't say something nice about someone,don't say anything at all. I choose to remain silent!
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Jason Odd
From:
Stawell, Victoria, Australia
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Posted 29 May 2000 7:00 am
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Doug would be what, around his mid sixties ies now if he was recording in the mid 1950's to start with.
I've never seen the footage of his playing on the Johnny Cash show in 1969, but it gave him some real wide exposure as it was the same night that Bob Dylan was on the show.
There's a musical western from about 1971, filmed in 1970 with Don Johnson {yeah Miami Vice guy}, the James Gang, Country Joe & the Fish, some others less memorable and Doug Kershaw who plays a mystical kind of western seer, with his wild looks and long hair does a number for the main character in a ghost town. Made a great impression on me!
His early albums are really strange, kind of swamp pop, western swing, Cajun and more.
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Herb Steiner
From:
Briarcliff TX 78669, pop. 2,064
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Posted 29 May 2000 7:11 am
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Mark
I would really like to see the pictures of Doug in Austin in 1973. If it was at the Castle Creek Club, I was on the gig. The band was me on steel, Roger Crabtree on harmonica, and the rhythm section was two hippie musicians from the Armadillo WHQ, Jerry Barnett on drums and a bass player whose name is temporarily lost to my memory.
What I remember about the gig was that it was oppressively hot in Austin that summer of 1973 and Doug was wearing crushed velour Victorian-cut suits that were so hot to wear he sweated through several of them. That, and the fact that he drank an entire Fifth of Crown Royal each night that we played. 
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Herb's Steel Guitar Homesite
[This message was edited by Herb Steiner on 29 May 2000 at 09:47 AM.] |
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Mark Herrick
From:
Bakersfield, CA
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Posted 29 May 2000 10:59 am
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Herb,
I will have to see if I can remember where those pictures are. I believe they were slides. If I can find them (they may be back at my ancestral home in Houston) I will see what I can do about posting them.
Yeah, most of what I remember about that show was that he was really wild and looked really hot! (Temperature-wise, I mean!) |
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Joe Casey
From:
Weeki Wachee .Springs FL (population.9)
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Posted 31 May 2000 2:14 am
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Smiley,
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CJC
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BJ Bailey
From:
Jackson Ms,Hinds
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Posted 31 May 2000 3:50 am
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Thats yelimS if your looking from the flip side of things 
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BJ Bailey
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