Aaron Schiff
From: Cedaredge, CO, USA
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Posted 7 Oct 2004 12:05 pm
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Last weekend was our local area harvest (Applefest)festival. In the past several years the music venue has gotten better and better with an emphasis on acoustic singer / songwriters (Kenny Edwards, Louise Taylor, Micheal Lilly, etc). Saturday night several of the participants got together with a core group comprised of the Bobby Mason band out of Aspen for a rock / dance evening at the local bar. The second set went on for 2 hours with various musicians just switching off.
The outstanding hit of the night was Kirby Kelley, a blues player from Texas. Kirby normally plays 1930's Delta blues on a similar vintage National (and he is superb). For Saturday night's show he sat in the back and played a D6 Rickenbacher lap steel. While he couldn't be seen, the crowd's reaction to his playing was extremely enthusiastic. A typical comment I heard from the audience was "I realized the guys I was seeing weren't playing the amazing lead I was hearing." The audience couldn't believe they were rocking out to a 60 year old steel guitar. And believe me a Rick through an old Twin Reverb can realy cut through 2 drummers, 3 Strats, a Telly, a keyboard, and a bass. This is one of the few bands that I have heard in the past 20 years where I really wanted to be on the stage playing instead of dancing on the floor. BTW, Kelly told me that he has a bunch of old Ricks and Fenders. The evening really expanded my horizons for different musical styles for steel guitar. |
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