Rotterdam Hotels
Johnsinclair's travel blogs:
|
|
  | |  |
Will Dawson Joins the Rotterdam Blues Scholars
Entry 24 of 40 | show all | print this entry |
Like they say in New Orleans, a whole lotta people don't know that I got a helluva band of Blues Scholars in Rotterdam, and we got together Monday night with our new bass player, Will Dawson, at our new drummer's 2X2 studio off the Nieuwe Binneweg in Rotterdam. Will is a key member of my Amsterdam krewe and has just moved into Clay Windham's International Roots Music Collective studio space in the Zuid-Oost of Amsterdam, or what I call the Deep South-East, where I stayed during my second winter (2004-2005) in Holland.
I spent most of my first winter (2003-2004) as a guest of Mark Ritsema's at his venerable apartment in the Noord of Rotterdam, so going back to the city I call the "Detroit of the Netherlands" (well, the old Detroit, where they had jobs and manufactured things) is always a welcome trip for me. It's just an hour on the train, sort of like riding on Amtrak from Detroit to Ann Arbor only smoother, hipper, faster, cheaper and almost always right on time.
Will, who's 23, hasn't been to Rotterdam since he was in high school in Hilversum six or seven years ago. He was born and raised in England, went to high school in Holland, finished high school in Pittsburgh and somehow ended up in Clarksdale, Mississippi living and working with Jimbo Mathus at his Delta Recording Service studios in the old dilapidated Alcazar Hotel. We met there in the summer of 2004 at the first Afrissippi sessions when Will was assisting Jimbo in the recording and production of our first album.
Check out the Afrissippi website at www.afrissippi.com
In November of 2004 Will was in Amsterdam visiting his girlfriend when Larry Hayden, Henk Botwinik and I started our radio project during Cannabis Cup week, and Will was a guest on the very first shows we recorded at Homegrown Fantaseeds, posted as John Sinclair Show #2 and #6. I think Will was featured on the second hour.
Will and I got together in Memphis last spring (2005) to produce a pair of programs (John Sinclair Show #31 & #32) from the now-defunct Republic Coffee, where we played several of Will's productions from Delta Recording and enjoyed some live music from his friends Lynn Cardona & Mike Berkey.
Listen here: John Sinclair Show #31 @ Republic Coffee, Memphis with Will Dawson (.mp3)
John Sinclair Show #32 @ Republic Coffee (.mp3)
Will was back in Mississippi at the Delta Recording Service last July (2005) when I had the blessed opportunity to go back to Clarksdale with Eric Deaton, Justin Showah and Kenny Kimbrough to record the final section of my blues work in verse, Fattening Frogs For Snakes. Book Four: Natural From Our Hearts is the saga of Muddy Waters and his transition from Clarksdale to Chicago and the people he worked with there: Sunnyland Slim, Jimmy Rogers, Little Walter, Willie Dixon et al.
Jimbo was producing and playing some piano & harmonica, Will Dawson was at the controls, the band was incredibly focused on the task at hand and we burned through the entire album in about 2-1/2 hours flat. Justin is fixing to master it at his Voyagers Rest studio in Oxford when they give him a few hours to do it in, but I'm playing some of the tracks on my radio show, like this week's show that has our take on "I Can't Be Satisfied" > "Hoochie Coochie Man" from this session.
John Sinclair Show #82 @ The Dolphins, Amsterdam, April 16, 2006 (.mp3)
Will moved to Amsterdam in the fall of 2005 to live with his Dutch ladyfriend and look for work as a musician, producer, engineer or whatever they might pay him for. He joined the Radio Free Amsterdam krewe-definitely a non-paying assignment so far-and has been a valuable friend and collaborator....and now he's my new bass player!
It used to be that you had to have a criminal record of some sort to join the Blues Scholars, but I play with so many people in so many different places now-and I really hate to pry-so I've pretty much waived that particular requirement. I haven't even queried Will about any possible forms of societal punishment he may have suffered in his short lifetime, but he's a soulful motherfucker in any case and I'm really happy to have him in the band.
In the course of my truly insane quest to set my poems to music and perform them to the accompaniment of skilled and imaginative musicians, I've assembled bands of many sorts everywhere from Los Angeles to Berlin. I'm partial to the Motor City Blues Scholars, whom I first called together late in 1982, and to my New Orleans band with Bill Lynn and Michael Voelker that backed me up for almost 10 years. In Los Angeles I often get to work with Wayne Kramer, Charles Moore and Buzzy Jones, three of my favorite people on the planet. Another personal favorite is the band I have in Mississippi with Eric Deaton or Lightning Malcolm on guitar, Justin Showah and Kenny Kimbrough, and its offshoot, Afrissippi, with Guelel Kumba.
Since I decided three years ago to make my base in Amsterdam, I've been blessed with the musical partnership I have with Mark Ritsema, a singer, songwriter, guitarist and bandleader in his own right who led the popular 1980s Dutch band called Spazmodique and, in the '90s, a fine ensemble called Raskolnikov. For our new edition of the Rotterdam Blues Scholars he's brought in his lifelong friend Reinier Rietveld on drums and enlisted the masterful slide guitarist Willem van der Wall. Will Dawson completes the quintet, with your reporter on lead vocals and commentary.
We had a terrific rehearsal at the 2X2 space Monday night and worked up a batch of new material from the duet album Mark and I recorded last year with Clay Windham in the Zuid-Oost, including Mark's music and arrangements for "brilliant corners," "april in paris," "pannonica," "ruby my dear," "functional," "I surrender dear," "criss cross and other selections from thelonious: a book of monk.
We'll all meet at Schipol Airport on Sunday morning to fly to Rome for our concert at the BEAT HIPPY AUTONOMI PUNK exhibition. This trip is gonna be a natural ball!
|
|
If you like this entry, search for other entries by johnsinclair, from Netherlands or try a new search. |
| |
Back to Entry - Back to Home
|
13 votes 
