I just found out he’s still alive and he’ll be playing here in about a month. I have one of his cd’s and just figured he was long since dead. Apparently I’ve just been living under a rock though. He has been playing over 200 shows a year for a very long time.
This venue will be fairly small (probably seats 150) and will be a great place to see him perform. Just wondering if anyone here has been to a concert of his recently? What did you think? He had a powerful voice and plays the guitar like no other I’ve heard before. I think I’ll have to go.
how odd that you should bring him up just now. i only thought of him again last night. it was the first time in years. i can only remember 3 of his songs. “handsome johnny” being the best, of course, then freedom (both from woodstock) and one called ‘oxford town’. when i had one of his albums, it got old really quickly, but handsome johnny is a grand accomplishment in and of itself. he should be proud.
I caught one of his performances in a small auditorium (couldn’t have been more than 150 seats) at San Francisco State University about 2 years ago. He was beyond awesome. In a small, intimate setting, his voice and percussive style of guitar are almost overpowering. He really bears his soul when he’s playing live, and the personal setting only enhances that.
The whole show was a little over two hours, I think. He tells stories as lead-ins to his song, a la VH1 Storytellers. Great stuff, I tell you. He comes off as very genuine, and the stories themselves are funny and have a wisdom to them.
Oh and last thing, stick around after the concert. At the show I went to, he left the stage and waited for most of the audience to clear out. When there were only a few people left, he peeked his head out between the curtains, gave a little chuckle and came back out to do a few songs for us solo. He had some weird melodic instrument that he held near his head. I’d never seen or heard an instrument like it before.
Great, great show. One of the best I’ve ever been to.