O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : 2 Traditionalists Pick Up the Past in Grand Style

In a society that has come to revolve around videocassette recorders, personal computers and fax machines--devices virtually unknown even 15 years ago--tradition can easily be perceived as something one step removed from fossilization.

But traditions--at least the lasting ones--arise because they embody some idea or theme that it is important for society to keep in mind.

With Doc Watson and John Hammond sharing the bill, tradition was something to ponder Wednesday night at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. Watson, with his broad range of Southern folk styles, and Hammond, with his acoustic blues, have been high-profile musical traditionalists for more than 25 years. In thoroughly engaging, occasionally breathtaking performances, both men showed that they perceive tradition as a vibrant, immediate way to express important ideas and not some quaint preservation project designed to catalogue and salvage some antiquated playing style as a museum piece.

Hammond’s blues burrowed deep into the most basic, internal human drives and laid them out naked for inspection. In a 70-minute opening set made up of blues standards dating back 30 years and more, he sang of sexual need and sexual pride, how they develop into a desire that goes beyond the physical and becomes love and how losing that love can turn into an identity-shaking agony. The day Hammond’s brand of blues becomes fossilized is the day music turns to stone.

There aren’t many musicians keeping the traditional acoustic blues alive these days, but as long as Hammond is around, audiences willing to tap into his performances will be able to get a clear idea of the

elemental force and power inherent in the style that was the granddaddy of rock ‘n’ roll. When an infant in the audience began wailing in his mother’s arms as Hammond brought the hard-driving “Ride ‘Til I Die” to a climax, the thought occurred that this supremely erotic blues might have set off some Oedipal awakening. In Hammond’s hands, it’s easy to see how the primal recordings of Robert Johnson, Elmore James and their peers sparked powerful awakenings in the likes of John Lennon, Keith Richards and Eric Clapton.

Hammond’s set was made up of songs, such as Johnson’s “Come On in My Kitchen,” that he probably has sung thousands of times. But none of them sounded tired or routine. The songs dealt with urges and conflicts that have been repeated a trillion times since humanity began and Hammond’s re-enactments suggested that each repetition is unique.

His performances certainly sounded that way. The rhythms of Hammond’s singing and guitar playing lingered or rushed forward, as unpredictable as the cadences of inner thought. On this night, his harmonica playing was especially strong: In some memorable passages, the harp tone rose from a low, broad moan to a staccato cry. The performance probed deep into the solitary soul, distilled the emotions there and pumped them out in a forceful gush. All in all, not a bad musical tradition to keep alive in an era when people worry about being able to keep in touch with their feelings.

If Hammond’s blues delved into the individual psyche, Watson’s folk lit a pot-bellied stove and invited friends and neighbors to gather ‘round and keep warm, swap some stories and have a good laugh. It was music drawn from America’s rural history, and its core concern was the knitting-together of community.

In songs such as “Tennessee Stud,” about a mythically gifted and spirited horse galloping through the dangerous landscape of the pioneer days, and “The Wreck of Ol’ Number 9,” the tragic, romantically stylized ballad of a gallant trainman and his true love, Watson spun the kinds of tales that are handed down through generations, giving people the common stories and models that glue them together. Maybe Joseph Campbell had the official doctorate, but this 66-year-old Doc from Deep Gap, N.C., is worth heeding, too, when it comes to learning about living myth.

Among guitar players, Watson is a living myth. Whether using a flat-pick or, less frequently, picking the strings with his fingers, his playing was a marvel of dexterity, speed, control and full, satisfying tonality. Watson’s younger playing partner, a fellow North Carolinian named Jack Lawrence, was no slouch either. In a show that emphasized the interplay of guitars, Lawrence’s leads and accompaniments kept pace and meshed beautifully with Watson’s parts. When the two guitarists took off on fast tandem runs, it sent a rush of excitement through their appreciative audience. Lawrence also was a good harmony singer, his smoother, higher vocals lending strong support to Watson’s plain-spoken, direct singing. (Although he cleared his throat frequently and apologized for having difficulty because of a sore throat, Watson’s vocals seemed up to par).

Aside from his trainman’s tragedy and a gracefully fervent A.P. Carter waltz, “Storms On the Ocean,” Watson kept his 70-minute set on the light side, emphasizing joking songs such as “Smoke, Smoke Smoke (That Cigarette)” and delivering a good deal of folksy humor that, because of his winningly homespun manner, could be forgiven some of its cornier moments. One or two more ballads--perhaps a rustic horror story like “Shady Grove”--would have been nice, and so might one of Watson’s moving renditions of religious hymns. With Watson’s ability to draw a listener into his circle and bring to life his rural themes and settings, there is always a craving for one more story, one more scene from a way of life that postwar America has managed largely to dispose of while professing to honor it.

When Doc Watson left the stage, the audience was back in contemporary Orange County, where the challenge is to stop merely importing traditions for one-night stands, and start sewing some valuable ones of our own.