O.C. BLUES REVIEW : Marathon Songfest Delivers Much of What Was Promised

If nothing else, the daylong Benson & Hedges Blues ’91 show Saturday at the Pacific Amphitheatre testified that the appeal of the blues is grounded in something deeper than the allure of star power.

Taken one by one, the acts involved couldn’t fill anything bigger than a small theater.

At that, headliner B.B. King’s drawing power figured to be weakened because he had played less than three months before at the 2,500-seat Celebrity Theatre in Anaheim.

Gregg Allman, who did a guest turn with King, is strictly a club act in Orange County when he is on his own. So is second-billed Johnny Winter. Round out the roster with Etta James, a Willie Dixon Dream Band high on ability but not on name recognition (and minus the 75-year-old Dixon, who was laid up after falling at his home earlier in the week), and toss in two utter unknowns in Delta-style guitarist John Campbell and the blues-rocking Steve Pryor Band, and you’ve got much less than the Murderer’s Row which played last year’s blues festival at the Pacific.

Stevie Ray Vaughan was the headliner then (Vaughan was the meal ticket for many a big blues event, and his death figures to be a telling blow to the blues financially, as well as artistically). B.B. King was also on hand last year, along with Joe Cocker, John Lee Hooker, Irma Thomas and Dr. John. They drew a sell-out crowd of nearly 19,000 people.

Surprisingly, this year’s festival drew well, too, filling most of the seats and a good portion of the Pacific’s lawn--in all, maybe 14,000 or 15,000 people. Blues fans, evidently, are not finicky. Promise them a seven-hour smorgasbord of strong performers--even if they aren’t arena draws--and they’ll turn out en masse.

For the most part, the lineup rewarded their loyalty.

The marquee event, however, was disappointing. The pairing of Gregg Allman with B.B. King and band lasted only three songs (stretched out to 24 minutes), and King admitted that they were done impromptu. Even if schedules didn’t allow for rehearsal, some advance planning would have been advisable.

Best known for playing the organ, Allman first sat down at the Hammond, twiddled with it for a while, found it not to his satisfaction, and moved to the piano instead. He didn’t venture much beyond basic chords and sparse fills; on organ he likely would have dared more.

Allman’s vocals were impassioned and unimpeachable as usual as he sang the standards “Rock Me Baby” and “Stormy Monday,” and finished with a new Allman Brothers Band tune, a basic slow blues about the anguish of living with an alcoholic. King tried to generate some guitar interaction with Allman’s voice and piano, but struck only fleeting sparks.

King and his band also performed for 50 minutes on their own. There was nothing to rival the moving, joyful “I’ll Still Be Around” they played at the Celebrity, but King’s enduring virtues were evident. Even though his shows’ patterns are well established (this was an abbreviated version of his Celebrity set) and involve some hokey, humorous shtick, he was engaged in his music throughout.

While his vocals were a bit scratchy and too low in the mix, King’s definitive guitar work was as strong as ever, and his alert seven-man band was sharp as the creases in a dandy’s trousers.

Johnny Winter could have used some of King’s lively and enlivening style. Big on speed and flash, the Texas guitar veteran played a proficient but emotionally vacant set. Backed only by a bassist and drummer and limited by his journeyman’s vocal yowl, Winter’s show was mainly built around nonstop soloing. After a while, one flurry sounded pretty much like another--which is what happens when guitar flash isn’t supported by striking original material.

The boogie-hardy faction in the crowd loved it, calling Winter back for an encore. But aside from a speed-burner run through “Johnny B. Goode” (there’s imagination for you) and some Townshendesque power chording as a coda to Bobby Womack’s “It’s All Over Now,” this was an exercise in tedium.

Etta James’ playfully vulgar performance put the lie to the contemporary notion that a female singer has to look like Madonna, Janet Jackson or Paula Abdul to communicate sexiness. If any of those pop sirens ever attains half of James’ considerable girth (and who’s to say they won’t when they reach James’ age, 53), they’ll have nothing left to sell.

As it turned out, James sold her sexuality a bit too much. It was one thing to do a slow, feline, bent-over fanny-shake to underscore the lustfulness in a funky number like “Breakin’ Up Somebody’s Home” or a rascally version of Randy Newman’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On.” But James’ salacious mugging was out of place during the fervent ballad, “I’d Rather Go Blind,” which consequently failed to hit home.

Extracurricular activities aside, James’ voice was a commanding force tempered by playfulness and pushed by a superbly funky nine-man band. She sang the title refrain of “Damn Your Eyes” with a withering threat that could have sent anyone who took the song’s curse personally scampering for an exit.

Willie Dixon couldn’t join his “Dream Band” as planned (band leader Cash McCall announced that Dixon was hospitalized in Burbank, but is expected back on his feet soon).

Dixon’s songs were with them, though, and that is enough to breathe promise into any blues set. The Dream Band--guitarists McCall and Joe Louis Walker, pianist Mose Allison, harp player Carey Bell Harrington, bassist Rob Wasserman and drummer Al Duncan--delivered in full.

McCall was an ebullient master of ceremonies who quickly won the crowd with a strutting performance of “I Can’t Quit You, Baby.” Allison counterbalanced McCall’s enthusiasm with dissonant piano fills that pointed to the song’s theme of destructive obsession. Allison’s wry vocal turns on “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “I Live the Life I Love” were highlights; Harrington came up with vibrant, adventurous blowing every time he put mouth to harmonica, and Walker put across his showcase songs with stiletto guitar work and high, crying vocals.

Wasserman provided the day’s curio with a virtuosic solo version of “Spoonful” played on his futuristic-looking, stick-shaped six-string upright bass.

The two newcomers, Campbell and Pryor, both have major-label releases due out this summer. Campbell, accompanied only by a rhythm guitarist, played slide style on a tarnished old National steel guitar. While he didn’t show the mastery of a John Hammond, his assaultive instrumental attack and leathery howl of a voice kept the energy level up. A song about the drive-by killing of a 6-year-old was stark and obsessive, if predictable in its imagery. Another highlight was a bracing instrumental finale that evoked a freight train’s clatter.

Pryor and his band (which included Gary Busey’s younger brother, David, providing deft piano and organ) offered the solid basics of a good blues-rock bar outfit, but not much more.

Pryor generated a dirty guitar tone and sang in a slurry rasp that echoed some Joe Cocker and John Hiatt mannerisms without providing their emotional payoff.