POP MUSIC REVIEW : Festival Serves Up Blues Plate Special

The 12th annual Long Beach Blues Festival opened Saturday morning with two potentially crippling obstacles looming: threatening skies above and nagging sound difficulties below.

The last of the stubborn grayness burned off by early afternoon, just before Koko Taylor & Her Blues Machine, the third of the first day’s five acts, took the stage.

But the technical problems lingered throughout the seven-hour event, kicking off this year’s edition of the two-day blues extravaganza at Cal State Long Beach.

The sound was distant and muddy for scores of patrons less fortunately seated on the campus’s sprawling athletic field. And even in spots where the amplification was superior, annoyances persisted, right up to the wincing feedback and crackling speakers that plagued the headlining Robert Cray Band’s set.

Thankfully, the performances consistently proved dynamic enough to outweigh any logistic dilemmas.

Leading the way, as expected, was Cray, the 38-year-old reigning king of contemporary blues. His band, joined by the two-piece Memphis Horns that appeared on Cray’s breakthrough “Strong Persuader” LP and last year’s “Midnight Stroll,” kept the crowd dancing in the aisles for the duration of a scorching hourlong, nine-song set.

Punching and throttling every drop of spirit from his guitar, Cray continues to reinvent his music with each new performance, displaying an improvisational virtuosity that approaches Jimi Hendrix as closely as any modern-day guitarist.

His own brilliant performance was buttressed by that of his band. Drawing upon material from each of Cray’s last four releases, the group fluctuated between solos and jam sessions, always circling back to a spirited crescendo, bridging into the song’s natural groove.

It is a rare occasion that such jams amount to much more than monotonous contrivance. But Cray’s band, punctuated by the brass assault of tenor saxman Andrew Love and trumpeter Wayne Jackson, consistently launched on instrumental excursions that were lively and genuine.

As Cray put it at one point during a break between numbers, “We get lowdown and dirty up here. That’s the kind of people we are. There’s no shucking and jiving up here.”

While the day’s other standouts--Taylor, John Lee Hooker and Jay McShann with Jimmy Witherspoon--impressed by recapturing jazz and blues slices of decades past, Cray is still exploring new musical terrain, reshaping the blues with an impact being felt in the worlds of jazz, pop and rock.

Taylor, the proclaimed “Queen of the Blues,” as usual was worthy of the title during Saturday’s performance, belting out her distinctive brand of muscular blues. With her soulful beast of a voice and overwhelming stage presence, Taylor wrenched the previously docile crowd to its feet. Along with her Blues Machine band, the musical equivalent of her powerful but melodic vocals, she infected the audience with a sound that by turns was rollicking, funky and sad.

Hooker charmed with his suave, confident command of both guitar and stage, one of music’s rare figures who can captivate a large audience while seated and plucking a guitar. Actually, the legendary bluesman might have been better off if he were alone with just a chair and guitar, as his Coast to Coast Blues Band proved to be little more than an ornamental backdrop, and occasionally an intrusion.

The day’s program opened with national talent-search winner Dave Specter & the Bluebirds from Chicago, followed by a jumping, cool jazz set by longtime pianist McShann and an accompanying trio, creating a sound transported from a smoky St. Louis nightclub from half a century ago.

McShann was later joined by vocalist Witherspoon, the pair’s first collaboration in three decades. Charged by Witherspoon’s deep, ragged vocals, they revived what they once made and lived together, with plenty of the old spark.

The Blues Festival was scheduled to continue Sunday with B.B. King as the headliner, joined by the Blues Brothers Band, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Big Jay McNeely with the Rocket 88’s and Five Blind Boys of Alabama.