POP MUSIC REVIEW : A Taylor-Made Boring Evening

Former Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor and his fourpiece band accomplished the improbable Friday night in their show at Sound FX: They played well--at times brilliantly--and still managed to give one of the most boring concerts of recent vintage.

The nearly two-hour survey of blues standards and blues-based rock reminded one that, for some artists, musical talent and presentability remain strictly segregated. It also added another exhibit to the body of evidence that instrumental specialists--especially of the bashful, unassuming stripe--rarely make good bandleaders.

Stage presence is an overrated, or at least over-emphasized, element of live performance; if the music is inspired and is infused with its own rhythmic and emotional momentum, the musicians could perform it lying down and not lessen its effect.

But, even in such cases, care must be taken to construct a program that doesn’t flag, that seems headed toward some end, that offers sufficient variety of pace and tone and coloration. It was obvious that Friday’s concert was not accorded such care, and one wonders if it was given any thought at all.

In his non-speaking role as lead guitarist for the late-’60s, early-’70s Stones (and, earlier, for John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers), Taylor had a mouse-with-a-howitzer stage persona; he moved little and kept his head bowed while playing with a bravado that contrasted his calm exterior. That eye-of-the-storm approach works well when you have Mick Jagger and Keith Richards cavorting around you; it is death when you become the focal point.

On Friday, Taylor mostly kept his back to the less-than-capacity audience, or sat near the drum riser. The unaware might have thought he was conducting an afternoon sound check instead of performing a concert. On those rare occasions when Taylor spoke into the microphone, his words were barely audible. At no point did he establish a rapport with the crowd.

Worse yet, the music was dished out in so haphazard a fashion that it connected only intermittently with an assemblage that--one sensed from the frequent outbursts and the timing of the applause--desperately wanted to be involved.

Taylor appeared to be operating on the assumption that, if one slow blues is good, an entire evening of slow blues is better. During one stretch, seven of eight songs were slow to medium-slow blues, each several minutes in length. The only exception was a rendition (slowed down, of course) of the Slim Harpo boogie “Shake Your Hips,” which Taylor and the Stones recorded as “Hip Shake” on 1972’s “Exile on Main Street” album.

In addition to putting one gentleman to sleep, literally, this long, slow segment deadened the impact of Taylor’s playing, which, at times, was wonderful. He might not have a vast library of licks--he’s no Bill Thompson--but when he’s in form, Taylor brings an elegant fire to this gritty genre. His slide-guitar prelude to Willie Dixon’s “You Shook Me” was incandescent, and his crescendoing transition from a siren-like slide-guitar solo to a furiously flat-picked passage in Fred McDowell’s “You Gotta Move” was breathtaking.

Taylor’s foil throughout the concert was guest vocalist Jimmie Woods, who tried to keep things hot with his fuel-injected vocals, energetic mouth-harp playing, and general hamminess. But Woods’ efforts and Taylor’s better moments were lost in the miasma of a poorly paced, audience-excluding, lackluster program.

When those still remaining in the club called (somewhat unconvincingly) for an encore around midnight, Taylor and his band answered with the only thing that must have seemed logical, given the prevailing mood: a slow blues.