Pop Music Review : Life-Packed Show? He Wrote the Book

There are cool things to be found in libraries, some dandy writing lodged in there amid the Dewey Decimal System and the bits of graffiti one sometimes comes across.

But, look though you might, you’ll probably not find anything nearly so cool as John Hammond’s performance Friday night in the outdoor courtyard of the San Juan Capistrano Regional Library. It was easily one of the most emotional, life-packed, wholly realized displays of artistry we’ll hear in the county this year, and certainly the only one in which a Craftsman 11/16-inch, deep-well wrench socket played a part.

It isn’t necessarily your fault if you haven’t heard of Hammond. He’s a bluesman, an appellation which alone is sufficient to keep him off the playlists of an entertainment media that disdains feeling and content.

Further, he came along after the generations of bluesmen who originated its forms, and just before the generation of white blues players who capitalized on the music by rocking it up through stacks of Marshall amps. While Hammond is held in mutual respect by the members of both generations--indeed, his ‘60s albums provided the doorway into the blues for many a future guitar god--he was never “authentic” nor ostentatious enough to get the broader respect he’s deserved.

This didn’t seem to be especially troubling Hammond on Friday, as he was otherwise busy sounding like a one-man fish fry: howling, moaning, crowing and pleading his songs, blowing harmonica hurricanes, stomping rhythms with his left foot so authoritative you’d swear he’d borrowed the appendage from John Lee Hooker, and driving his poor guitar like a hell-bound locomotive.

His blues ran the gamut, from the clearest skies to the deepest indigo, and his connection with the material, even overworked warhorses like “The Walking Blues,” was stunning in its raw immediacy. Hammond performed on acoustic instruments, but the effect was electrifying.

“Man, I feel like I’ve just licked a wall socket!” exclaimed local blues player Joel Easton in the audience at the show’s conclusion, and one could only nod in agreement. Hammond has always been a passionate performer, but after 32 years of exhaustive touring he seems to be only entering his artistic prime, if the Capistrano show was any indication.

At 51, Hammond looks more like Peter O’Toole than most people have a right to, with a face that conveys every nuance of whoop and rue in the songs he sings. His voice is deep and sensual, rich in higher overtones, and carries echoes of several other singers, including Hooker, blues touchstone Robert Johnson, the wonderfully unintelligible Robert Pete Williams and the moody Skip James.

The 15 songs in his first of two shows Friday ranged from the familiar, such as Johnson’s “Come on in My Kitchen” and Jimmy Reed’s “Honest I Do,” to the truly obscure--for example, Hambone Willie Newburn’s 1928 “Dreamy Eyed Girl,” a slow blues in which the singer’s girl informs him, “Big boy, I wouldn’t miss you if the Good Lord told me you were dead.” Hammond doesn’t write his songs, but they most certainly become his.

Only two songs were from Hammond’s current album, “Trouble No More,” an album that also wasn’t much represented by the form of his performance. On the disc he’s accompanied on most tracks by the ever-excellent Little Charlie and the Nightcats, while Friday’s show, like most of Hammond’s, was a solo affair. As lively and empathetic a band as the Nightcats are, he sounds more complete on his own.

With his foot pounding the stage and his finger-picks raking the strings--and the aforementioned Craftsman socket affixed to a pinkie for his slide work--Hammond created as much ruckus as any band, while retaining a breathtaking intimacy. His voice, guitar work and harp playing were equally unfettered, his mastery of his craft evident by the way he would sometimes take his performance to the brink of musical chaos without losing control.

There might have been times when his slide was whizzing over the strings making jagged stops, his head tilted back, face reddening as his harmonica went into falsetto orbit, that one might have briefly wondered, “Is this music ?” Inasmuch as his playing was too captivating to allow much time for such musings, the answer would seem an obvious yes .

He has an elastic control of time in his songs. Others might sing about having a hellhound on their trail. Hammond plays like it: On up-tempo numbers, he raced around his guitar neck like notes were bodies he had to push out of his way to evade being caught by his fate or his baby--blues doesn’t seem to make much distinction between the two.

Conversely, on his deeper blues--”See That My Grave is Swept Clean,” “Love Changin’ Blues,” “Hard Time Killing Floor”--time nearly stopped, with mournful notes left to die out in the desolate spaces between them. Scary stuff.

It likely didn’t impede Hammond’s pursuit of his craft that he was playing for an attentive, appreciative audience. His performance was part of the San Juan Capistrano Multicultural Performing and Visual Arts Series regularly presented at the library, just a swallow’s throw from the mission, and they’ve got a good scene going there.

The library’s grassy courtyard can hold some 300 people--and did in each of the two shows Friday. The sound is excellent and the sight lines good except for behind four otherwise splendid cypress trees. No ringing cash registers or drink minimums, no cigarette smoke, no drunks trying to noisily hit on waitresses during the ballads: just a $5 ticket (the series lost its county funding last year, by the way), the sky above, and people listening as if music actually mattered. (You can call (714) 493-1752 for info on upcoming shows.)

It would seem to be an artist’s dream, and speaking to Hammond after the show he said he’d been floored by the response he’d received there, particularly in light of his experience the night before playing to a chatty, there-to-be-seen crowd at Hollywood’s House of Blues. That trendy new club, it should also be noted, lacks a book drop.