POP MUSIC REVIEW : Wells and His Band Play Well Into the Night

Sometime after midnight Wednesday, Junior Wells and his three-piece horn section were assembled in a tight circle at the bar in the back of the Coach House, still blowing away while his rhythm section burned along on stage.

It was an appropriate nightcap for the long, two-set performance from Wells and his eight-piece ensemble, a night that began more than four hours earlier with a pair of opening bands.

Those still left to hear the harmonica-toting vocalist close out the evening probably wouldn’t have minded if Wells and company had continued into the wee hours. The 60-year-old veteran was in fine voice, adding emphasis with James Brown-like grunts and squeals, whispering lyrics in smooth mahogany-colored tones, adding shushes and tongue-clucks for good measure. His harmonica playing came only in brief bursts, but what there was exploded like firecrackers above the rest of the band.

Since his association with Buddy Guy ended, Wells has defined his own style: an uptown mixture of funk and blues that borrows from both Muddy Waters and James Brown. It’s a neat synthesis that bridges blues and soul schools, giving Wells a chance to strut his stuff on a variety of formats and tempos. And this night at the Coach House, he took full advantage.

It was apparent from the beginning that Wells’ band meant business. Warming up on an up-tempo funk piece, “Broke and Hungry,” the musicians traded short, to-the-point solos above tightly executed accompaniment fired by drummer Willie Hays and bassist Frank McClure. Trombonist Joe Burton was a standout, playing in warm tones one moment, blustering and making suggestive suckling noises the next.

Drummer Hays continued the mood on the next tune, adding a plaintive vocal to a jumping doo-wah-ditty rhythm that cooked along on guitar work from Martin Charters and Shun Kikuta. Wells entered from the back of the room, singing with tough rhythmic punctuation and gravelly tone, breaking into a falsetto scat as the horns placed chicken-scratch accents behind him.

From there, Wells demonstrated his utility. He sang in understated tones with minimal backing on “Keep Your Hands Out of My Pockets,” a delivery repeated later in the show on his signature tune “Hoodoo Man.” But he was up and screaming again on “Got My Mojo Working.”

Though Wells kept moving on stage, no one would credit him with Brown’s dexterity and energy. Instead, he moved like the Tin Man in need of an oiling, harmonica in one hand, the other conducting and gesturing. His dance was more of a soft-shoe shuffle.

The second set opened promisingly enough with the band roaring on “Pickin’ Up the Pieces.” But Wells seemed to run out of steam, as well as ideas, and the session seemed disjointed and misdirected. A pair of tunes seemed to just fall away to a close and drummer Hays often concluded a song long after the others. Wells led the audience in a too-long call-and-response passage during “The Blues Are All Right.”

But even second-rate Wells was enough to keep toes tapping and heads bobbing. And, as Wells and the horn section moved offstage parade-style, heading for the bar, they seemed again to gather energy. Get down, indeed.

The Scot Willey Combo delivered a short, competent opening set of blues, boogie and jump tunes. Dressed in suit coats and ties, the five-piece group showed it could swing on Big Mama Thornton’s “Life Goes On,” and established solid grooves for Willey’s vocals and guitarist Mark Wein’s exacting style.

Fry Sum Blues moved a step up from Willey’s combo with a set of guitarist-vocalist Jay Summers’ original tunes that ranged from the humorous (“Caught Lookin’ ”) to the more somber (“Rainy Days and Rainy Nights”). The standout here was organist Paul Kallestad, whose wild-man solos, filled with glissandos and rapid-fire exchanges executed with flailing arms, always brought a jump in the presentation’s intensity.