Aerosmith News

The Reel Blues Fest @ The Roxy, Boston – September 12, 2008

c-2008 Barry M. Miller/Beshert Photo.com	c-2008 Barry M. Miller/Beshert Photo.com	c-2008 Barry M. Miller/Beshert Photo.com

In an effort give back to his adopted home, Detroit-born Blues man James Montgomery gathered some powerful friends and neighbors for the latest installment of the Reel Blues Fest, his annual fundraiser for the music and film communities. This year, Montgomery’s special guests included guitar man Jay Geils, fellow harp king James Cotton, and drummer Joey Kramer, as well as the Uptown Horns and the Boston baked all-star band known as Ernie and the Automatics.

Backed by members of Boston and the Beaver Brown band, as well as alumni from Peter Wolf’s bands, car guru and Berklee grad Ernie Boch, Jr. showed his stuff as he and his band previewed their forthcoming album, “Low Expectations.” Aside from a roadhouse rock through James Cotton’s “Here I Am,” the band offered mostly original material, much of which sounded like songs from the member’s former bands. From the low-down Shoals-y Blues of “Dead man” to the echoey simple rhymes of “Empty Head,” to the hopeful closer, “The Best is Up Ahead,” EtA (a driving pun, perhaps?) gave the crowd something to dance to as it grew and moved toward the raised ballroom stage.

When Montgomery came on, the room came alive as he offered his famous mouth-strafing, leg-kicking, high-energy riffs. Paying tribute to personal heroes like Muddy Waters and the city of his birth with the John Lee Hooker warble “Motor City is Burning,” Montgomery also wailed through covers of “I Thank You,” a gruff and punchy “Who Do You Love?” that included a long anf fuzzy bass solo and plenty of playtime for Montgomery, a more-vocal-than-harp rendition of “Baby, Please Don’t Go”that actually got the crowd singing along, and a vintage take on “Big 10-inch Record” (with which Kramer was clearly familiar). When Geils and Cotton took their seats at the front of the stage, the Boston Blues Summit continued with performances of “Good Time Charlie,” a loping and mumbly ramble through Muddy’s “Ready,” and a Vaudevillian hoedown through “Mojo Workin’” that allowed Cotton to show that, even at 73, he still had it and that, though Montgomery is ready, the torch does not necessarily need to be passed just yet.

Paul Santo, Joey Kramer, David Hull c-2008 Barry M. Miller/Beshert Photo.com	c-2008 Barry M. Miller/Beshert Photo.com

www.thereelbluesfest.com

-       Matt Robinson