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BluesWax E-Zine Features Boulder Outlook Music - December 2006 -
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Blues Thrives On Higher Ground
| By Bob Margolin
| For both player and promoter, booking a Blues gig is like romance: you do your best, but sometimes it just doesn't work out well. Every professional Blues musician, from the best on down, has had the experience of traveling thousands of miles to play to a handful of folks or a clueless audience. But sometimes gigs turn out much better than we could reasonably hope for...
We played for the first time at The Boulder Outlook Hotel (guess what city that's in) last March. Usually, the best part of playing in a hotel is when the rooms we stay in are in the same building as the club, which is convenient. But, the audiences can be "hotel lounge" audiences who are not really there for the music. When I checked in I got my first clues that this "hotel gig" would be different.
The Boulder Outlook Hotel is a former Ramada Inn with an indoor pool and recreational areas surrounded by the rooms and a medium-sized lounge/bar. I immediately realized that Blues music was playing in the lobby instead of elevator music. Hip shit, too. The staff was friendly and helpful to me and set me up in a comfortable room. I received the good news that our show was sold out - a pleasant surprise because I'd never played there before and the last time I'd played in Boulder, in 2001, it hadn't gone well. We set up the band equipment and had lunch.
I immediately hit it off with the bar manager, a young lady named Kate Keiser who croaked to me that she was a singer, but was barely able to speak from throat problems. Sometimes you meet someone and just know that they are a special musician even before you can hear them. I told Kate I looked forward to hearing her when she was ready to sing again, maybe next time I played in town.
Kate Keiser
Courtesy of Dan King
When I came down to play later that night the club was packed, which is nice to see in today's Blues World - Boulder Outlook Hotel owner Dan King must have worked hard to make that happen. There were so many people that we could have turned the house after each set or booked more performance days, if we'd known. But even more rare: when we began to play, the audience was, well, the perfect Blues audience - listening closely, demonstrating enthusiasm and applause when they heard something they liked, and friendly and knowledgeable when I hung out with them on the break. It's redeeming for me and I appreciate it deeply.
Then I saw a familiar face, New Orleans drummer Willie Panker, whom I had met in the early 1980s when he was playing with The Iguanas. He introduced me to his wife, singer Amy Adams, and told me that after Hurricane Katrina they had taken the "move to higher ground" advice to an extreme and were now living in Estes Park, Colorado. I was glad that they had survived and were beginning to make music together in Colorado.
The next time around we were booked for two days at The Boulder Outlook Hotel - an unlikely but real world "Home of the Blues." When we arrived I saw Kate again, now speaking in a beautiful voice and we arranged for me to sit in with her band at an outdoor barbecue party being held at the hotel the next afternoon. The crowd was decent on Friday night and, though I was frankly road-weary (I have to hide that and find inspiration however I can because it's my job to be the liveliest person in town), the minute I started playing for that Colorado Blues audience I felt inspired, not tired. We had a great night and Willie's wife Amy sang with us on the second set, ripping it up pretty strong. Unlike many woman singers, Amy has a particular deep and clear lower register in her voice (as did the late Big Maybelle) and she knows how to use it to great advantage. What a treat for the band and the audience.
The following afternoon I listened to Kate's band at the barbecue and everyone really enjoyed their wide range of soulful material, which did include some Blues. Kate is a natural singer with a very pleasant tone of voice and she picks songs to sing that are beyond what I'd expect from someone so young. She gets told that she could do great on American Idol, but she's much too real to ever consider it.
We had some surprise Blues visitors at the barbecue. The Phillip Walker Band was touring in Colorado and had a date canceled. Dan King, the owner of the hotel, generously invited them to spend their unpaid day off at the hotel, saving them a day's lodging cost and treating all of us to their good company. We all enjoyed food from Sweet Mama's Barbecue, who had catered the event deliciously.
That night in the club we had a much bigger audience and Kate sang "It Hurts Me Too" with our band, probably breaking some of her neighbors' hearts. The audience was very stimulating to us and it was one of those nights where I felt like I could go anywhere I wanted to onstage and bring the audience along with me. During our break, Phillip Walker and his band did a surprise guest set and I had the honor of sitting in with them.
A little way into our last set, our host, Dan, tipped me that singer Erica Brown from down the road in Denver was in the house and I should call her up to sit in. Maybe because I was already having such a good weekend, I wasn't expecting it to go even farther. I did not know Erica Brown, but certainly trusted Dan and immediately invited her up to the bandstand. She proceeded to tear the house down, leading the band expertly and improvising a show with us that the audience loved. It was so much fun it must have been illegal, and it showed. We all need to get to know Erica Brown better - I'll be interviewing her for BluesWax soon.
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