This show was great. These guys were so polished and professional. Felt like I was at the "Crossroads"!
I was great to be back at the Loew's. Haven't had this much fun since John Mayall and Procol Harum played there.
God bless all who continue to volunteer at this historic palace.

Thanks to my friend, Vincent, for the great article/interview and to Duke Robillard & Band and most of all to John Hammond, Jr. who gave an amazing performance on several different styles of guitars, techniques (bottle and slide along with National Steel guitar) while simultaneously playing incredible harmonica and singing some of the most memorable blues I've ever heard.

I heard Hammond last back in the 80's at the original Tramps with his band at the time and while terrific, hearing him now with his control and articulation of note-perfect pitch and tonality that was also musical was awesome and shows he's only gotten better with age and experience.

Duke Robillard and his band featuring a sax man on tenor and baritone with Duke's jump blues style on guitar and Les Paul-influenced playing with his own interpretation, moving to hot, gut-bucket, swamp blues then back to beautiful chordal styling showed why Hammond likes playing and touring with Duke.

It was well attended (300+), diverse in age and ethnicity and kudos to United Blues of Jersey City and the Journal Square Restoration, Corp. for this entertaining evening. I definitely won't miss one of the best blues singers around, Shemekiah Copeland, new Queen of the Blues (think Ruth Brown, Etta James and Koko Taylor, )due in April.

Jersey City?s John Hammond Brings the Blues to His Adopted Hometown By Vincent Berrini ? Jan 14th, 2010 ? Category: Arts, Featured ?When I was young and growing up in New York City,? legendary bluesman John Hammond recalls, ?I got into the folk blues of the late ?40s ? Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, Josh White, Leadbelly ? and so I had a taste for blues from an early age. Then came the early rock ?n? roll shows with Alan Freed in New York, and I used to go see people like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley.? Hammond, a Jersey City resident who will perform at the Landmark Loew?s Jersey Theatre this Friday, says those formative years set the stage for his musical development. ?I had a taste for that kind of music,? he says. ?And by the late ?50s, I had become galvanized with the country blues of Robert Johnson and Blind Willie McTell.? Rough and Tough, Hammond?s latest album, finds him returning to these roots. It?s just his voice, accompanied by a guitar and a harmonica ? and occasionally the stomping of his foot. Performing in a solo, country blues mode reminicent of his hero Robert Johnson, the album ? released in April on Chesky Records ? finds Hammond interpreting the work of writers like Chuck Berry and Tom Waits alongside blues standards by Johnson and Muddy Waters and even the big-band standard ?Chattanooga Choo Choo,? sprinkled with his own originals. While Hammond has called Jersey City home since 1995, his show at the Loew?s ? where he?ll be performing in the same solo folk blues fashion ? will be the first time in his storied career that he?s ever performed in the city. Hammond?s first recordings for the Vanguard label in the early ?60s were very much influenced by that same style of his country blues heroes Johnson and McTell. ?That?s how I began my career playing, the whole country blues thing,? he says. ?I?ve always done what I wanted to do ? but that?s how I began.? By the mid ?60s, Hammond moved further into electric work. Influenced by the Chess Records artists he loved such as Muddy Waters and Howlin? Wolf (both of whom he would later work with) Hammond began working with full band ensembles in the studio. One of the first of these records was 1964?s So Many Roads. ?My friends from Toronto, who were called at the time Levon and the Hawks ? were in New York, as was my friend Mike Bloomfield and Charlie Musselwhite, and so I put this group together and we made that album,? he says. ?I?ve always put bands together with friends who I admire.? At Hammond?s behest, those friends from Toronto went on to work with Bob Dylan later in the decade. They subsequently became much-better known as The Band. Hammond has a knack, it seems, for drawing uniquely talented people into his sphere of work. It?s a skill his father, John H. Hammond, possessed as well. Regarded as one of the greatest talent scouts of all time, Hammond the elder is credited with discovering the likes of Benny Goodman, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Pete Seeger, Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen and Bruce Springsteen to name just a few. But despite the parallels that could be drawn between father and son, the younger Hammond doesn?t quite see it that way. ?My dad was from another planet; he was operating on another level,? Hammond says. ?He was a producer, and perhaps the best ever, and he could put things together. As a musician, I was not seeing it that way; I just had friends who were into the same kinds of things I was.? Those friends have included heavyweights like Jimi Hendrix, Duane Allman, Tom Waits, Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman and JJ Cale, all of whom have worked with and performed with Hammond at various points through the years ? most at the very dawn of their careers. In the mid ?60s, Hammond famously put together a band which included both Hendrix and Clapton ? at the same time. Hammond also eventually worked with many of his heroes, from John Lee Hooker to Muddy Waters ? on the other end of their career spectrums. He earned their respect and, in many cases, gained their friendships in the process. One of those friendships, which Hammond holds dear, was with Bo Diddley. ?I really thought he was just unbelievable, and he used to get up there with a trio and just blow your mind,? Hammond says. ?And then I got to know him as a friend, and he was just an amazing guy.? But his father, lacking a crystal ball, couldn?t see Hammond?s career arc, and he worried about the life his son was entering into. ?I didn?t grow up with my father. I got into this [music] completely on my own, and I don?t think he was too thrilled. He knew how hard it was to be a musician and he was fearful for me, I guess,? Hammond says. ? But after a few recordings and years of making a living at it, he relaxed. And I was relieved that he thought what I was doing was OK, but I never really looked to him for approval. This was what I wanted to do with my life.? He got what he wanted, as it were, and that career has given him a front-row seat to watch the music industry change over the past half-century. Hammond isn?t thrilled with what he?s seen, decrying the increasing specialization and niche marketing of music. ?There was a time when record labels prided themselves with the kinds of artists and music they had on their labels,? he says. ?[Now] there are blues labels and jazz labels, but there isn?t that kind of all-inclusiveness, and I?m sad about that.? But he remains optimistic, saying the music itself usually has a way of finding its way to people: ?As long as there is curiosity, and folks who hear something say ?Who is that?? and ?What is that?? and get into it ? that?s how it all happens.? As for his pseudo-homecoming, Hammond says he?s excited to be playing a historic landmark in his adopted hometown. ?[Jersey City] is a great place. I?m so thrilled, and a lot of the people we?ve met here through the years are going to come to the show,? he says. ?There?s a butcher we use in town who is going to come.? Hammond comes to the Loews on Friday, Jan. 15, at 8 pm. The Duke Robillard Band opens. Tickets and more information can be found here. Prior to the show, Hudson County Community College will host a meet-and-greet with Hammond to kick off its new ?Sound Bites? series, which is sponsored by HCCC and the Journal Square Special Improvement District. Tickets for the ?Sound Bites? event are $15 at the door; for more info click here.

DOWN HOME IN JERSEY CITY
Get your blues face on at concert at Loew's

Friday, January 08, 2010
By MARIAM AYAD
JOURNAL STAFF WRITER

The Landmark Loew's Jersey Theatre will present a Loew's-Down Blues Concert, featuring blues guitarist and Jersey City resident John Hammond along with The Duke Robillard Band. The event will be at 8 p.m., Friday, Jan. 15, at the theater at 54 Journal Square in Jersey City.

Hammond has played with many notable musicians including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and The Band, and has earned the respect of blues legends like John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, and a loyal fan base worldwide. Hammond is credited with keeping classic blues alive with his energetic stage performances. He is currently touring the country until May.

Hammond will play some of his older classics as well as some hits from his latest album "Rough & Tough," which was released in April. Fans can meet Hammond at "Sounds Bites," a pre-concert event at Hudson County Community College' Culinary Conference Center First Floor Ballroom at 161 Newkirk St., in Jersey City. The meet-and-greet will cost attendees $15, payable at the door, and include a "Louisiana Blues" buffet.

To find out more about Hammond, visit him online at JohnHammond.com.

Duke Robillard founded Roomful of Blues in 1967 and has continued to perform for more than 30 years, including with the Fabulous Thunderbirds. He is currently touring with his own band. His new album, "Tales from the Tiki Lounge," will be released in early February.

Robillard has won countless awards including the 2000, 2001, 2003 and 2004 Best Blues Guitarist in The Blues Music Awards presented by The Blues Foundation. He is nominated for many awards again this year in The Blues Music Awards. Robillard's latest album, "Stomp the Blues Tonight," has been nominated for a Grammy this year for Best Traditional Blues Album. To find out more about Robillard and how you can take his blues guitar lessons, visit him online at DukeRobillard.com.

Blues guitarist and singer Son Lewis will MC the show. Lewis is a regular performer at Van Gogh's Ear Cafe in Union City. For more information on Lewis, visit him online at SonLewis.com.

Tickets for Loew's-Down Blues are $30 for general admission and $35 for preferred seating. Advance tickets are $7.50 less and can be purchased at the Loew's Box Office from noon to 3 p.m. Saturdays at 54 Journal Square or at the Journal Square Operations Office from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. weekdays at 4 PATH Plaza. Tickets are also available online at www.thenewjournalsquare.com and www.loewsjersey.org and by calling (800) 440-7654. A $5 student and senior discount with ID is offered for the performance, but is not valid for online sales.

The cost of parking for ticket holders will be reduced for the event to $5 at Square Ramp Parking, located directly behind the theater.

Wouldn't that be a treat. Think I would pass out!
BTW - read in his bio that at one time both Clapton and Hendrix were in his band.
Won't miss this show.

Quote:

Maybe his good friend Eric Clapton will stop by for this jam
session???

John Hammond is playing in JC at the Lowes :
1/15/2010 - Lowe?s Jersey Theatre Jersey City NJ with The Duke Robillard Band.
Duke was a member of the Fabulous Thunderbirds who also had Jimmie Vaughn, brother of Stevie Ray.
WOW!!!!

A progressive confidence boost
Blues singer's raw, evolving sound inspired by music titans

By Tony Sauro
Record Staff Writer
November 12, 2009 12:01 AM

John P. Hammond waited only about 40 years or so.

That's when the veteran blues singer and guitar player finally decided to write some songs.

He's spent most of his 47-year recording career interpreting and helping preserve the American masterworks of Chicago and Delta blues and country-blues legends.
Concert preview

John Hammond

With: David Lindley

When: 8 p.m. Saturday

Where: Hutchins Street Square, 125 S. Hutchins St., Lodi

Admission: $29-$59

Information: (209) 333-5550

"Probably my wife, Marla, had a lot to do with it," said Hammond, who wrote five of the 12 songs on his most recent studio album ("Push Comes to Shove," 2007). "I know so many songs, it's incredible."

He'll sing a bunch of them - while playing his harmonica and trademark National Reso-Phonic guitar - Saturday night at Lodi's Hutchins Street Square. David Lindley, who can play almost as many stringed instruments as Hammond can sing songs, will perform a solo show.

"It became time a few years ago to do it, and I wrote this song ('Slick Crown Vic') about the first car I ever bought," Hammond said. "I played it for the guys in the band and they said, 'That's a really good song.'

"That gave me some confidence. So, the next project, I wrote two more songs. It went easily. A lot easier than I thought. It's been progressive. They're in my style. It's hard to explain exactly."

Hammond, who turns 67 on Friday, shouldn't have to do that or require an ego boost, though having "Push Comes to Shove" produced by Philadelphia's G. Love (Garrett Dutton) - a much younger (37) folk-blues-rap adventurer - demonstrates his ongoing credibility and influence.

Hammond's "style" blends numerous inspirations - blues titans Robert Johnson, Howlin' Wolf (Chester Arthur Burnett), Willie Dixon, Josh White, Muddy Waters (McKinley Morganfield) and John Lee Hooker, among others - into a raw, authentic sound that's evolved from guitar and harmonica essentials to elaborate, contemporary blues rock.

At the beginning, the ragged-voiced Hammond shared similar styles and sources of influence with Bob Dylan and other folkies in his native New York City. Rather than write, he carried on in the well-aged folk tradition of interpretation and reinvention.

Hammond began his career with Vanguard Records, a folk-music bastion, but has released albums on a variety of labels. He's never been totally sold on - or commercially successful in - the recording industry.

Hammond released "Rough & Tough" - which includes "Slick Crown Vic" - on April 21 as a "Super Audio" CD via the Internet and is planning a new album, which would be his 30th.

"Well, it's diminished slightly - well, a lot more than slightly - you hardly can call anybody on the phone," he said during a recent conversation from his home in Jersey City, N.J. "So, anyway, we're doing the best we can. It's a changing phenomenon. Everything seems to be going digital. I don't really keep up with that. So much of my career never has been about recording. I just played gigs."

Hammond's late father, John Hammond Jr., who died July 10, 1987, at age 76, was a recording industry pioneer and vintage jazz devotee - a man born into New York aristocracy who devoted his life to discovering and developing truly original American music and improving race relations.

He's most famously known for signing Aretha Franklin, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen (among others) to Columbia Records and for his role in the careers of Benny Goodman (who became his brother-in-law), Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and countless other musicians denied opportunities because of segregation.

Though Hammond Jr. wrote proudly of his eldest son (calling him "Jeep") in his 1977 autobiography ("John Hammond on Record"), their relationship wasn't close after the younger Hammond's parents were divorced. His famous father wasn't instrumental in young Hammond's music career.

"In reality, I didn't grow up with my father," said Hammond, who "quite possibly" will write his own book someday. "I got into it pretty much on my own. He was always enthusiastic about things he produced. He always loved blues. When I started as a professional, he said, 'Oh, man that was a big mistake.' I mean, he knew the business. But I was determined.

"People say, 'Tell me all about your father,' as if 48 years (his own career) isn't enough. He was a very dynamic guy who did an awful lot for the world of music."

Hammond didn't really get the blues until he attended Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, as an art student.

"It was close enough to Chicago," Hammond said of the Midwestern electric blues breeding ground. "So I was going with guys in cars and making trips there. When I got a guitar (a 1935 National), everything changed."

After spending the early '60s in New York's Greenwich Village folk scene - playing with everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Hooker - he moved to Los Angeles.

Hendrix and Eric Clapton briefly played in his band, and Hammond - who's collaborated with a long list of hall-of-fame types - recorded with Robbie Robertson, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson (later of The Band), and Mike Bloomfield before Dylan did.

He's always been a bluesman - a white musician who helped introduce his black role models to newer and younger audiences.

"That's where I'm at, man," he said. "That's all I ever wanted to be. A lot of seeds were sown early - since I was 7 and saw Big Bill Broonzy in 1949 in New York.

"In the '50s, it was Josh White, Sonny Terry, Leadbelly (Huddy Ledbetter) and those great folk-blues artists. In the mid-'50s, it was (radio disc jockey) Alan Freed's rock 'n' roll shows. I'd go for Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and just that whole rock 'n' roll scene.

"Then I heard Robert Johnson and the country blues of the '30s and '40s. By 1958 or so, it became really ingrained as my musical passion. It just turned me on completely."

Why?

"It's hard to explain in words, man," Hammond said, sounding satisfied but modest regarding his achievements. "It's just that feeling of, 'Wow. This is it.' And to find out about this incredible history of artists. It's a rich tradition, and so much of it was recorded. It gave me a new world." It's a world of artistic contentment.

"Blues to me, you know, has its finger on the pulse," Hammond said. "It's like real life. It's honest and deep as the sky is blue and the ocean is blue. With the blues, there's depth there and phenomenal artists who have come before.

"I live my life. I play my gigs as part of the tradition. I'm very fortunate to be where I am today: having the chance to play as often as I do and getting to go all over the world. I have no complaints."

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