Ekoda Club Festival-Country Blues Heaven at Live In Buddy June 20, 2009

[Rambling Steve Gardner]

The Country Blues Heaven Festival was held this past weekend, June 20, 2009, in Ekoda at LIVE IN BUDDY. More than a 120 country blues fans turned out for the big doin’s which were put together by the masters of the Ekoda Club, one of the real, long time,hard core blues joints in the Tokyo area.
The event began at 6:30 and ran late featuring six country blues acts including myself and Shinjiro Mori.

ROIKI was described by the night’s MC as the first batter up. He was and he had a solid hit with a house full of fans some of whom sent him chocolate and strong drink, which he kindly shared with the rest of us back stage. He opened the show by giving his National guitar and the audience a great workout. After several tunes that ran close to Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas, Roiki put his slide back into his bag and put his guitar down. He closed his set with a nice gospel kind of number, “I Want To Do Something For You”. By the last verse he had the whole crowd clapping, stomping and singing along.

LONE WOLF ZODA took the stage next. He represented Japan in the Memphis Blues Challenge a few years back and was decked out on this night in vintage duds with suspenders, tap shoes and his old Gibson guitar. He played a great set based on the blind giants of country blues-Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake and Blind Willie McTell. In fact it was an English and a Japanese version of McTell’s “Wabash Rag” to which he tap danced off the stage and into the crowd while playing his guitar, sometimes holding it behind his head and dancing in true minstrel show style.

FUJINAWA TETSUYA opened his set with some nice easy going slide numbers played on his silver National Tri-cone, which he told us that he bought off of Bob Brozman a few years ago when he was Bob’s Japan Tour rhythm guitar player. Tetsuya played a nice, controlled version of Blind Blake’s “Police Dog Blues” and then played a nice train tune that took the crowd from Tokyo west to Osaka with all of the stops in between. During that powerful number his big E string snapped out of the tail piece but to his credit he never missed a beat. He ended his set with an acoustic number by that old time country blues man, “Jimmi Hendrex”. Tetsuya played some washboard on the encore number as well.

DELTA MASATO KANEDA, the only other left handed guitar player on the stage other than me, took the crowd down into that deep delta mud that IS the root of so much country blues. He beat tunes out on his old box with the strings clamped down about half way up the neck. He picked and used his slide to deliver some nice versions of standards like, “You Got To Move” and “Jesus on the Mainline”, a song dear to my heart since our recording of it down in New Orleans last year for our record, “Walking The Dog”. Masato had a good, strong voice and seemed to have taken much influence from Johnny Shines, one of my blues heroes too. He finished off his set in “Chicago” with a version of Elmore James’ interpretation of the Robert Johnson number,”I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom”.

KOJI OUCHI from Kyushu, sat down on stage wearing a stingy brim hat perched a top of his head, a towel hangin’ around his neck and with an old acoustic guitar across his knees. He looked like he had just walked off of some Houston, Texas back street, where he might have been sharing a a drink and a few thoughts on short haired women with the ghost of Lightnin’ Hopkins . Koji, who once billed himself as Lightnin’ Ouchi, does a great imitation and some good versions of Lightnin’ all the way down to slurred pronunciation, Lightnin’ guitar phrases and timing. But on this show, I thought that he really shined bright when he sang a few numbers in his native Kyushu dialect about his mother and father. His real feeling came through. Koji really connected with the crowd even though most admitted that they had no idea what he was singing about. But that is usually the same in English for most of us isn’t it?

To close the show, it was SHINJIRO MORI, and my self, STEVE GARDNER. We played several tunes that the crowd seemed to respond well to and that had not be touched on by the other players that evening, especially our version of the Slim Harpo classic, “Scratch My Back”, Robert Johnson’s, “Stones In My Pass way” , and my Led Belly inspired version of “Midnight Special” along with the classic “Take This Hammer”.

(We were the quietist act that night even though Shinjiro played his home made reso-electric guitar through his marshal amp. I thought that since this was a country blues festival that I would just put my harp in the rack and play my National Tri-cone with a mic. I will rethink that plan before my next time out. Most of the other fellows were fairly electrified and no one around with a fire axe...)

At the end of our set, we called all of the other musicians, some of the sound techs and a guest or to, up to the stage to join us on the old Ann Cole classic, “Got My Mojo Working”, which is a real crowd shout out, sing along favorite here in Japan.

Well there we were, crowded all over the stage, some of us playing, some dancing, Zoda Tap dancing, Tetsuya playing the washboard and four of five guest harmonica players wrestling for time on the microphone. That’s when it happened. From the bar running as though he had just glanced the Devil over his shoulder in the mirror, an older gent dashed through the crowd and right up onto the stage and got down on his knees in front of me begging a questions right in the middle of the final number.

He was struggling to remain vertical but each time he leaned in close to shout his question to me he kept tipping over forward and down like a pelican drinking a martini, only to pop back up and shout a gain. After he tried several times and lost most of the small change that had been hiding out in his front shirt pocket, at last over all of the stage and crowd noise I heard his desperate plea. “Please! Please tell me....how...to...spell....MISSISSIPPI!!!!” “What?” Then before I could answer him, the bouncers were helping the fellow off of the stage and back to his seat. I started laughing so much that I had to jump up and try to get the stage back in line especially before everyone was too distracted to sing along or before any more enquiring minds short circuited and presented me with more spelling challenges.

The crowd got to their feet clapping and shouting to a few last rounds of the call and response verses “Got My Mojo Workin”. We left the stage as the house lights came up. The beers were poured and as the gear was packed away most of us agreed that all and all Country Blues Heaven was a good event. I am ever grateful to the masters of the Ekoda Club who put on the festival and invited us to be a part of it along with a thanks to my fellow musicians and all of the great blues fans who really made it a great night!!

Thanks Everyone! AND MISSISSIPPI is spelled with 4 i’s and 4 s’s!

[Charlie "Still Ugly" Cole]

Hey man, great to see the Minister of Fun still keepin' the good times
rollin' in the big T, looks like everybody got quite a show. As for the
guy who needed a spelling lesson, well at least he wasn't crying "Ride me
like a pony," as in days gone by. Keep that bus rollin' buddy and don't
let anybody off unless they know the secret password.
Still ugly,
Charlie