REVIEW from Jazz In Japan-Rambling Steve Gardner “Hesitation Blues” (Blues Cat Records 2012)

[Rambling Steve Gardner]

Rambling Steve Gardner “Hesitation Blues” (Blues Cat Records 2012)

Rambling Steve Gardner -- National Reso-phonic Guitar, harmonica, percussion Bill Steber – saw, banjo uke, mandolin, guitar Hisa Nakase – upright bass Yu Ojima – drums Nick Vitter – piano, B-3 organ Plus lots of backing vocals! “Hesitation Blues” is Tokyo-based Steve Gardner’s best CD yet. And they’re all great. On this CD, he digs even deeper into the blues by going back to some very enduring songs. Try the 1700s. With only two originals by Gardner, most of the tunes come from the oldest stream of blues tradition, before definitive recorded versions, when songs held life, energy and spontaneity, when live really was live. The CD is all, as Gardner writes on the back cover, “You know, ACOUSTIC STUFF!” The CD’s performance, clarity and passion are a reminder how in this age of computerized everything, genuine musical intensity still comes from the hands, feet and voices of human beings. Emotion drives music. Electronic gewgaws can just get in the way. The music on “Hesitation Blues,” then, has no hesitation. It’s fresh and new with each listen. “Hesitation Blues” kicks off the 20 songs with wry humor wrapped around the inner pain. That tune is a baby compared to several of the others like “Froggy Went A-Courtin,’ from the 1600s and from the late 1700’s, “Shady Grove” and “Careless Love” from the 1800s (all dates noted in the song list).  Perhaps the youngest tune is “16 Tons,” by Merle Travis in 1946. Yet, even that 20th century song is about a timeless unfairness--not getting a fair day’s pay for a fair day’s work and ending up deeper in debt. The conflict at the heart of the song is one that has hardly changed from the feudal age to the computer age. There’s plenty of fun on the CD, too, though, or as Gardner would say, “big leg fun.” “What’s the Matter with the Mill,” is about more than just grinding grain. “The Preacher and Bear” is hilarious. Gardner’s blues has as much upbeat as downbeat.  Jimmy Rogers’ “Waiting For a Train,” another “newer” song from 1928, puts scary-lonely chills up and down your back and makes you look around for whatever train, real or imagined, might be coming for you. “House of the Rising Son” gets infused with a quick tempo and plenty of horns, but the wild-night-out beat fades eerily at the end, slipping back into the darkness and silence.  Blues was never that far from spirituals and religious songs, and Gardner offers up “Jesus on the Main Line,” “Gospel Plow,” and “I Shall Not Be Moved.” “Gospel Plow” is especially stunning, infused with as much Saturday night revelry as Sunday morning reverence, which is only right since Saturday night, after all, runs right into Sunday morning if you let it.  Gardner’s choice of songs is not a way to resurrect long-lost gems, but a way of tapping into the oldest, purest vein of the blues to bring back a time when human connection and supple interaction were more highly valued and music had no agenda other than to inspire and affect listeners, and keep them, laughing and crying, and always tapping their feet.  www.stevegardner.info August 18, 2013