|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
|
|
A D V E R T I S E M E N T
|
|
B&B Blues Room
By Ken Shimamoto
Since reopening last August, B&B’s Blues Room has had a rough time of it. Their location in an out-of-the-way spot on Riverside hasn’t helped. An attempt to start a Sunday night jam scene with fiery youngster Chris Zales fell flat. But the venue did manage to bring in rarely seen Dallasite Lucky Peterson for an extended engagement back in October.
Now big changes are afoot at B&B’s. Most notably, expatriate Connecticut Yankee turned ubiquitous Dallas scene-meister Hash Brown is taking over the jam slot, which has been rescheduled from Sunday to Thursday nights. (A minor quibble: The flyer for this gig seems to imply that Hash’s mentor, Zuzu Bollin, will be on the set. Since Bollin died in 1990, that would really be something to see.) Even better, a week from Saturday, Hash will be joined by the elusive (and still breathing) Texas bluesman Henry Qualls.
Now pushing 70, Qualls was discovered a decade ago playing electrified country blues at Saturday night house parties in his hometown of Elmo, 45 miles east of Big D. In 1994, he released a still-available c.d., Blues from Elmo, Texas, on the Dallas Blues Society’s label.
Qualls teethed on idiosyncratic stylists like Lightnin’ Hopkins and Frankie Lee Sims and plays a cheap guitar he bought at Montgomery Ward’s back in the 1950s. His sound is reminiscent of down-and-dirty contemporaries like CeDell Davis and the whole Fat Possum Records stable, although Qualls’ lyrics are less scatological than most of the Fat Possum posse’s. Anyone who’s enamored of punk-blues upstarts like Jon Spencer and the Immortal Lee County Killers et al should be sure to check him out.
Sat, Feb 15 at B&B Blues Room, 2001 S Riverside, FW. 817-535-5577.
Email this Article...
