strumminsix wrote:I sorta dig him for sure. He's popular and rocky and bluesy. And for that I am grateful!! Too much pop crap and glad to have him popular!!
Regarding his constant homage to past greats isn't that what:
1) we are all doing here
2) so many greats did for the first half of their careers - think of all the early rockers inspired by the blues greats!
His GDTRFB was tastey! Some nice crosss between Dead, standard blues, and his own LA / JM blues thing.
I agree strummin, not necessarily my thing but the guy can play pretty darn well especially in an age where there aren't a lot of guys that can actually play that have achieved his level of popularity. I've seen him 4 times. The first three when he opened for Phil and Friends at the Filmore, Warfield, and SF Civic for the 2005 New Years run. Had his smaller band and while he was pretty much the same each night as far as I could tell but was also consistently good. I also saw him here in Blacksburg with Dave Matthews, for free, to provide a much needed distraction from some heavy, awful shit. It was his big, more pop band. They still played really well and had a slick live sound. I liked it but less than the smaller group, though very cool of him to do that.
That being said, I don't listen to him or have any of his music in my collection. So as much as I appreciated the times I saw him, his music doesn't necessarily speak to me. It's cool that he's doing some Dead, I read an interview with him in some guitar magazine and he mentioned that he was listening to a lot of Dead. Can't blame him there