Grateful Dead Music Forum

Has anyone here ever put together a Hot Tuna tribute, or an act that plays a lot of HT? I've been practicing with a bass player on a lot of Hot Tuna songs and we are starting to look around for places to play (in Northern Virginia and surrounding areas). Our set list will be about half Tuna, a quarter other country blues (Rev. Gary Davis, Blind Boy Fuller, etc.) and a quarter acoustic GD covers. The bass player plays in a GD cover band.

Has anyone tried something like this, and if so, how well did it work, what sort of places did you play, etc.?

Who cares if anyone has ever done this before..Go for it. Sounds like a great idea to me. If you do it well people will dig it.

Cool idea !
Post some music sometime

We do a handful of Tuna tunes - a lot more of them when we play acoustic. Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning, Hesitation Blues, 99 Year Blues, SF Bay Blues, and a couple others. Sounds like an awesome idea - go4it!

Poor Peter wrote:Who cares if anyone has ever done this before..Go for it. Sounds like a great idea to me.

agreed! although, my favorite Hot Tuna that I've seen is with acoustic guitar plugged in, and acoustic never goes over as well on a Friday or Saturday night as electric does, IMO. Would hate to see the best part left out, but it is what it is. My original thought was three sets (acoustic to open and two electric, maybe set two all Hot Tuna, set three originals/covers.) Post some vids if you end up doing it and can get someone to video you and upload to youtube or something.

I would think you could do real well in an art-friendly section of a town like New Haven CT on a Tuesday night, maybe try to get a regular weekly thing going? Honestly, I've never even done gigs in a full band (yet), that's all from a spectator perspective.

Sounds cool though.

At the last student recital at my school, I played "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning" into "Mann's Fate". They go pretty well together as a medley, I started out with Lamps, embellished a bit, made my way into Mann's Fate, jammed on that for a while, and then brought it back to Lamps... I ended the piece with the fast single note descending line from Lamps. As far as fingerstyle goes, Jorma is one of my very favorite players of all time, up there with Mississippi John Hurt and Gary Davis himself. Definitely my favorite out of the people still playing today, with honorable mention to Stefan Grossman.

Tony6Strings wrote:At the last student recital at my school, I played "Keep Your Lamps Trimmed and Burning" into "Mann's Fate". They go pretty well together as a medley, I started out with Lamps, embellished a bit, made my way into Mann's Fate, jammed on that for a while, and then brought it back to Lamps... I ended the piece with the fast single note descending line from Lamps. As far as fingerstyle goes, Jorma is one of my very favorite players of all time, up there with Mississippi John Hurt and Gary Davis himself. Definitely my favorite out of the people still playing today, with honorable mention to Stefan Grossman.

Ever hear of Leo Kottke? Check him out, he will blow you away.

Poor Peter wrote: Ever hear of Leo Kottke? Check him out, he will blow you away.

+1 remarkable player

A follow up from the OP...we have actually played a couple of gigs in the DC Metro area. Here are three clips from a party in Frederick MD. I'll try to post a few more later on...

Hesitation Blues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qatnLG8H5AY

Search My Hearrt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qyNRb2xEMM

Keep Your Lamps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw0vFPNc ... e=youtu.be

Along with the Dead tunes, we play Candyman,Hesitation Blues, Keep yer lamps trimmed, some Ry Cooder, St. James Infirmary, Fixin to die rag, the Viper, Rollin In My Sweet Arms, You Ain't goin nowhere, the older the the better.

We play pubs, restaurants, garden nurseries, neighborhood parties.

We get a great response in spite of our refusal to play classic rock, a single Beatles song, or take any requests at all.

The key to the Hot Tuna tunes is commitment and power. You gotta dig in to make them move!

Poor Peter wrote:Who cares if anyone has ever done this before..Go for it.

I agree that you should go for it but be prepared for an uphill battle.

Will likely require considerable more effort finding gigs and extensive marketing to find pockets of appropriate music fans.

Not saying don't do it, but get ready to put in a lot more work in those areas that say the typical cover band.

GuesstimatedProphet wrote:A follow up from the OP...we have actually played a couple of gigs in the DC Metro area. Here are three clips from a party in Frederick MD. I'll try to post a few more later on...

Hesitation Blues: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qatnLG8H5AY

Search My Hearrt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qyNRb2xEMM

Keep Your Lamps: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jw0vFPNc ... e=youtu.be

Love it, thanks for the links!

Some more clips in case anyone is interested:


Big River http://youtu.be/WDSS-LL3eCw

Hesitation Blues http://youtu.be/6tnO3-d2r3c


Winin' Boy Blues http://youtu.be/q1dRJ2cOm6E



Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out http://youtu.be/W9jBjAhz-lE

And three more:

Don't You Leave Me Here http://youtu.be/K__HjU4DItk


100%Beat It On Down The Line http://youtu.be/vnI_a4sRydA


Keep Your Lamps Trimmed And Burning http://youtu.be/yQFWKK8UyF8

John's a great bass player - I gotta catch your guys next gig!