Robert
Bradley's Blackwater Surprise
Waterfront
Blues Festival
Tom
McCall Waterfront Park, 282-0555
7:45
pm Friday, June 30
$3-$5
plus two cans
of food for the Oregon Food Bank
Natron
and the Natrons, Tailfins, Jeff Johnson and the Telephones,
Dickel Brothers
Berbati's
Pan
231
SW Ankeny St., 248-4579
Show
starts at 9:45; Natron resurrected at midnight
Friday,
June 30
$5
Robert
Lockwood Jr.
Waterfront
Blues Festival
Tom
McCall Waterfront Park, 282-0555
3
pm Sunday, July 2
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1 Strange
Brew
Robert Bradley's
Blackwater Surprise
Dig Me Out: Natron returns from Hades with the soul of
the blues.About eight years ago, Alabama-born bluesman Robert
Bradley was playing guitar and singing for cash in a Detroit
park. Brothers Michael and Andrew Nehra heard him through
an open window of their recording studio. Lucky day.
The Nehras convinced Bradley, blind and just turned 50,
to record with them. Not much later, Robert Bradley's Blackwater
Surprise cut its first album and hit the road.
Now, a second record--Time to Discover--is grabbing
a fair amount of attention, thanks to heavy rotation on
MTV and some pretty damn decent music. Willamette Week
talked to Robert Bradley by phone.
WW: How long have you been playing music for
money?
Robert Bradley: Playin' on the street, I started on the
street at 26, so 'bout 24 years...but I started studyin'
music at the school for the blind when I was young.
What instruments did you
originally study on?
On piano. Guitar I picked up just for hustling. Busking
around, couldn't carry no piano.
When you were busing around the country, did you have
a favorite Greyhound route?
Eighty West. Yeah, goes from Chicago, to Des Moines, to
Omaha, to Cheyenne, to Denver. I might fly out that way,
or sometime I would go from Salt Lake out to Reno down to
Sacramento, then on to San Francisco.
Was there one city that you
liked the best?
Naw, all of them was about the same, but Michigan--the
Midwest--was probably the most lucrative when it comes down
to finances. But all of it was good to me. I made the most
in Detroit 'cause I lived up there more. But Chicago's good,
Denver, and San Francisco and Orange County in California.
Yeah, lots of rich folks in
Orange County.
Well, the rich people don't give you shit. It's the regular
folk. Rich folk don't give up nuthin', that's why they rich.
I saw that Kid Rock did a couple of tracks with you
on your new record. Do you like his kind of music--rock
and hip-hop in
general?
I listen to it when it's somethin' different. But most
of it's the same old shit. Not too much originality in it
all, that's why I don't really get into it. Hip-hop, most
of it, I could pass on it. If I hear a '60s or '70s sound
in the beat I'll stay there, but it's mostly for those 12,
13, 14-year-old kids; you grow out of it.
If you could be any musician in any period, who would
that be?
I guess my favorite would be Otis Redding. I like the way
he sings, and I always keep his records around. I just like
Otis.
--Sacha Webley
2
Blues for a Zombie Robot
Natron and the
Natrons
When Nathan Fasold first materialized on Portland's stages
a few months ago (under the name Natron), he slung stripped-and-spanked
blues-rock alone. Sort of. He had help from his robot friends--like
Hammond Hammerhead, a beat-box combining a vintage rhythm
machine and various thrift-store-scored parts, assembled
to look like a '50s B-movie android. Picture the spawn of
Jon Spencer and Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater
3000. And then mix in a little P.T. Barnum, Alfred Hitchcock
and Screamin' Jay Hawkins. Nate's got a knack for self-promotion,
a showman's instinct that gets him locked in a coffin
this Friday at Berbati's.
At noon, Natron climbs into a custom-made wooden casket,
which is then hammered shut with 2-inch nails. A Plexiglas
lid lets the curious peek in as he lies in state. Happy
hour arrives; the Dickel Brothers pluck out their Ol' Time
mountain-top odes to whiskey and work. Finally, midnight
strikes. The coffin is crowbarred open, Natron emerges and,
surrounded by photos of blues legends, proceeds to call
up their spirits with his new three-piece band, the Natrons.
Will he succeed? Can he channel the ghosts of Delta past
through his hip-shaking frame? Or will he suffer a suffocating
death in plain view of powerless onlookers? Mesdames
et messieurs, surely you know a true showman never gives
away the secret of the ending...?!
--John Graham
3 Steady Rollin'
Man
Robert Lockwood Jr.
When Robert Lockwood Jr. was just a boy, his mother made
her own deal with the devil. She took on the ultimate doomed
lover, Faustian bluesman Robert Johnson. For young Lockwood,
Johnson was a father figure and guru. The boy took up the
guitar, absorbing everything he could from the tragic Johnson
and inheriting the lifestyle of the itinerant blues musician
just as a blood son would the family farm.
At 85, Lockwood's still sowing seeds. That such a root
to the blues' bloody source still exists is fodder for musicologists'
theme papers. That Lockwood's music is still vital speaks
volumes about the emotional gut punch of the blues.
Lockwood's amassed the career-man's résumé
that death denied Johnson: partnerships with Sonny Boy Williamson
in the '40s, Little Walter in the '50s, everyone in the
'60s and, coming full circle, former Johnson partner Johnny
Shines in the '80s. He's been a satellite to Johnson's meteor,
a steady rollin' man ignoring the hellhounds on the trail.
When I saw him play in '87, Lockwood was every bit the
grandfatherly bluesman. But when he dropped his head, brought
his guitar to life and let out his low levee moan, you could
be forgiven for imagining the ghost of music past. Technically,
Lockwood's rich baritone shares little with Johnson's near
falsetto. But the blues is a feeling. And both can send
a chill.
--Bill Smith
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