FALMOUTH – On Facebook, guitarist Delanie Pickering described what she and Johnny Hoy would be playing this past Saturday evening at Grumpy’s Pub in Falmouth as “rude acoustic blues.”
It was an apt description to one of the best shows I have seen in a long time. Johnny Hoy has long been a Cape Cod Wave favorite, dating back to years before Cape Cod Wave was even born. He was my first favorite local musician.
Hoy, a commercial fisherman who lives on Martha’s Vineyard, normally fronts his full band, the Bluefish. But for this show, he played with just Pickering, who is a master on guitar, while also playing a cymbal and a drum with her feet. For one song, she even added in a kazoo.
And her guitar was quite special. According to Hoy, she was playing a 1932 or ’33 National Resonator… It was invented to be very loud, before microphones.” In the hands of Pickering, it played some great rude acoustic blues.
On Saturday night, the two played “mostly our own versions of obscure blues, but a few originals” Hoy said after the show.
The song in this video is “My Little Machine,” an old blues song that evolved over many years. According to Hoy, this version was first done by John Lee Williamson (Sonny Boy Williamson #1). As a side note, I discovered that there were, in fact, two Sonny Boy Williamsons who were famous blues musicians.
The blues has an interesting history.
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