(Editor’s Note: Author L. Jaye B. is certainly one of the most interesting people I have ever met. Her way with words, her sense of the world around her, her ability to understand, love and create for the rest of us, stories and photographs about her life adventures. This marks only the beginning of her list of qualities. I am so pleased that she has decided to contribute stories to The Valley Voice from her current base in Mid-Coast Maine. I also feel honored and privileged to call “The Gypsy Blonde” my friend. Please follow her links provided below for more information.)
Story and Photo by L. Jaye B.
From Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia to Fredricton, New Brunswick, from Stowe, Vermont to Charleston, South Carolina, Delta Blues man Lil’ Dave Thompson is bringing the South’s best music along on his tour of the Eastern Seaboard. Pausing long enough to perform at Rockland’s Time Out Pub, Lil’ Dave served up a steaming audio plate of down home grits and cornbread Mississippi Blues to a hungry and appreciative audience.
Aptly opening up with “Got My Suitcase Packed,” from his 2002 release Come on Down to the Delta, the blues virtuoso kicked off the show with a fitting number for a man whose finger styling finesse has brought him from the back woods to tour the world.
“Got my suitcase packed, got to get away.
Got my suitcase packed, I’m ready to go
Where I’m going, nobody knows….”
With toes tapping and heads bobbing, the crowd was appreciatively courteous through the first song, but as the master segued into the cranking beat of Crayesque “Make a Fool of Me” the stationary audience wholeheartedly responded to his open invitation to jump up and get busy boogying a hole in the dance floor. From that moment on, the floor was packed at the Time Out, a good indication that the tunes and the beat are calling the timid and the brave to risk all and shake it up to the groove.
“Hey Baby, look what you’re doin’ to me
You’ve taken all my money, made a fool of me.
All your friends, they say you’re no good for me
But like a fool, I’m too blind to see.
I’ve done things for you that I couldn’t do for myself
Here you want to mess around with someone else
If that’s the way you want to be,
Then go ahead, and make a fool of me.”
So much about the Blues is about love. Love lost, love found; love knock kneed, slammed flat, shook up, turned on its’ head, inside out, backwards and upside down. It croons about lovesick hearts wringing themselves out until there’s no hope of love left to be found. The Blues defines its angst with a danceable beat, one that given the right circumstances, gives us a reason to grin, dance, shimmy and shake our way back to center, to right ourselves and begin anew in the drama of its’ pursuit.
Dancing has a way of bringing the heart’s lament back in line. As feet shuffle and hips hustle, something happens to lift the spirits, pumping endorphins through the blood until there isn’t any room for sadness. If anyone was glum, it wasn’t evident on the Time Out Pub dance floor. After stoically standing still to capture video of the show, finally the beat got into this journalist, and I found myself putting down the camera, taking off the boots and elbowing my way out to shimmy on the dance floor. I don’t remember much after that.
Wrapping up the end of the tour that began in the Midwest in January, Thompson and his Big Love Band are set to gig at Terra Blues in New York City tonight, and at Blue 5 in Roanoke VA on Friday night, February 12. My Charleston music friends will be glad to see him take the stage at Fiery Ron’s Home Team BBQ on Sullivan’s Island before wrapping up this leg of the tour February 20 at the Carroll County Market in Carrollton MS, and at Rick’s in Tyler Texas on February 26. The band will take a month long break before gearing back up for the Florida leg of the tour.
Whatever you do, if you’re in any of these cities when Lil’ Dave and his Big Love Band play, do everything you can to show up. It’ll keep you dancing, keep you warm and show you as good a time as can be had while singing the Blues.
Dave’s latest CD is “Deep in the Night” released in 2008. He generously gave me a copy of his 2005 release, “Got to Get Over You,” and I’ve been dancing to it repeatedly because it’s packed with infectiously danceable blues boogie that just can’t ignore. It’s as good to make dinner to as it is to clean house to, as long as one doesn’t drown it out with the noise of the vacuum cleaner.
Previous releases also include the 2002 release, “Come on Down to the Delta,” and the 2000 offering, “Epitaph.” His first record was recorded on Fat Possum Records, titled, “Little Dave and The Big Love Band.”
Lil’ Dave’s music can be purchased online at his Amazon store http://www.amazon.com/Dave-Thompson/e/B000AR7Y1G/ref=ac_dpt_sa_link.
Lil’ Dave is also featured in a December 3 Podcast interview about his latest CD, “Deep in the Night.”
http://a1artistspotlight.com/2009/12/03/116-lil’-dave-thompson-–-deep-in-the-night/
His website is http://www.lildavethompson.com/
For touring information, contact Road Dawg Touring Company http://www.road-dawg.com/
Time Out Pub is the official venue for Blues in Rockland and the Mid Coast. Upcoming shows lead up to the North Atlantic Blues Festival, held annually the second weekend of July in Rockland.
For festival information, go to www.northatlanticbluesfestival.com.
Upcoming shows at The Time Out Pub include:
Harper on Feb. 15
Joe Louis Walker Feb 22
Chris Beard March 1
Debbie Davies on March 8
Sue Foley with Peter Karp on March 15.
The cover charge at Time Out ranges from $10-$15 at the door.
Time Out Pub
275 Main Street Rockland Maine
All shows 7:00 – 10:00 PM
CALL 207-593-9336 or
e-mail bluesman@midcoast.com
Full restaurant and bar
Non-smoking shows
Here are the links for Gypsy Blonde
http://sites.google.com/site/gypsyblondereport/GypsyBlondeReport
http://gypsyblondereport.blogspot.com/2010/02/lil-dave-thompson-serving-up-south-in.html
need to knaw whos up next Monday. thanks Paul