John Hammond

April 1, 2001

The Ark

Ann Arbor, MI

John Hammond pulled into Ann Arbor last Sunday for intimate show at the Ark to support his latest album, Wicked Grin. This was my first time seeing John Hammond live although I have been an admirer for sometime. Wicked Grin was produced by Tom Waits and the album features all songs (except 1) written by Waits as well. I had been listening to the album for several weeks and I was ready to hear them performed live.

Jay, Nancy and I grabbed an early dinner at Ashley’s on Main Street accompanied by bottles of Chimay (an expensive treat). That put us in a perfect mood for the show. We found out seats at the Ark, which is one of America’s premiere live music venues. There was no opening act and soon an announcer introduced the band.

Hammond looked healthy and fit and the whole band seemed to be in good sprits. Hammond played a weird little Guild guitar for most of the show, but it sounded great. He was accompanied by Stephen Hodges on drums, Frank Carillo on guitar, Larry Taylor on bass and the great Augie Meyers on keyboards. The band wasted no time in launching into a full set of Waits songs. Every song was a highlight but I remember "2:19", "Shore Leave" and "Big Black Mariah" particularly standing out.

On "Buzz Fledderjohn", which is a rare Waits song, Hammond switched from the Guild to a National Steel. Hodges' drumming was absolutely amazing all night, but on this song his minimalist approach and bizarre percussion were especially impressive.

On "Jockey Full of Bourbon" and several other songs Augie Meyers (frequent Doug Sahm collaborator) witched from keyboards to accordion that added a wonderfully atmospheric touch to the music.

Hammond prefaced his rendition of the new Waits song, "Fanning Street" by telling a story about Waits playing him the song for the first time. He thought it was a good song, but that he couldn’t pull off singing it. Waits convinced him that he could and the results are fantastic. It is sort of a slow country song and Hammond nailed the vocals, both on the record and in this live performance.

These interpretations really illuminated a side of Waits work that people don’t always see. That is that his compositions are very blues based and owe an enormous amount to people like Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters. Hammond, being a bluesman himself, picks right up on those aspects of the songs and uses them as touchstones for his own unique versions. It’s really not hard to imagine Howlin’ Wolf doing "Heart Attack and Vine".

For the first encore the band played "Cold Water" off of Waits latest album, Mule Variations. It was a great version and one of several Waits songs that Hammond performed live, but that didn’t make the final cut for Wicked Grin(Gun Street Girl was another notable example).

For the second encore Hammond returned to the stage with just his National Steel and played a stunning version of Robert Johnson’s "Walkin’ Blues" that left the crowd happy.

It was a great night of music played by a great band. I can only hope that Waits and Hammond continue their working relationship or at least release some of the outtakes from Wicked Grin.