HARMONICA SHAH AND HOWARD GLAZER
Fri-Sat, Dec 3-4 (doors 8 pm, show 9 pm)
Yardbird Suite (Corner of 102 St. & 86 Ave.)
Tickets: members $18; guests $22
Info: 432-0428

When people think post-War, urban blues, they think Chicago, not Detroit. But Detroit has produced its’ share of talented blues musicians: John Lee Hooker was born in Mississippi but moved to Detroit and recorded there starting in 1943; Big Maceo, Johnnie Bassett, Bettye Lavette, Eddie Kirkland, and Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport all called Detroit home. The Detroit variation is raw, with a harder edge than the sound usually associated with Chicago blues.

That edge is apparent in the music of Harmonica Shah and Howard Glazer. Shah’s songs and harmonica playing are visceral, with grit, realism, and directness. Guitarist Glazer is the perfect foil, providing just the right accompaniment, laying back when necessary, then jumping out front with a searing lead.

"I grew up in Detroit, in a very musical family", says Glazer from his home, "Both my parents were musicians; my father played in a Latin big band, and my mother taught music. I started playing trumpet when I was nine or ten, and then, when my older brother got tired of his guitar, I took it over." It was his brother that also turned him on to the blues. "I was listening to rock ’n’ roll, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, everything on the radio in the late ’60s when my brother played Hooker and Heat for me. I was hooked." While other kids were listening to rock guitar gods of the day, Glazer was picking up John Lee Hooker records, then Johnny Winter and Muddy Waters recordings.

"I guess you could say I come from a rock background, though. The first blues show I ever saw was B.B. King, but it was a real polished show with horns and everything and didn’t really catch my attention," recalls Glazer. "The first real blues show I remember was Albert King on a cold winter night, when I saw him playing through an amp that shouldn’t have given him the sound he was getting, but it did."

Through the early ’80s, Glazer played the Detroit area and eventually wound up with a house gig at a club called The Soup Kitchen every Tuesday. That’s where he met Harmonica Shah. "I had heard of him before, and he would come in and jam on Tuesday nights. Management asked us to come up with a blues show to put in the room and we did. Eventually we both got fired. I ended up moving to Chicago for about four years and learned a lot about the blues and working in the bigger clubs there. Shah and I got back together about five years ago and things have been going pretty well since then."

The duo has released a pair of well-received albums, with the latest, Tell it to Your Landlord, recorded in Glazers’ 16-track basement studio. It was done in true blues tradition. "We record like we play", asserts Glazer, "We just set everything up and go... most everything is done on the spot, on the first or second take, live off the floor." Shah wrote 11 of the 12 songs on the disc, and those songs are pure, contemporary blues. Tracks like the "Welfare Shoes Blues," "I Heard You Was at the Casino," and others mix real life situations with humour and stunning interplay between Shah and Glazer. The recording was shopped around to Andrew Galloway from Electro-Fi Records who, "Loved it and put it out right away on his label."

The pair has been touring steadily for the last four years, but rarely make it out west. "Yeah," says Glazer, "It’s funny, but we’ve been to Europe more times than we’ve been to the Western States. We’ve done six tours of Europe and, in fact, we just got back last week from Latvia, the Czech Republic, and Poland. We played three festivals and did a bunch of small theatres in between. In the last three years we’ve been to Australia, Asia, Sweden; basically all around the world."

Local’s got rhythm

Joining Harmonica Shah and Howard Glazer this weekend at the Yardbird is the rhythm section of drummer Jeff Lisk and bassist Rich Stenson. Lisk hails from Chicago but has been in Edmonton for the last year and a half. "I’ve always loved Canada and the support that Canada has for music and musicians," Lisk says. "I first came up here in the ’80s, backing people like Joe Kelly, and now I’m back for good. My wife has her work here, and I’m getting a chance to be part of the music scene." Like most drummers who have made a career out of playing, Lisk does not see himself as just a "blues" or a "jazz" drummer.

"I’m just a drummer", he asserts, "I like Latin, jazz, even Merle Haggard... it’s my job to look around and see what’s happening and make it better by following the band leader’s groove." Bassist Rich Stenson, who worked in Austin, Texas and New York before coming back home to Edmonton is his partner in the rhythm section. "Rich and I worked with Tim Lee for about six months, and right now we’re very excited to be working with a real up-and-coming guitarist on the local scene, Barry Campbell. We’ll be with him December 10th and 11th at the Back Stage.