Microwave Dave Day: Preview of concert honoring Huntsville bluesman and a look ... - AL.com
It hit Dave Gallaher for the first time as he was sitting on Tuscaloosa bluesman Johnny Shines' couch one day in 1976: To really get it right a musician can't just play the blues that person must actually inhabit the blues. Gallaher had sought out Shines, who was working as an upholsterer at the time, for some guitar lessons. Shines is known for "Black Spider Blues" and other songs he performed on the 1966 compilation album "Chicago/The Blues/Today. " and for being a travelling and musical companion of Robert Johnson, the author of such songs as "Crossroads" and the subject of one of music's darkest rumors: That Johnson sold his very soul to The Devil in exchange for virtuosic guitar skills. Gallaher brought an acoustic guitar to Shines home. "I sat on the couch and asked him a technical question, I think about playing slide guitar," Gallaher recalls now, "and he cranked up and started singing and playing with full energy at the top of his lungs as if I were an entire audience of people. Whether it's local small-room solo shows, like Mondays at soul-food spot Mamma Annie's, or playing big stages with The Nukes, his early-ZZ Top-level-oomph trio, like at Bike Week Daytona Beach or Huntsville's Panoply Arts Festival. "Anyone who has not played for an audience of children has missed out on one of the greatest experiences in life," Gallaher says. Source: www.al.com
