The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #62124 Message #1002763
Posted By: Alice
15-Aug-03 - 12:00 PM
Thread Name: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
Here is a bit more from the news coverage:
Des Moines Register music critic Kyle Munson reviews Dean's performance last night at a nightclub in Des Moines:
He sat on a stool in the sweaty, cozy club next to one of his staunch supporters, seasoned acoustic bluesman Michael "Hawkeye" Herman. While plucking away, Dean bit his lower lip in concentration and stared at his left hand as it moved up and down the neck of the guitar.
The governor loosened up after a switch to harmonica. He stood up and blew raging solos during "Dean for America," a new campaign sing-along written by Herman for the occasion. He even started shouting into the microphone like a preacher man. "You got the power!" he roared to his constituents....
"The audience doesn't scare me, my playing scares me a little," Dean said shortly before showtime, at his campaign headquarters just two blocks from the club.
The Washington Post also covers the gig:
Dean has taken lessons in neither harmonica nor guitar. He taught himself to play both instruments years ago, and has played in public only once before (at a folly put on by Vermont legislators).
He has had no time to practice for this gig. He just met the man he'll be playing with, blues musician and Iowa native Mike "Hawkeye" Herman, about an hour before. They jammed for a few minutes back at campaign headquarters (Bob Dylan's "Don't Think Twice, It's All Right" and the Animals' "House of the Rising Sun"). Now Dean is shaking his head as he walks into Blues on Grand, a low-ceilinged and dark room just west of downtown.
"This is a very frightening thing," Dean says. "This could be worse than that debate in South Carolina." ---
I listened to the audio of the blues harp song Hawkeye Herman wrote, and god, it was quite cringing to listen to the beginning with Dean on harmonica... they should have let the poor guy rehearse before he had to perform it. He warmed up to be fine at the end, but he had alot of guts to go out there and get through the start of it.