To Thread - Forum Home

The Mudcat Café TM
https://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=62124
9 messages

Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar

14 Aug 03 - 10:30 PM (#1002400)
Subject: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: Alice

OK, so it is me talking about Howard Dean again, but this time it is a MUSIC thread.

Here is the story from Reuters with photos of Howard Dean playing blues at Blues on Grand in Des Moines.

== click The Blues and Howard Dean.

'Dean said previously he taught himself how to play the guitar when he was 15, and was going to perform on "sheer nerve."'


"I've only played once in my life, when I was sober," he said in an earlier interview. Asked if he was sober for his performance, Dean responded, "I haven't had a drink for 22 years."


14 Aug 03 - 11:07 PM (#1002411)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: GUEST

California's governor plays the skin-flute.


14 Aug 03 - 11:45 PM (#1002429)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: GUEST,Guest Too

Juvenile and tacky, Guest. Get back in your sand box and stay there.


15 Aug 03 - 12:03 AM (#1002438)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: Bill D

durn! Now we have to vote for him!..*grin*...who'd a-thunk it!


15 Aug 03 - 12:19 AM (#1002443)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: Amos

Hey -- that ain't just some playing -- the boy is wearing a THUMBPICK!!! That is my kinda Guvnuh!!!   

Anyone who can wear a guitar with a little style like that picture is qualified for the White House in my book.


A


15 Aug 03 - 04:19 AM (#1002498)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: katlaughing

That's kewl! I'd already decided on him and/or Kucinich. I am really liking what I see and hear of Dean, though.

Thanks, Alice.


15 Aug 03 - 10:56 AM (#1002714)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Folksinger Sherman Lee Dillon is running for Mississippi Governor.

http://www.dillon4gov.com

Sincerley,
Gargoyle


15 Aug 03 - 12:00 PM (#1002763)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: Alice

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.

Alice


16 Aug 03 - 05:06 AM (#1003119)
Subject: RE: Gov Dean plays blues harp and guitar
From: GUEST,.gargoyle

Utah's Sen. Hatch has written over three hundred songs and has published 10 CDs.

Sincerely,

Gargoyle