St. Louis raised, Vancouver based bluesman Jim Byrnes returned to the Geomatic Attic, April 9 to give another crash course in classic country and rural blues music.
I missed the opening act, but got comfortable in time to see Byrnes be lead to the stage where lead guitarist and Black Hen Records founder Steve Dawson, sat waiting.
Together they provided an entertaining history lesson of the blues, and this time, classic country.
The duo, with Dawson playing awesome slide guitar, began with an old song first recorded by Tampa Red, then moved into a couple “odes to prohibition,” including an excellent version of the Mississippi Sheiks’ “Bootlegger’s Blues.”
Dawson switched to a lap steel guitar for this one.
They played a lot of country music from musicians like Hank Snow, Mel Tillis and Buck Owens. But they shone when they did more jazz tinged songs like my personal favourite, Byrnes’ cover of “My Walking Stick,”which he prefaced by telling a story about the songwriter Irving Berlin then saying the song took on a whole new meaning when he lost both his legs in a car accident.
