Kat Danser has a whole lot of blues and anew CD as she showed a decent sized crowd at the Geomatic Attic, Oct. 18.
But first Lethbridge got a treat as uber-producer and multi-instrumentalist Steve Dawson got to play a brief opening set before joining the rest of Danser’s tight band.
Dawson, who is in Lethbridge recording at Leroy Stagger]s studio until returning to the Geomatic Attic with Birds of Chicago on Oct. 
30, opened with a stunningly beautiful instrumental from his latest CD “Lucky Hand.”
He noted because the songs are all instrumentals, he could name them whatever he wanted, so said he named them after locations within 100 km of his Nashville studio.
He only played a couple from the new CD, but focused instead, on older blues material including Gid Taylor and the Skillet Lickers’ ‘Henhouse Door,’ which he noted he loved because his studio is called the Henhouse. He showed off his encyclopedic blues knowledge, but when he blanked on the name of the lead guitarist of 1920s and 30s Georgian string band Gid Tanner and the Skillet Lickers, he was pleasantly surprised when one audience member informed him it was Riley Puckett. For his solo set he alternated between a couple of open tuned acoustics for slide guitar licks and crystalline harmonics and a Weissenborn Hawaiian guitar he plugged in and played on his lap. He told the story of Hermann Weissenborn who invented it and noted they weren’t very popular in traditional Hawaiian music because they weren’t loud enough until musicians like David Lindley rediscovered them, plugged them in and turned them up loud.
He played a couple of others from his back catalogue including a highlight he noted he recorded with the McCrary Sisters, whom he observed wouldn’t sing in anything if it wasn’t gospel, but convinced them to song on “Leave my name behind.”
He wound down his set by observing he usually gets a tribute show together in Vancouver and invites guests to play on a tribute his favourite albums, and played a Bob Dylan’s “Girl From the North Country” which Joe Cocker’s band played on “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” back in 1969 with Dylan himself in the audience.
He ended with another gorgeous instrumental from his new CD.
That might have
been a hard act to follow for Kat Danser and her band, but they were up to the challenge.
Their set focused on Danser’s new more upbeat blues Cd “Goin’ Gone.’
The smiling Danser chatted affable with the enraptured audience as she worked her way through the CD and told stories.
She sounding like a mix of Koko Taylor, Big Mama Thornton with a touch of Joan Jett.
Dawson alternated between a variety of different acoustic and electric guitars, his Weissenborn and a steel guitar for some of the more countryish songs. She was no slouch on guitar, but with Dawson and Jimmy Guiboche handling six string duties plus upright bassist Chris Brzezcki and drummer Kelly Kruse holding the back end down, she was free to strum rhythm and tell stories and rattle the occasional tambourine.
She joked about getting her PHD and boring people by talking about her dissertation about string bands in the south in the 20s-40s and talked about her love of being in the southern U.S. and listening to the many different types of blues music being played. She also talked about growing up in an abusive and highly religious home in rural Saskatchewan town and played a heartfelt, folky number called “My Town.”
She also noted how she remembered playing “Kansas City blues” for the first time in Lethbridge and recording for it for the new CD just based on the response she got for it.
In between stories, the band played a super tight set. Dawson and Guiboche traded guitar solos and the rhythm section was spot on.
One of many highlights was a Brownie McGhee song “Chevrolet Car,” for which she slapped a tambourine and wandered into the middle of the audience.
As promised in last week’s interview, she wound up the show with an excellent version of Ike and Tina Turner’s “Nutbush City Limits,” during which she also slapped the tambourine and wandered off the stage, letting the band finish off before a standing ovation brought her back to the stage for an encore.
