Sonny Landreth at B.B. King's

I subscribe to TDF, Theater Discount Fund, which offers discount tickets to lots of theatrical, musical, and performance events in the city. To join you have to work in the performing arts, or for a non-profit organization, and the hospital I work at is non-profit. I saw a listing for a musician named Sonny Landreth performing tonight at B.B. King's in Times Square on 42nd Street.  I read up on him and he sounded interesting, so despite the fact it was in Times Square, Melanie and I thought we'd check him out.

Interesting guy. He's 62 so he's been around for a while. He's what I'd call a musician's musician, or a guitar player's guitar player. That was both good and bad. He's got technique all over the place, but I didn't feel a lot of soul in his playing. If I was talking about a jazz musician, I'd say he didn't swing. 

He plays these unusual and interesting atmospheric sounds, evocative, moody, and clearly a signature sound for him. Musically he reminds me a bit of Steve Howe from "Yes" because he picks with a thumb pick on an electric which is a bit like Howe's acoustic playing. But he combines an ever-present slide into the mix which is an interesting combination of picking and bluesy smear. I also heard some David Gilmour in there, and a nice dose of Louisiana swamp Voodoo boogie.

I liked a lot of what he does, but I wasn't blown away. Maybe it's because I heard him on a school night so I had to behave myself, but mostly I think it's because though he has loads of technique, he's a bit light on hip-swaying toe-tapping soul.

I looked him up on Wikipedia and here's what they say about him:

Landreth is best known for his slide playing, having developed a technique where he also frets notes and plays chords and chord fragments behind the slide while he plays. Landreth plays with the slide on his little finger, so that his other fingers have more room to fret behind the slide. He's also known for his right-hand technique, which involves tapping, slapping, and picking strings, using all of the fingers on his right hand. He wears a special thumb pick/flat pick hybrid on his thumb so he can bear down on a pick while simultaneously using his finger style technique for slide.

It was a fun night out, especially for the middle of the week, and though Landreth is good - very good - I wasn't blown away.