Hokum Hotshots:
Peter Mason (guitar, tiple, vocals); Jim Murray (guitar, mandolin, vocals) +
Rob Mason (harmonica, vocals)
Fifty not out!
Peter Mason and Jim Murray were celebrating half a century working together as
the Hokum Hotshots. The word was Prohibition Bar would be busy...it was! As the
doors opened a mad rush ensued to bag a ringside seat.
Hokum is blues with
a smile on its face - that's the Hokum Hotshots'
take on the tradition; jugs, blues and old timey as played by the pioneering,
largely Mississippi Delta-based, musicians of some one hundred years ago.
Hawaiian shirts de rigueur, Messrs Mason and Murray don't take themselves too
seriously...maybe one day but don't count on it!
Surrounded by some
serious hardware - Gibsons, Martins, washboard (necktie version) and a tiple
(yes, a tiple, look it up!) the hokum held the full house spellbound. Imagine
you're jumpin' a freight train, along the way you'll encounter the likes of
Woody Guthrie, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Frank Stokes, Casey Bill Weldon,
Frank Ferrera (nice Hawaiian shirt!), Robert Johnson, Big Bill Broonzy and,
this being the Newcastle Central railhead, Jimmie Rodgers.
Seminole Blues, My Time Ain't Long, Big Bill's Blues (as
with many tunes of the era titles were, and continue to be, somewhat inexact),
the duo's excellent (You Don't Need) No Religion, our duo unearthed
some gems to entertain the Friday night (blues dancing at the back) crowd. The
hooch flowed, tales were told, some with expletives aimed, by and large, at
Mason by Murray then Murray to Mason. Rob Mason, harmonica, joined the boys on
a couple of numbers, the duo, then trio, had a ball. They've been doin' it for
so long they ain't gonna stop now!
Earlier, Blind Pig
Blues Club co-founder Lee Bates opened the evening with a half hour set.
Lee Bates (guitar,
vocals)
Amiable patter
comes easily to Bates and he took a dig at the evening's top of the bill act
saying he thought at least one of them - Mason or Murray - was still alive!
Delta bluesmen Wille Lee Brown, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Luke Jordan and the
spledidly named Hezekiah Jenkins were aboard Bates' Mississippi-bound freight
train.
Church Bells
Blues (comp L Jordan) rang out,
superb. The Panic is On (comp H Jenkins) from 1931 drew a
parallel with today's 'state of the nation' (Bates could scarcely conceal his
contempt!), Irving Berlin's My Walking Stick, Bates' acoustic
guitar and vocals were interspersed with anecdotes, not least about first hearing
the Houm Hotshots when his father took him along to a gig way back when. Lee
Bates knew the evening wasn't about him, it was all about Peter Mason and Jim
Murray.
Russell
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