On The Rocks

-020 On The Rocks

The Worcester Phoenix
March 20 - 27, 1998

[On The Rocks]

Upbeat

Bob Margolin plays lick by lick; plus a Best Music Poll update

by John O'Neill
The term "living the blues" is certainly an overused and increasingly useless descriptive employed by record labels, promotion departments, liner-note scribblers, artists themselves, and, yes, music critics as an all-encompassing application to herald almost any stiff who's slogged through the club circuit. Usually what it really means is the person in question either never made any money, had to wait 20 years before recording his first album, or drank a lot and got his ass kicked in by an ex-wife/lady friend.
In the case of guitarist Bob Margolin, however, the term actually means something significant. With a lifetime spent as a bandleader, sideman, studio musician, and blues columnist for Blues Revue, Margolin not only lives it, he's one of the cultivators of spreading the music's message. And with the release of his newest platter, Up & In (his third for Alligator Records), he may be one of the handful building the future sound of blues. And Up & In is unequivocally the statement of a man who's stepped out from the shadow of the legends he's played alongside.
While there is a discernible line back to the early-blues masters, especially the raunch-distorto slide-guitar moanings of mentor Muddy Waters, who Margolin shared the stage with for seven years, Up & In features an undeniable influence of rock and roll at its most primitive, volatile state. Chuck Berry and Link Wray both rear their ugly, cromagno-man foreheads at various junctures. Raw, unadulterated power flows throughout the album in both Margolin's guitar attack and his soulful vocal delivery. Whether a boogie shuffle, urban picking, jazzy swing, or over-the-top slashing slide work, Margolin is compelling in his delivery, phrasing, and interpretation. Sparks fly, gears grind, and fluid leaks from this well-rounded and generally exciting listen.
"It's not any one particular delivery," explains Margolin from his home in North Carolina. "I wanted to do a lot of different styles, and, hopefully, people will like that variety."
Variety is also the name of the game for Margolin's live show. Although the album added extra flourishes of horn, piano, and guest vocals, he travels as a stripped-down nontraditional three piece.
"I've got this young fellow, Tad Walters, who plays bass, guitar, and harmonica [drummer Wes Johnson completes the band]. We use a lot of different instrumentation. One song may be two guitars, then maybe I'll switch to bass for a while. We use a lot of combinations. I have a very basic belief that less is more. You can't hide in a three piece, but you also don't have to get out of anyone's way."
This Sunday's Gilrein's show is a pseudo-homecoming for Margolin, a Brookline native, who did time on the Worcester scene in the early '70s with the Boston Blues Band.
"It's always good to play in front of familiar faces," says Margolin. "I used to see Babe Pino in Worcester quite a bit. I was just thinkin' I saw him play `Imagination' [a Gladys Knight and the Pips number included on the new album] in '72, and I thought it sounded so good I decided to play it. It only took me 25 years to record it."
As for how the blues columnist sees the genre's future?
"It's hard to tell, there are an awful lot of good people out there. I just hope it can survive financially," he relates. "We do anything from small clubs to pretty large festivals, and that's work for about half the year. I guess it must be love of the music 'cause it can't be money."

Best Music Poll update
It's hard to believe that it's once again time for the Worcester Phoenix Best Music Poll. This year we celebrate our fifth year of polling readers for who's hot in both national and local music. From jazz and rap to country and rock, we want to know who you think is the best. The boys in the lab have been able to scale things down to seven picks in each category, though we left an escape hatch (a write-in category) in the unlikely event that we missed someone. You never know who's gonna make a last-minute run for superstardom.
You may vote by filling out the ballot that's included within this week's Worcester Phoenix, by visiting area music clubs and stores where ballots are on display, or by attending a ballot night. Check out the Espresso Bar on March 20 and the Plantation Club on March 26 for ballots. Additional ballot nights will be announced in this column each week until April 16 when the polls close.