Full disclosure: I’m a Hammond B-3 soul and soul-jazz freak, so I’m a homer here. My universe aligns around the likes of great players like Billy Preston, Jimmy Smith, Jimmy McGriff, Al Kooper, and Groove Holmes. Topping my list is Booker T. Jones, one of the prime architects of the Memphis Soul sound. I recently gushed over Booker’s new CD, Potato Hole, at Bullz-Eye. Also, the pictures were taken by my father-in-law, Richard Binder, who accompanied me to the show and used his celly to great effect.

This club gig was a stunner, for a number of reasons. First, that this guy would actually make it out to the sticks of New Hampshire. Maybe, like, an auditorium at Dartmouth or Manchester or Plymouth State…but Tupelo Music Hall in Londonderry? A brutally small crowd of 80 people showed up, but like me, most of them were diehards who collectively “ooooohed” when Booker nonchalantly recited his part in music history between numbers, saying things like “My songwriting partner William Bell and I wanted to write a blues song, and we wrote this next one, ‘Born Under A Bad Sign.’ Albert King first recorded it,” and kicked into it–singing!

Another stunning part was the Hammond sound. I’ve heard many players bash it out, some of them like Tony Monaco and Bruce Katz, whose ornamental, two-handed, two-footed, flashy styles push the technical limits of the B-3’s features as they squeeze every drop of distortion and click out of the instrument. Fun stuff to watch, kind of like the musical equivalent of a Fourth of July fireworks show. (more…)