Ron Thompson at Knuckleheads
July 27, 2006
by El Dormido
Big Mike, formerly GE doorman back in the '80s, slipped the name "Ron Thompson" into my ear as a must-see attraction.
This guy slipped in under the radar for a torrid date at Knuckleheads. Kudos to Frank Hicks for another booking coup.
I may be uninformed by my informant from the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise related to me story after story of this 'legendary' performer playing other musicians on the Cruise, Taj Mahal, Tommy Castro, Bob Margolin and the Chicago legends, and blowing up the stage.
What do I know, except a good word when I hear it, so I slipped into K-heads just after the start of the first set to see this older crew on stage, a stripped down 3 piece, cranking an old blues, then slipping into a Hooker riff.
Thompson sits on a chair, stands, frenzied finger picking on a white, solid body electric ripping off phrases, drops into those driving, trance inducing propulsions.
Ron Thompson looks like someone's benign but slightly bent Uncle, wears a white, straw derby hat, black shirt and slacks, and a pair of black shoes with red insets.
He stitches together Hooker lyrics from all the songs, a little Jimmy Reed quote there, and it's coming out frenetic dance music, the kind of movement after drinking all night long and being ready , but, damn, this is just the beginning of the first set! How is anyone gonna catch up with this???
The bass player looks like a refugee from the seeds. The drummer sometimes sounds like he's playing in another sound, but that's alright because it is all about Ron.
Ron sits down at the piano and rips into "Ain't Got No Home," that old "Frogman" song, then a piano shuffle version of "They Call Me the Fatman", all at breakneck speed. He signs the change with a wave of the upraised hand, and powers on.
Back to the guitar, slide, for Johnson's "...Kitchen," deliberate, with a low end buzz.
The sustained intensity stirs the audience like bloody chum before a school of sharks.
He stands and begins to shred the song to pieces.
Quickly switches to this acoustic box with the electric pickups duct taped over the sound hole and generates this full-bodied, reverberant moan, wailing and crying in front of the first row of the crowd, miles away from a mic.
If there ain't sawdust on the floor wet with beer and maybe a bit of somebody's blood, it sure sounds like it the way Thompson's playing!
He continues on that slide acoustic, lightly tripping and slipping through a sweet country blues, then into Elmore's dusting broom territory, raw and raucous. He jerks like there were electric shocks going through his body, the band pounding hard behind him.
This guy gathers excitement around him like an electric field - the hair stands up on your arms when you get close, infects the crowd by induction, driving it like pounding the nail head.
He could take a soggy cardboard box with strings and whip up a frenzy.
Forget the young kids in tight pants and big amps, this old, funky fella everyone way past home.
At a point, it ain't about parsing the blues, its hold on tight to something, or someone.
He's like a 45 in a 78 world.
Ron Thompson hangs mainly on the Left Coast but he is known. One cat at the bar was carrying 3 vinyl albums of the young RT with matinee idol looks.
This show reminds me of a friend of mine's date with a hot number, who didn't let him go home till he was raw. It isn't about romance here at all.
But, if you get there, you wouldn't want to miss any of it at all, even if you go home bow-legged.