June 2005 Number 29
RON THOMPSON & HIS RESISTORS: STILL RESISTING
(POORE BOY RECORDS)
I believe that the ‘unofficial’ duty of ‘True’Musicians is to keep the rest of us pathetic humans reminded of what life should be about, i.e. JOY!…absolute joy…and on a consistent basis. Yet, we lose touch with all the things that brought us hope, happiness and meaning as we became slaves to jobs and the ‘ritualized-pursuit-of-wealth’ a.k.a. self-abuse. Great music serves as a reminder that we were once free and that we had plans that had nothing to do with mortgage payments or hair-loss. Some artists have always personified Absolute Uninhibited Joy: Hank Ballard, James Harman (he’s just a little grouchy now!), Magic Sam, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Wayne Cochran, Robert Gordon and Ron Thompson, The Human Dynamo. Joy involvement should be a daily exercise for North Americans and I would suggest an hour of Huey Smith, Lee Dorsey and Howlin’ Wolf, leading up to our contemporary Joy-Meister Ron Thompson. If you haven’t experienced Ron T. ‘live’ I can’t even begin to convey the absolute go-for-broke Blues rave-ups and sweat-soaked pandemonium Thompson and his Resistors dispense on a nightly basis, but this album does a pretty good job at giving you a big ‘taste’ of The Thompson Tornado.
My first Ron Thompson experience was in 1978 at The Rising Sun Jazz & Blues Club in Montreal, a small, funky ‘perfect’ Blues venue. Ron was John Lee Hooker’s bandleader/guitarist at the time (most of the 1970s) and as Hooker and other Blues Legends were in town to play the first Montreal Blues Festival put on by Dou-Dou Boicel, all the various bands congregated (minus leaders) at The Sun. For the 2-3 dozen hard-core Blues Fans assembled it was a dream come true and with much of the audience Blues veterans, we got to hear a different kind of Blues Party as they played for each other. With Eddie C. Campbell, Billy Branch, Freddie Dixon, Jimmy Tillman and Big Moose Walker checking him out from 15-feet away, Ron Thompson led his trio (The Coast-to-Coast Blues Band) through a super-charged repertoire that climaxed with the very best version of “Hideaway” I’ve ever heard (and I’ve heard hundreds!). Very interested in how the Chicago crew was responding I kept one eye and one ear on their big table and I laughed when Freddie Dixon and Branch looked at each other in disbelief and Moose started yellin’ “Yeah!” By the end of “Hideaway” they were all animated Ron Thompson fans which kinda says it all folks. If you can impress Eddie C., Magic Sam’s and Luther Allison’s old running partner.
I got to see Ron 2 or 3 more times in Kitchener, Ontario when it was the most ‘happening’ Blues spot in Canada (outside of Calgary) and Ron had The Hoodoo Lounge packed house absolutely drenched in sweat and in a state of ‘religious conversion’, the state that is seldom achieved by so many lesser performers. Howlin’ Wolf had it…Lefty Dizz had it…King Biscuit Boy had it (when he wanted it) and Ron Thompson is a master inducer of it. He did a 2-hour set, walked through the standing-room-only stomping crowd and proceeded to keep playing in the washroom by himself until the break was over…people were running around yelling, “He’s playin’ in the washroom!” and we grinned…ain’t that a man!
Oh yeah, the CD…it’s all magical mojo music with Ron on fire from
start to finish. The man becomes possessed by the music and it’s Blues
guitar Heaven throughout. “Swing Down Chariot” and “Monkey
Fiddle” are humbling when it comes to slide guitar workouts (I would say
he's the Best in the World) and yet the man sings his ass off too and blows
a mean harp also. “Looking for Trouble” is a great Chicago Blues
tribute to Eddie Taylor followed by “Honest I Do”,
but “Freight Train Let Me Ride” and “Resistor Twister”
will hit you with a hatchet. The greatest mystery on earth is why Ron Thompson
and artists like him aren’t headliners at EVERY music festival on this
troubled planet. He could certainly heal millions with his prescription of Joy.
6 Bottles for a mandatory ‘must have’ in 2005.
…Andy Grigg