Second Time Around

Ron Thompson and His Resistors
Still Resisting (Poore Boy)

Oakland-born, Newark-bred singer-guitarist Ron Thompson was about the busiest bluesman in the Bay Area two decades back and has two Bammies that attest to his popularity at the time. The onetime John Lee Hooker sideman recently relocated to San Leandro after a lengthy stay in the Central Valley and has released a CD's worth of his strongest material from the '80s, much of it from the 1987 Blind Pig LP Resister Twister.

The bassist and drummer who round out his trio vary from track to track (as they still do from one Thompson gig to the next). Bassists include Byron Sutton, Mike Lewis, Steve Evans, and Evan Palmerston, and the drummers are (a brief disclaimer: I've also played drums occasionally for Thompson) Larry Vann, Gary Silva, and Harold Banks. They're consistently solid, however, and the sound is never bare-boned, thanks to the leader's near simultaneous rhythm and lead parts, few if any of which are overdubbed. His guitar virtuosity burns on every number, whether he's playing slashing Mississippi Delta slide or picking brittle California-style single-string lines, and he blows squealing Jimmy Reed-style rack harmonica on a couple songs. Thompson's tenor voice is clear, unaffected, and highly emotive, particularly on such tunes as Eddie Taylor's "Looking for Trouble" ("She's got something between her legs that'll make a dead man cum," Thompson wails), Ray Agee's "The Gamble," and a treatment of Little Willie John's "I'm Shakin' " the Blasters covered quite successfully in 1981 after hearing Thompson's version (originally issued as a 45 on the Fingerpoppin' label). His raw, sweaty, juke joint-hewn take on the blues is rock 'n' roll at its most primal, and the connection is made even clearer by his manic reading of Eddie Cochran's "Nervous Breakdown." Thompson's style has changed little since these dozen sides were cut, except that he's added piano pumping to his high-energy assault. Ron Thompson and His Resistors play Fri/28, Biscuits and Blues, S.F. (415) 292-2583. (Lee Hildebrand)

(This article was published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian - http://www.sfbg.com/)