Strange though it may seem, no one in the California Guitar Trio is actually from California – Bert Lams from Belgium, Hideyo Moriya from Japan and Paul Richards from Utah. But together, their technical fretboard wizardry is breathtaking, as is the wide range of instrumental music the group renders… everything from unique originals to dazzling, cleverly-arranged interpretations of jazz, classical music and, in a nod to their Cali moniker, even some surf-rock.
Tony Watt
NAME: Tony Watt
BAND AFFILIATION: Southeast Expressway
INSTRUMENT: Acoustic Guitar
1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … Doc & Merle Watson’s On Stage and Tony Rice’s Manzanita
Video by Joel Patterson
Live from Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs, Christine Ohlman and her band Rebel Montez tell the tale behind the nearly forgotten soul song “Cry Baby Cry.”
Call it “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About ‘Cry Baby Cry’ But Were Afraid to Ask.” The first six minutes of the above video features Christine telling the story of how she stumbled upon an inconspicuous record at a tag sale, and how it changed her life. Finally at long last she plays with her band Rebel Montez their own luxuriously smooth rendition – stately, haunting and heartrending.
George Brantley, who with his brother sang the original 1968 version (credited as “Van & Titus”), was there in the crowd at Caffe Lena, and then afterwards they all sat around talking about the blues as an art form and music in general. As the credits roll, we listen to the original ole 45…
ALSO READ:
LIVE: Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez @ Caffe Lena, 4/19/13
Five Firsts: Christine Ohlman of Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez
Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez (photo by Joe Deuel)
Review by Fred Rudofsky
Photographs by Denise Borden and Joe Deuel
A handwritten sign posted on the interior door of Caffe Lena proclaimed “Sold Out!,” and the two sets of music that ensued within the landmark venue on a warm Friday night justified why it would be standing room only. The performance was so hot that I had two pens run out of ink – thankfully, I had brought along a Sharpie as a backup.
After a rousing introduction by Caffe director Sarah Craig, Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez opened with a poignant “That’s How Strong My Love Is,” a soul classic written in 1964 by Roosevelt Jamison, who passed away last month. A song associated with O.V. Wright, Otis Redding, and more recently, Buddy Miller. Ohlman’s performance this night could join that list of definitive renditions. She nailed the longing, pleading and devotion innate to each and every verse.
Christine Ohlman
NAME: Christine Ohlman
BAND AFFILIATION: Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez
INSTRUMENT: Guitar, lead vocals, bandleader, songwriter
1. THE FIRST ALBUM I EVER BOUGHT WAS … The Rolling Stones: England’s Newest Hitmakers
In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the publication of Robert Frost’s his book, “A Boy’s Will,” as well as National Poetry month, Tom Lindsay and Michael Eck are mounting a little something different at Caffe Lena in Saratoga Springs at 2pm on Sunday (April 7).
It’s the Lost Radio Rounders’ Robert Frost-themed benefit performance for Caffe Lena, featuring a few songs, a lot of poems and a one-act play, “Death of a Hired Man,” directed by Bob Goepfert. Among the guest performers will be author, environmental educator and Frost fan Anita Sanchez.
Tickets are $15.
Review and video by Joel Patterson
The cult of true believers surrounding Chandler Travis and his acoustic quartet the Three-O continues to metastasize – and with good reason! At least, I hope they’re good reasons. Personally, I’m straight up a junkie for the guy’s therapeutic New Orleans-eated style blues, and his even more bewitching ballads with their soothing doses of rapture and transcendence. I feel like he’s inoculating me against cynicism and despair, somehow, just listening to it and soaking it in. Chemo for the soul, I call it. It ain’t long before you’re recognizing your fellow patients at these shindigs – the telltale symptoms of rabid devotion are unmistakable to an initiate. I ran into John Ripley, who typically had driven hours to get there. “By the last song [the exquisitely, loftily gorgeous "Things to You,"] my cheeks were wet.” He swabbed them with his fingers. “That’s what it’s about.”
The Chandler Travis Three-O
Review by Fred Rudofsky
Photos by Joseph Deuel
Deliver me from this world in which cell phones are no longer just for conversation, they are now the point of conversation. Deliver me from this world in which a trickle-down stream of euphemisms, intended to reform educational instruction and solve our state and federal fiscal problems, gets gobbled up like popcorn shrimp. Deliver me from this world in which the falcon cannot hear the falconer, as Yeats put it so well.
Fortunately, there was sanctuary to be found from the wanton madness, inanity and brutishness of the world: Caffe Lena. I arrived, covered in wet snow, looking over my shoulder and seeking shelter from the Ides of March. The other-worldly music of the Chandler Travis Three-O and the Jack Grace Band would not let me down.
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