The Louisiana slide king makes a rare West Coast tour stop at Yoshi’s Summertime Blues series supporting his fresh new release Recorded Live in Lafayette...
The Louisiana slide king makes a rare West Coast tour stop at Yoshi’s Summertime Blues series supporting his fresh new release Recorded Live in Lafayette. It’s a career-spanning journey that’s half-electric Strato-castic spitfire, and half-acoustic with Landreth playing a groovy metallic blue Pogreba Hubcab Resonator. We expect this show to be equally epic, and it will also feature an acoustic set with Sonny’s core power trio of David Ranson and Brian Brignac getting in on the fun switching to ukulele bass and cajón, respectively.
Landreth’s electric hurricane is the stuff of legend. His much less known acoustic slide tone ranges from an almost traditional resonator rattle, to smooth and slinky with plenty of “pop”—practically approaching electric tones such as Marc Knopfler’s ultra clean Strat on “Sultans of Swing,” or even echoes of Robbie Krieger’s bottleneck blues on the Doors’ “Moonlight Drive.” It all comes down to how Landreth works his groovy blue resonator, which Landreth will have in tow on Thursday night.
“The audience seems to appreciate the added dynamic range of the acoustic set,” says Landreth. “Songs with lots of lyrics such as ‘Bound by the Blues’ with its verses paying tribute to various heroes of mine—and even one verse about resonator guitar—come across better when the entire band goes acoustic. Having Brian on cajón rather than a drum kit opens up a lot of space. And Dave’s ukulele bass has an upright vibe. You get in a rut doing the same thing all the time no matter how good it is. You need to change it up. The acoustic was such a big part of my life long ago, and this seemed like a good time to bring it back into the fold.”