http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/31/51/31_51_gk_kalb.html
By Gersh Kuntzman
The Brooklyn Paper
December 19, 2008
The first great concert of 2009 will be Danny Kalb's show at Jalopy
in Red Hook next Saturday night.
Kalb may have been a founding member of the Blues Project in the
1960s, but he's still banging out standards on his trusty six-string
and belting them out with a rusty voice that sounds as comfortable as
a flannel workshirt.
His shows at Barbes in Park Slope are the stuff of legend, as Kalb,
working with Bob Jones and drummer Mark Ambrosino, spins yarns in an
intimate setting.
"That's what it's all about, baby," Kalb said by phone from his Park
Slope apartment. "There is so much music out there that is not warm,
but if you make it intimate, you can make that human connections. I
try to reach their insides to show that life is worth living."
With the blues?
"Blues is a happy form," he said. "It articlates the deepest emotions
with humor, with survival stories. It is the opposite of what some
white people think the blues is. You'll leave this show with a smile
on your face, I can guarantee that."
Kalb has the hashmarks to back that up. This is a guy, after all, who
let a then-unknown Bob Dylan sleep on his couch in Madison, Wisconsin
in 1960 (true story!).
"I had met [legendary blues man] John Lee Hooker, and he asked me to
come on the road with him, but I went to college [in Madison]
instead," Kalb said, recalling that fateful decision to seek higher education.
"One day, this guy comes in a traveling folk singer and we let
him sleep on our couch for two weeks. He wouldn't take any money, but
he did take food. That was the traveling folk ethic back then."
The two wouldn't cross paths for another year or so, when Kalb and
Dylan performed in a radio show gig to promote a folk festival Kalb
on guitar and Dylan on harmonica.
He went on to form the Blues Project with soon-to-become legends Al
Kooper and Roy Blumenthal, a groundbreaking psychedelic
blues-folk-rock. The band's first LP, "Live at the Cafe au Go-Go"
(1966) established the group as the New York answer to the
Haight-Ashbury sound.
Kalb has been the answer ever since a living artist, not a novelty act.
Indeed, he even has a new solo album out. "I'm Going to Live the Life
I Sing About" is packed with uptempo "sex blues," as Kalb calls them,
like "I Wish You Would," plus world-wise standards like Willie
Dixon's "You Can't Just a Book By the Cover" and Rev. Gary Davis's
"Samson & Delilah."
Sure, it's mostly covers, but who says an old dog needs new tricks?
Danny Kalb Trio at Jalopy [315 Columbia St., between Hamilton Avenue
and Woodhull Street, (718) 395-3214], 9 pm. Jan. 3. Cover, $10. For
info, visit www.dannykalb.net.
.
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