John Harrison & Paolo Pacifico got the Live Music Season at GoVinum in Bad Godesberg off to a flying start on Tuesday.  ‘Sans’ ampflication but certainly not ‘sans’ entertainment.  Under the banner ‘A Bit of Blues’ The duo had a sizeable arsenal of musical ‘weapons’ at their disposal:  guitar, dobro, tambourine, Jews Harp, a  bag of harmonicas – and a kazoo.  Shortly after 8pm the battle for our attention began in earnest with Sonny Terry and Brownie Mcghee’s ‘Strangers Blues’.

A veritable cornucopia of Blues standards followed, and for those interested in Blues history John Harrison was a walking Wikipedia with stories  to tell about every song and it’s origins.  It’s the music that matters though, and after a couple of numbers I’m reminded of a quote by the great Etta James:

“You can’t fake this music. You might be a great singer or a great musician but, in the end, that’s got nothing to do with it. It’s how you connect to the songs and to the history behind them.”

Paolo is not going to replace Kim Wilson in the Fabulous Thunderbirds and John isn’t going to be a Rolling Stone anytime soon – but they do indeed, as Etta so wonderfully puts it, ‘connect’ to the songs.  So much so that John related how after a rendition of the mournful ‘St James Infirmary’ a listener once asked with concern “Have you had a death in the family?”.  But I’m jumping ahead here, and that would mean missing John and Paolo’s mid session ‘walkabout’.  It being hot there were a fair few diners outside.  They had food, they had sunshine, but they didn’t have music – so the music came to them as John and Paolo headed outside with guitar and percussion.  Whilst ‘Take this Hammer’ is more a work song than a relaxing song the smiling faces suggested that the ‘serenade’ helped the Flammkuchen go down a treat.

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