Murray Kinsley certainly knows what it’s like to have the blues. He flew into Cologne/Bonn this very morning to discover his guitar and clothes were both somewhere back at London Heathrow. Typically for a bluesman, it was all down to whiskey of course as my INTERVIEW reveals (and maybe some ‘bad’ woman at luggage control was also to blame?) They ‘done him wrong’ in London for sure. Possibly worst of all was that his CD box was also somewhere far away – and as most touring musicians will know, these days, that’s their main moneymaker along with the ticket sales. Yes, indeed, people of Bonn – Kleines Theater in Bad Godesberg is tonight a place for the Blues – and for the first time as far as I know inside and not under the Cedar Trees. Maybe there’s a song in there somewhere for the next CD? Join me for an evening with Murray Kinsley’s Wicked Grin
Normally your best bet for the blues in Bonn would be the Harmonie. Kleines Theater in Bad Godesberg is generally, with the exception of the ‘Musik unter der Zeder’ outdoor season, a place for theatre and cabaret. In the end it was circumstance, in the form of the award winning Canadian band suddenly having a space to fill between dates in the UK and a late arranged slot on the prestigious Eutin Baltic Blues Festival stage, together with Bonn sound engineer Kirsten Gorham knowing the band, that brought them to Bad Godesberg.
True to my interview with Murray, the set was largely original material. There were only a few covers – Carl Perkins’ ‘Matchbox’ proving to be a great toe-tapper and Freddie King’s ‘Someday, After a While’ being a great showcase for Murray’s excellent guitar-playing skills. My favourite cover being his take of ‘Midnight in Memphis’ a song made famous by Bette Midler’s frenetic version in ‘The Rose’ but I much prefer the more laid-back approach offered by Wicked Grin tonight.
There is no need as it becomes clear for a lot of cover-songs. Murray Kinsley knows how to get at the emotion of an incident and set it to lyrics and song. His take on both the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013 ‘Heaven’ was a moving moment in the evening’s music. ‘Trouble Coming’, inspired by shootings in Florida was another such emotional song that had me thinking Johnny Cash would have loved to have tackled – it had that God-fearing gospel vibe that Cash handled with such ease and power, towards the end of his career particularly.
It wasn’t all sad melodrama by any means though. Kinsley communicates well with his audience , laughing off the Heathrow problems and keeping the atmosphere light and positive. ‘High Stepping Mama’ inspired by his Mother in Law, was proof he can laugh as well as cry with his compositions for example, and then there was the cigar box guitar… It might only have three strings, but it has plenty of parts that have to be put back together after traveling and a tuning peg that works in reverse to all the other pegs. You start to wonder if all the effort is worthwhile – until you hear it. The half-sung/half-spoken ‘Snake Farm’ really is a perfect vehicle for Cigar-box playing.
By evening’s end there was loud applause from the small but enthusiastic audience, and repeated calls for encores that could have gone into the the midnight hours. It was that sort of magical evening. One of those where you wish for the band’s sake that more people had been there, but are secretly glad that you caught something special that they missed.
Bonn Harmonie, put Wicked Grin on your future concert concert list PLEASE! Your regular blues/rock crowd will love them. Kleines Theater, feel free to offer a platform to Folk and Blues music in future. Finally – Everyone, take a leaf out of my book and wherever you go keep a look-out for posters and flyers advertising great music in unusual places whenever you are out and about.
