Entertainment For Lively Minds
JD Souther
Posted by Bruised Mike on 13 October 2007 - 6:51pm.
Did anyone go to Dingwalls to see JD Souther last Sunday? What a show, so many great songs performed with great skill. I never thought I would get to see him play live so it was a real treat. He had a genuine and uncomplicated way of dealing with unwanted heckling: "Shut the f*** up!"
Come back soon.
Anyone got any comments?
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Saw JD Souther last week in
Saw JD Souther last week in Belfast and clearly his mood and guitar playing must have improved by the time you saw him. He couldn't get his guitar working when he first came on and spent the first 15 minutes making sarcastic remarks to and about the sound guy, only to realise eventually that the fault was with his guitar. Things never really improved. The same thing happened at the encore and, apparently forgetting the reason for the glitch, he again started into the hapless sound guy. I came away disliking the man and thinking that his songs really do need a full band arrangement and supporting harmonies. Great songwriter, patchy live performer and lousy human being. Sorry!
I was at Belfast too...
.. and on leaving the venue, saw said hapless ound guy outside having a smoke. My friend and I felt it only fair to commiserate with him, on the basis that JD should really have given him an apology for his rudeness ("We're all gettin' paid to do a job - how about you do yours?" and "WHy don't you get your ass down here and fix this?")
The reality was that JD had left the thing plugged in at soundcheck and the battery inside had run down.
The eventual guitar fixer was none other than Belfast semi-legend and favourite of Whispering Bob, Mr Brian Houston, whose own touring vehicle was parked outside the venue which enabled him, I assume, to carry out the necessary battery replacement.
JD still has a great voice but his guitar playing was a bit too patchy - if the support act had played like this, I don't think they would have survived as long - and even JD commented something like - "I'm surprised you are all still here - I'd have left by now".
I would suggest that any sound engineer should read a copy of "Hotel California" by Barney Hoskyns before working with the man - to summarise Barney's take on it, JD had just as much talent as the other Eagles but was basically so obnoxious that he effectively nixed his career any time he met an interviewer or record co executive by his rudeness.
If he hadn't been a legend, I'd have left.
Mike - Meant to go and see
Mike - Meant to go and see him and sadly forgot. One thing that made me want to go was that Terry Reid always does a great bluesy JDS song in his sets these days. The other was that I always liked 'Black Rose' and still play it today when the mood takes me.
Souther was a great swordsman in his day and bedded Ronstadt, Judee Sill & Joni Mitchell. He's the subject of Sill's great 'Jesus Was A Crossmaker'. In terms of relationships he was described as "having a tendency to shit where he ate". (More info in Barney Hoskyn's great 'Hotel California' paperback).
Steven's review seems to back this up. Your gig looked like it was completely different, but whatever he's like, you can't fault the guy's songwriting.
J.D.Souther
Saw him in Norwich - great songs, fantastic voice, terrible guitar player. He announced that he was playing a new signature model Gibson "That they'll eventually produce, hopefully for a great deal less than this one cost" and indeed fiddled with the internal electronics continually ("It samples the sound of a real guitar and sends it out that way"). He also had a good line in crowd repartee - "I don't do requests. After all this time, unbelievably, I think I kinda know what I'm doing". And, quite rightly "You won't get all those fabulous Eagles harmonies, but then you didn't pay three hundred bucks to be here...and you can park close to the venue".