Get the blues, and love it
Get the blues, and love it
March 5, 2009
By Molly Gilmore
The Olympian
Robben Ford is best known as a jazz and blues guitarist, but when asked for the highlight of his musical career, he doesn't hesitate: "The most enjoyable, fruitful experience I had was working with Joni Mitchell,"
Guitar Blues
What: Acclaimed guitarists Robben Ford, Jorma Kaukonen and Ruthie Foster team up for a concert celebrating blues guitar.
When: 7 p.m. Friday
Where: The Washington Center for the Performing Arts, 512 Washington St. S.E., Olympia
Tickets: $37.50 and $40.50 general admission, $33.50 and $39.50 for students and seniors, $18.75 and $20.75 for youths
More information: 360-753-8586 or www.washingtoncenter.org
Ford will play Friday in Olympia in a concert with fellow guitarists Jorma Kaukonen and Ruthie Foster called Guitar Blues.
He played with the folksy Mitchell - whom Ford calls the greatest American musical artist of the 20th century - during the two years following the release of 1974's "Court and Spark."
"It was when she was at her best," Ford said. "She was at her most famous, and she was at her most glorious in every way, and I got to be the guitar player."
That description is maybe a bit modest, given how well-known and well-respected Ford is these days.
"The guy sounds like he's been playing for a hundred years," Rich Murray wrote of Ford's prowess in Modern Guitars. And he has had enough experiences to make one think so, too - playing with Jimmy Witherspoon, Miles Davis and George Harrison, among many others.
It was working with Mitchell and L.A. Express that taught Ford not to pigeonhole himself.
"That experience actually broke me out of the kind of jazz and blues snobbery that I had embraced in my late teens and early 20s," he said. "I learned that music is very broad. You can enjoy and learn from everything."
These days, Ford is recording an album with his trio, but he thinks of himself as a musician - not a jazz guy or a blues guy.
His current work most often is classified as blues, as in the title of Friday's concert. And he said jazz - mostly from the '60s - is what he listens to in his car.
"I consider that the greatest period in music in America, and I listen to music to learn," he said. "I listen to things that I want to bring into what I do.
"I play in basically a blues and R&B format, but I like to bring more sophisticated harmony and melody to the music. Jazz inspires me to do that."
Friday's concert is one of several multi-guitarist evenings in Olympia during the past few months. Why is it that we don't hear of piano summits?
"It's the audience," he said. "There are a lot of guitar enthusiasts out there. The guitar is just the most user-friendly instrument on Earth and hence the most popular."
But although many who attend his concerts are guitarists themselves, Ford isn't focused on demonstrating impressive technical skills when he plays.
"The way I play is kind of like painting, using colors and feelings," he said. "It's not about how fast you can move your fingers. It's about how creative we can be, how soulful, how sexy, how colorful."
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