Once again, last night, I had the distinct pleasure of seeing quite possibly my favourite guitarist perform at close quarters… Mr Joey Landreth.
I know, ask me tomorrow and my favourite will be someone else, but right now the endless carousel of my ‘favourites’ is quite often leaning more towards Joey than other players. It may be a phase I’m going through, it may not be, but if it is a phase, it’s one that’s been going on for a couple of years now and I can’t see it stopping anytime soon.
Those who’ve not heard me talk about Joey before here is the obligatory backstory… I met him by chance a couple of NAMM’s ago when I was out partaking in a ‘couple of beers’ with the legend that is Andy Wood (insert name drop horn here) and he introduced me to “my man Joey”… It was dark and noisy in the bar so I turned to Andy and said “Is that Joey f$%&ing Landreth?” and he laughed and said “Yes sir!”. I proceeded to talk at Joey for about an hour and have since been to see him here in the UK every chance I get… And he never, ever disappoints.
Fortunately for us over here it’s never very far to travel to see great music, I live at the arse end of nowhere so people rarely come down this far, but in about an hour or so I can see great music (although truth be known, I hate travelling anywhere so I’m in grumpy mode when the tickets are released and they don’t come down here… but, moving swiftly on)… The venue was small, busy… standing room only – I would say no more than 140 people all packed in like a tightly packed box of Lego. I looked around the room and noticed 6 ‘That Pedal Show’, 4 ‘Fender’, 1 ‘Gibson’ and 2 ‘PRS’ shirts on display… Yep, the place was full of guitar players. Fortunately, we had arrived early so I got a small chance to catch up with Joey before the first act, who Joey described as “My drummer, Roman”… so, we thought that would be interesting, as I’ve never seen a drummer as a support act. Roman is not just a drummer. He is so much more. Sitting behind a piano we were treated to some masterful playing and a voice that was outstanding. High in register, so not only perfect for harmonies but on his own was the kind of voice that was absolutely mesmerizing. I would say Roman is picking up a lot of new fans on this tour, including us.
I’m sitting here trying to find superlatives about Joey and the band (Roman Clarke on drums and Meg Dolovich on bass) and I’m trying my hardest to not sound sycophantic, or overtly gushing, but there are times when you see an artist who is not at the start of their career, but most certainly still very much on the ascent, and you just know you are in the presence of something extremely special. I get the feeling that providing ‘this’ carries on as it already is, Joey Landreth will be held at the highest esteem by the wider population as he already is by the fanatical fans that are already following him.
I guess you are wondering why I am writing about this – as Joey is not one of our artists, he doesn’t use our gear but to be honest, you could say this is about me wanting to make as many people as possible aware of this monumental talent so you can see him now before the only chance you get is at festivals or bigger gigs. But, this piece is more about the guy we took up to the gig, a young musician from the small town I live in that I’ve been aware of for a while, just a name I knew from kids at the school and the small community we live in – although I was aware of him, we’d never met and not spoken to before.
He, Jake, contacted me through Facebook as he was desperate to get to the gig – he’d got himself a ticket and failed in his efforts to get his Dad to take him up – so he contacted me to ask if he could come up with us (myself and Lisa, my wife) – we said “Sure” but at the same time, feeling kinda weird as we were not knowing what to expect. I mean, we are both in our mid 40’s and the thought of spending around 3 hours in the car with a college kid in his late teens… what do we talk about? In the first few minutes he managed to blow away any worries I had as he was everything you expect an atypical teenager not to be. He is an articulate tone chaser, works like an animal in his job (He’s also in college studying music production) in order to buy the gear he GAS’s for, is exceptionally well read on gear, experienced in everything and could easily talk for hours on end about pickups, pedals, guitars, amps, valves and just about everything else related to gear. Also, from the videos I’ve seen he’s a great player and great singer. When you spend as much time as the marketing side of this business as I do you sometimes notice the divisions in the customer base and quite often a lot of the younger gearheads are very focused in their views, opinionated towards certain styles of music and the gear associated with them, but he was – is – an open book. Only interested in one thing – the quality of the product. Whether that be gear or what is going into his ears in terms of music, as long as it’s good, he’s good with it. Obviously, he leans in a certain direction with his musical tastes, but the way he was talking about old and new music alike, across many genres, was fantastic. He approaches music and gear with a wide-eyed wonderment that is so rare to see these days in anyone, let alone a teenager. So, those who knock millennials can think again as there are great young musicians out there who work hard for their craft and are so respectful for the wider aspect of the industry and the results of it… People like him give me a great feeling for the future of music and the guitar.
Back to Joey Landreth… had to happen really. What can I say, other than open up Spotify and listen to his music. If he’s playing anywhere near you, cancel whatever you have planned and go and see him. You won’t regret it. Joey is a man of such musical beauty you will walk away from the gig in a better place than when you entered. If you take the time to get in line and get to talk with him as well, you will probably walk away thinking either: 1: You wish you were married to him; 2: You wish your daughter was married to him; 3: You were him; or at the very least, 4: You had one of the four things he has in abundance… a rare talent for singing, a rare talent for playing the guitar, a rare talent for songwriting, and a rare talent for being the coolest and straight up nicest guy on the planet.
To be honest, if I didn’t love the man so much I’d probably be obliged to hate him for any one of those reasons listed above.
Anyway, enough about all this. This week I’m also off to see Adrian Legg, the acoustic master who can terrify any player from a distance of 100 yards and Kris Barras, the most exciting young blues player the UK has spawned since Matt Schofield (who was there last night who I walked straight into and exclaimed at high volume with much vulgar surprise something along the lines of “Good golly gosh, you’re that Matt Schofield chap aren’t you?” – but slightly more to the point).
Yeah, it’s a good week to be me. Here is a small clip of last night, I would have filmed more, but I didn’t want to watch him on my phone, I wanted to see it all properly.