Music

One Voice, One Guitar – Adelaide International Guitar Festival 2010

Presented by the Adelaide Festival Centre
Reviewed Thursday 25th November 2010

http://www.adelaideguitarfestival.com.au
http://www.adelaidefestivalcentre.com.au

Artist: Shawn Mullins and Cal Williams Jr.
Venue: Dunstan Playhouse, Adelaide Festival Centre
Season: one performance only
Duration: 2hrs 15mins (incl interval)
Festival Bookings: BASS 131 241 or http://www.bass.net.au

Cal Williams Jr., a local musician with many accolades to his name, walked out onto the stage and, with some clever slide and finger pickin’ licks, delivered the first number of a six song set. The vocals were a little indistinct, but meaningful and purposeful. There were songs from his CDs All That I Learned from the Sea and Morning Star. Songs included Mexico City Blues, Northern Line and the perennial favourite, I Shall Be Released, reworked in his own style, finally finishing with a delta blues inspired number featuring some rousing, hard hitting slide guitar that was amongst the best I have heard. An inspiring set, clever and with deft use of finger pickin,’ slide and vocals.

When Shawn Mullins walked onto the stage at the Dunstan Playhouse the audience broke into spontaneous applause and after his first number Summer Time they were enraptured. Thus began a musical journey through some of his best numbers, Lullaby, Shimmer, Light You Up, Catoosa County and House of the Rising Sun.

His rapport with the audience was very good with quite a few funny stories peppered between the songs and sometimes a brief history as to how the song was written, such as his chance meeting with a woman at around age 28, listening to her story and then writing Lullaby which the royalties, in his own words, ‘pay the mortgage’ and the story of his first years in ‘la la’ (LA) town at the ‘Genghis Cohen’ where he said that, after a few years of playing, he packed them out; pity there were only 25 or so seats in the room!

Shawn Mullins is a master of his style, with comprehensive microphone technique ranging from full blown, deep, crisp lows (a la Chris Rea) to whispering highs and a fade-out to a song that could have been a recording if it were not witnessed live on stage. His mastery and control of the Gibson Jumbo guitar he was playing would have left many other guitar players in awe, from solid percussive rhythms to gentle picking and ‘tickling’ of the strings he almost had it talking, and his dynamic range left me and the rest of the audience breathless.

Shawn finished to a standing ovation after an encore of an old American folk song (circa mid 1800’s). Before he played it he said ‘if you think of it from a woman’s perspective it throws a whole new light on it’ the song, of course, The House of The Rising Sun.

All in all a truly remarkable evening at the Adelaide Guitar Festival

Reviewed by Roy Grantham, Guest Critic, Glam Adelaide.

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