Triple header for the soul

Three great musicians in less than three days. Each someone I hadn't ever seen before -- in the third case someone I hadn't even heard of. What a way to detox.

The last in the sequence, going out with a bang, was the great Sonny Landreth. Loud electric blues-rock, slide guitar played with feel, a mild-mannered bespectacled long-haired Classics professor look-alike shook this hoary old college town to its roots, swirling thick wavy lines of sound over and beyond a hard driving back-beat.



Opening for him was Tony Furtado. The unassuming banjo maestro, popping out of the crowd, past my shoulder, onto the stage before the show, adjusting the connections and tunings before disappearing backstage only to reappear after a few minutes, setting the stage alight with furious acoustic picking.



But the best of all, for my money at least, was the great Eric Bibb. Solo acoustic country blues -- the advert said "Every time you hear Eric Bibb, you hear a little truth." Amen to that, Brother. Soft-spoken, intelligent with piercing eyes, standing, swaying, bouncing, engaging in conversation with the audience, a magical finger-picker with the ability to wring the maximum meaning out of every quiet word he sang in his resonating voice - he stole my heart.

He played this track, Needed Time, and got the audience to sing along. The woman next to me was a trained singer of sorts. The sound the room generated was divine. The kind of thing that makes people get religion.

Here's Eric Bibb with a version of Needed Time. Play it loud.



What a great way to detox indeed. Go see live music.