Night Beat

Curtis Lawson celebrates 55 years of singing the blues in the Bay Area on this occasion. It’s also his 77th birthday and the man is still going strong.

He has a tight quartet backing him tonight. With Nick Otis, son of Johnny Otis, on drums, Matt Silver on guitar, Kevin white on bass and the great Bobby Webb on saxophone, the evening starts out with some solid instrumentals including “Sissy Strut” and “Night Train.”

Matt Silver, Nick Otis, Kevin White and Bobby Webb

Curtis, dressed in his snazzy red suit, takes the stage and pumps out “Turnin Point,” a song made famous by Tyrone Davis back in the 70’s. This is followed by the hearfelt “My Woman,”  Curtis’ own poignant song about his wife, Linda.  After covering a few Jimmy Reed numbers, he moves on to James Brown, Wilson Picket and Otis Redding.

It was raining so hard that the noise on the roof could be heard over the music. Curtis thanked everyone for coming out in such rotten weather, of course.

He invites Jay Johnston of KPOO Radio to the stage who recounts the history of Curtis Lawson and reminds us to tune in to 89.5 FM to hear his regular broadcast, Blue House Party every Monday. Bobby Webb also has a blues show on KPOO every Tuesday at 9:00. Before taking the stage Jay showed us some of his really cool moves on the dance floor. Just sitting there at his table, you have no idea how agile he is.

Curtis Lawson turns 77

Anyway, when Curtis comes back, he starts inviting his friends to the stage starting with Joe Tate who belts out a couple of rockers, “High Heeled Sneakers” and “Down Home Girl.” Gail Muldrow followed with some high powered vocals and superb guitar shredding. After some various artists sat in on drums and bass, Curtis came back and sang James Brown’s “Please please please” with Tate and Muldrow backing the vocals. Before they could step down it was “The Night Time Is The Right Time,” the Ray Charles classic.

Curtis Lawson has to be one of our greatest local artists. He can be heard at the Saloon in San Francisco, the Sausalito Art Festival, the Marin City Festival and occasionally at the No Name Bar in Sausalito.

Her’s a nice You Tube clip of Curtis at the Art and Soul Festival in Oakland

A recent show at the Seahorse

All in all, it was a great show. If you get a chance to see Curtis, don’t miss out.

Obedie William,Linda Lawson, Curtis Lawson, Joe Tate and Jay Johnston

This entry was posted on February 25, 2011 at 6:52 pm and is filed under Bay Area Music, Night Beat, Sausalito After Dark, Sausalito night life with tags americana, Bay area music, blues, Curtis Lawson, fun finder, fun on the bay, guitar blues, music in sausalito, Night Beat, No Name bar, Sausalito After Dark, Sausalito music, waterfront. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.