Bob Greenspan

This was a big weekend in Moab, the annual Folk music festival, and we were intentionally trying to avoid any musical venue affiliated with this event in order to mitigate contact with the masses. So far, so good.

Moving slowly but deliberately under the radar, usually under the cloak of darkness, hiding deep in the red rock canyons during the daylight hours, hunkered down in little known grottoes and caves etched out by our friend the wind over eons, silent in time, waiting patiently for souls in search of themselves, not the masses with their NASCAR and nutrition bars, but the lone, lost and socially bankrupt few that dared to be different, dared to avoid public places like the plaque, dared to shop exclusively online, dared to vote Blue in a Red state, we are they.

As night fell, we moved towards the light and found a small table in the corner, near a pool table. We contemplated that night’s agenda, noting that the primary venue for the folk festival was sold out, thank Buddha–at least that was one option we didn’t have to consider…the next venue was a High School, I ruled this out immediately, they serve NO beverages of ANY sort there, as the cave man Stewie would say “What Hell?” Live music without drink? I must get out from behind this Zion curtain soon, 2012 is coming fast and I must experience the “real” world soon or die clutching a red crème soda and listening to Donny and Marie. Anyway I digress, where was I, oh yes, just as we were beginning to lose all hope and contemplated loading up the juke box for that evening listening pleasure the sweet, sweet sound of a hollow body electric guitar playing some tasty blues licks floated into my ear, cocking my head sideways, like a dog trying to discern whether food pellets were hitting his bowl or just rain on the window, my head spun around and there it was, a bluesman, holding what I thought was a Gibson ES345, OMG, what luck or splendid serendipity or karma, I don’t care what you call it but this was it, we had hit pay dirt.

He was obviously incredibly talented and there early tweaking his sound, it was so warm, fat and fuzzy, I immediately thought of Stevie Ray Vaughn, or maybe Djanjo Reinhardt and then Dave Mathews. I bolted from the table, and rushed to the stage. I inquired as to what kind of music they played, he replied “Well, its kind of a funky, bluesy, rock and Ska kinda thing”. Now I knew that I had probably fallen off a cliff earlier in the day and died. I wasnow standing before the great smokey gates of musical heaven, there is no way I could be alive, in Utah, at a folk festival and run smack dab into this dude, who was playing in this bar, tonight, for FREE? We shook hands and I asked if it woDSC_0270uld be OK to take some photos, with a big grin he said “Of course, no problem, my name is Jon by the way, what’s yours?” I told him my name and told him how much I loved music and especially the blues; he said he was sure I would enjoy their show, they went by the name of Stonefed (see www.stonefed.com ). I told him we would be back after we caught a solo act at the Moab Brewery; his name was Bob Greenspan and was from Jackson, WY. Jon said he knew Bob well and they had gigged together years back, he asked me to tell Jon to come jam after his 2 hour gig at the brew pub was over. I agreed and we headed to the brew pub to catch Jon’s show.

Bob Greenspan is a very mellow gray-haired gentleman with a voice of gold, he played an old 1967 Martin D16 and this man knew every sacred inch of that guitar, it was simply an extension of himself, the tonal range of the instrument and his voice where a union honed over the years in hundreds of smoky bars and thousand of songs. The telltale attribute of this man was how he had duct taped his pickup into the sound hole, so utilitarian, the beauty was in the sound not the physicality of the instrument, the aesthetic meant nothing, the sound was all that mattered. We had met Bob the night before and had spoke at length, tonight when we arrived he looked our way and smiles as if we were old friends, he nodded to use and continued his blues crooning in a beautifully silky yet gravelly voice, his cowboy boot tapped out a load bass beat on a wooden pallet that we joked made up his entire drum kit, so minimalist, a man, a guitar a piece of wood and a head full of songs. Bob told me how we has friends with the late great Edward Abbey and Ed had used a few lines from one of his songs in one of his books, something about beautiful blondes and with large round … eyes I think.

On his break, he came over and we talked about how he didn’t have a CD to sell. I told him I would record him any time in my digital recording studio. He seemed interested but said the cost was always such a downer and the pressure of trying to get it all down so quickly so as to avoid the high cost of studio time was so counterproductive in terms of capturing the dynamic and spontaneous emotion he felt so strongly about. I assured him there would be no cost involved, only his gas to get to my house. We exchanged cards and numbers and planned for a future recording session. We invited him to the bar to jam with Stonefed but he explained that too many years of smoke filled bars had taken their toll and he just couldn’t handle them anymore. He ended his 2-hour gig and we said our goodbyes and headed back to the world famous Woody’s Tavern (see Stonefed).

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 12th, 2008 at 8:42 am. It is filed under Live music reviews, Past shows, Photography and tagged with Bob Greenspan. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.