Lakeport >> Although he’s not a Lake County resident, Mark Hummel, frontman of blues group Golden State/Lone Star Revue, was following the Valley Fire closely in the days after the blaze roared through the community. When he picked up the paper one day, he landed on a story about a local family who were in Fort Bragg for their son’s baseball game when they heard about the fire. In addition to their personal items, they had seven dogs, a cat and chicken coops at their home. They headed back to the county immediately, but by the time they returned, everything was gone.
“I think being an animal owner has affected me,” Hummel said. “I can’t imagine being away for just a day or something and finding out everything’s gone in that amount of time.”
So he decided to convert his already-scheduled show at the Soper Reese Theatre tomorrow night into a benefit for fire victims. The band is donating part of their fee and donations will be collected at the show. It’s not the first benefit concert in the wake of the fires and it definitely won’t be the last. “It’s an excuse to have a good time and at the same time do something positive for the community,” Hummel explained. “I think the fact that people are able to go out and enjoy a concert and are doing something for humanity is a good thing.”
Friday’s show will feature the blues music of Golden State/Lone Star Revue, comprised of Hummel on harmonica, Anson Funderburgh on guitar, Little Charlie Batty on guitar, R.G. Grisby on bass and Wes Star on drums. They’ve been together for four years, but have known one another much longer.
Griby and Star grew up together in Rome, Georgia and have been playing music in tandem since their youth. Then, Star moved to Austin, Texas where he met his wife, who happened to work with Hummel’s brother. Although Hummel and Star knew each other through their family members, they didn’t play any music together until 2009, at the suggestion of Gisby, who began playing with Hummel in ‘07. The three teamed up and performed with various guitarists for years.
Finally, Hummel had the idea to get Funderburgh playing with the trio, since the guitarist had recorded a few songs on Hummel’s album back in 2002. Then about five years ago Hummel began working with Batty. Things evolved from there. In 2012, the five musicians booked their first tour as a band. It took them across Europe for three weeks and America for two. They’ve recorded two albums, completed another tour abroad and made countless treks across the U.S. since.
Life on the road can be difficult, what with lumpy hotel mattresses, bad food and way too many hours behind the wheel. Once they men are done with a month-long tour, they’re exhausted, but the moment they go on for a performance, all the lost sleep is worth it. “The bottom line is when we get on stage we always have a great time,” Hummel said. “There’s a lot of energy in this band, more so than any band I’ve ever been in. It’s definitely not a wallflower band.”
What makes Golden State/Lone Star Revue (named after the musicians home states of California and Texas) especially interesting is the band members’ musical history. Hummel, Funderburg and Batty have all fronted their own groups. The meshing of three frontmen has been difficult at times, but well worth the struggle. “It’s an amazing band. I’ve been playing music for 40-something years now and I’ve never played in a band with this caliber of musicians,” Hummel said. “The chemistry in there, it’s pretty magical.”
And Hummel has indeed had a long, favorable history with the blues. He’s been nominated for a Grammy and has won two Blues Music Awards.
But before all that, he was like any other kid. He began playing at 14, after giving up the guitar for a more mysterious instrument — the harmonica. “I felt a real natural affinity for the harmonica. I was drawn to it,” he said. “It’s almost kind of a secret instrument in the sense that you can’t really see what’s going on. It’s probably closest to singing in the sense that it’s all in your throat and lungs.”
He’s partially shelf-taught, though he also learned from older kids at his high school, who traded lessons for cases of beer. He learned songs by ear, listening to records over and over and over again until he could play a lick exactly as it was recorded. “I had such an ambition to learn it that I would plow right through,” Hummel said. “I would never let anything get in my way as far as learning what I wanted to do. I spent literally hours in my room learning to play.”
The greats all served as his teachers, guys like Charlie Musselwhite, James Cotton, Sonny Terry and Paul Butterfield. The first blues musician he ever saw live was Junior Wells in 1968 and from that moment, he knew he’d found his groove.
At the time, all of his peers were listening to rock, but he wasn’t quite taken with the genre. “I was never really impressed with the idea of popular music,” Hummel said. “I was much more impressed with the idea of music for music’s sake as opposed to being popular.”
It was for this reason that blues drew him in. Growing up in southern California as a minister’s son in a predominately African American church, Hummel never quite felt like he fit in with his peers. “I think I’ve always kind of identified more with the outsiders of the world,” he said. “I think that’s where the blues got me. I never felt like I was part of the popular group in high school.”
While he’s been pretty much exclusively a blues musician, he explores all the genre has to offer. There are numerous styles of blues and Hummel likes to play them all, from traditional Chicago to swing. He owes his versatility to the vibrant Bay Area blues scene, where he played in various bands, including some without harmonicas. “It forced me into learning to play the different styles of blues,” he explained.
He brought that sensibility to Golden State/Lone Star Revue. Their shows are a blending of different styles, which help to break up a performance so it never sounds like two hours of the same sound. They’ll play one song with a swing vibe, followed by a tune with only harmonica and then one without any harmonica.
But that’s not to say that Hummel puts entirely new spins on old songs. Although blues has a high degree of fluidity to it, he’s not one to stray from tradition. “Every song has a certain essence to it and it’s important to keep that intact when you’re doing a song,” he said.
Sometimes, though, alterations can’t be helped. “I think the other thing that a lot of people don’t get is when you perform a song for a certain number of years, you’re going to put your own stamp to it, even if you try not to put your own stamp to it,” Hummel explained.
Golden State/Lone Star Revue also performs a combination of covers and originals, pulling songs from their newest album. While each musician wrote and recorded original work before the band formed, they’re trying to be wholly original. They don’t want to repeat what another band has already done.
Hummel advises anyone attending the show to pack their dancing shoes. “We just want to see people come out and have a good time and really support a worthy cause,” he said.
The show is at 7 p.m. tomorrow night, October 2, at the Soper Reese Theatre in Lakeport. Reserved seating tickets are available for $20 and $25 at www.soperreesetheatre.com, at the theatre box office or at the Travel Center in Lakeport. For more information call 263-0577.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
