Showing posts with label Ron Hacker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ron Hacker. Show all posts

Monday, January 5, 2015

Ron Hacker & The Hacksaws - 2 albums: Back Door Man / Burnin'

Album: Back Door Man
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 51:12
Size: 117.2 MB
Styles: Blues rock
Year: 2000
Art: Front

[2:27] 1. Big Brown Eyes
[3:01] 2. Two Timin' Woman
[5:44] 3. Back Door Man
[5:06] 4. My Bad Boy
[4:45] 5. Mambo For Albert
[3:21] 6. Ax Sweet Mama
[3:36] 7. Yank Told Me
[3:52] 8. Hear Me Sing Like Elmore James
[4:18] 9. I'm Gonna Miss You Like The Devil
[2:42] 10. Hate To See You Go
[3:01] 11. I Got Tattooed
[6:28] 12. Diddley Widdley
[2:43] 13. Come On In My Kitchen

San Francisco-based Ron Hacker has been playing the blues for more than 30 years. He got clued to the music in the juvenile jug in Indianapolis (was it really parking meters you were heisting, Ron?), where Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and the various Kings were the artists of choice among young black youth workers. Forget Elvis and that other 1950s crap. These guys were into Jimmy Reed and Elmore James. Throw in an apprenticeship with the late Yank Rachell and Hacker has never looked back. This 55-year-old has been a blues man all his life. "I didn't come at it from rock and roll," he says.His fourth CD, Back Door Man, vaults Hacker to a new level. Searing guitar, mostly but not all slide, in full roaring voice, backed by Artis Joyce on bass and Shad Harris on drums. A.J. is on Charlie Musselwhite's Ace of Harps and lately left Santa Cruz-based Sista Monica. Shad kept time for The Tommy Castro Band.

Ron Hacker's new Back Door Man packs the excitement of early Tommy and of bands like Blues Traveler or the Fabulous Thunderbirds at their best. It's much nastier though: downhome colloquial-familiar and downright raunchy. More intelligent too. Eight of the 13 tunes are Hacker originals, with covers including songs by Robert Johnson, John Estes, and of course Willie Dixon for the title cut. Hacker plays "Back Door Man" slow and heavy, driving, ponderous yet clean. Just when the slashing guitar gets repetitive, Hacker surprises. His own "My Bad Boy," about the wonderment of fatherhood, is destined to be a Hacker classic. It drives too, and is full of Hacker's special, humor-tinged intensity.

And who else comes up with lines like these, from "I Got Tattooed?"

I got tattooed and the pain it was tremendous
I got tattooed and my wife she said Let's end this
I got tattooed and my skin was lookin' splendid
I got tattooed and it ain't nobody's business.

Hacker packs a veritable arsenal on stage, ranging from a 1930 National steel body guitar with Ovation pickups -- "It's ugly but it's my baby and it's pretty to me" -- to a Stevie Ray autograph sunburst Strat. He's got a 1960 Gibson 125, like the National, it's for slide. So's a a 30 Regal, an old brown acoustic with 1960s DeArmond pickup. Ron brought the Regal back after Hack stopped using a new, baby-blue Danelectro, which despite upgraded tuning machines was just too volatile frequency-wise. Damn thing wouldn't stay in tune, in other words. Ron Hacker uses a new Fender Hot Rod De Ville -- "I love my amp," he says -- made more than a little bit dirtier with a first-edition 1985 Chandler tube driver and a Boss CS-3 compression-sustainer. "The tube driver gives you the '57 Chevy with cool pipes sound and the sustainer does what it says, holds the note for you so you can sing with your guitar," Ron says.

"Over the top guitar," one San Francisco blues watcher says of Ron Hacker. Yeah.

Back Door Man mc
Back Door Man zippy

Album: Burnin'
Bitrate: MP3@320K/s
Time: 45:41
Size: 104.6 MB
Styles: Blues rock
Year: 2003
Art: Front

[3:20] 1. 32-20
[2:49] 2. Peach Tree Blues
[3:35] 3. Stranger Blues
[4:58] 4. Welfare Store
[4:01] 5. Keep Your Hands Off Her
[3:29] 6. Prison Mind
[3:59] 7. Mailman Blues
[3:06] 8. Almost Grown
[4:56] 9. Broke And Hungry
[3:54] 10. Red Cross Store
[4:39] 11. Fool For Your Stockings
[2:49] 12. Burnin'

It's the second Ron Hacker & the Hacksaws album in about as many years, following the Shad Harris-distinguished Back Door Man in late 2000, and it shows even further development of Ron Hacker's relentless and relentlessly authentic driving blues. How authentic? Hacker covers Elmore James, Robert Johnson, Fred McDowell, Yank Rachel and Sonny Boy Williamson. He lays down the fine original title track instrumental (you can hear the flame) and the autobiographical Mailman Blues and Prison Mind.

If you don't get wood from Billy Gibbons' Fool for Your Stockings or Yank Rachel's Peach Tree Blues you've got something wrong with your apparatus. This latest version by Ron of Fred McDowell's Red Cross Store is his best and the best anywhere, and Hacker's band's groove on Sonny Boy Williamson's Welfare Store is unparalleled.That band consists of Artis "A.J." Joyce on bass and Ronnie Smith on drums. That's all they need, that and the driving electric guitar of Ron Hacker.

Burnin' mc
Burnin' zippy

Friday, November 1, 2013

Ron HACKER - Live In San Francisco / Barstool Blues

After teaching himself to play guitar, Ron met the late Yank Rachell, partner of Sleepy John Estes. Yank trained Ron on the finer points of Delta Blues, and they became life-long friends in the process.
   The actor Peter Coyote helped Ron get his first gig in San Francisco at a neighborhood coffee shop. It wasn't long before Ron put together the Hacksaws and was tearing it up in clubs all over the San Francisco Bay Area.
   Since then, Ron has played every major festival in Northern California, including the Monterey Jazz Festival, the San Francisco Blues Festival, the Marin County Blues Festival and the Long Beach Blues Festival. Ron has also toured extensively in Europe playing major festivals in Belgium, Denmark, France, Holland, Germany, and Norway.
   Ron has put out nine albums, which include No Pretty Songs, Bar Stool Blues,  I Got Tattooed,  Backdoor Man,  Burnin’,  Live In Holland,  Mr. Bad Boy,  My Songs, and Filthy Animal.
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Album: LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO
Styles: Modern Electric Blues, Slide Guitar Blues
Recorded: 2011
Released: 2012
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 127.85 MB
Time: 54:10
Art: Full

1. Ax Sweet Mamma (4:21)
2. Meet Me At The Bottom (3:48)
3. Baby Please Don't Go / Statesboro Blues (4:33)
4. Welfare Store (5:50)
5. My Bad Boy (6:13)
6. Death Letter (5:06)
7. It Hurts Me Too (4:44)
8. Two Timin' Woman (4:59)
9. Leavin' Blues (5:12)
10. House Rent Blues (9:24)

Personnel: Ron HACKER - Guitars, Vocals
Steve Ehrmann - Bass
Ronnie Smith - Drums

Note: After releasing 9 studio albums Ron has released his first live recording, Live In San Francisco. The album was recorded at SF Biscuits & Blues November 30th, 2011. Fueled by a driving rhythm section, Ron's gritty vocals and signature slide guitar, Live In San Francisco captures the bands explosive style at it's best.

                                                           Live In San Francisco
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Album: BARSTOOL BLUES
Styles: Modern Electric Blues, Slide Guitar Blues  
Recorded: 1990
Released: 1990
Bitrate: 320k/s
Size: 99.84 MB
Time: 43:44
Art: Full

1. Shake Your Moneymaker - 5:08
2. If You Love Me (Like You Say) - 6:55
3. Kind-Hearted Woman - 7:53

4. Don't Mess With My Man - 5:03


5. Almost Grown - 5:54
6. Hacksaw Man - 6:43
7. Going To Brownsville - 6:08

Personnel: Ron HACKER - Guitars, Vocals
Steve Hazlewood - Bass
Eric Mosbarger - Drums
Nancy Wright - Saxophones

Notes: One could easily say that the blues saved Ron Hacker's life. It certainly changed his life and gave him a purpose and a structure, and he developed into a powerful slide guitar player with a too-little-known but sturdy musical legacy. This is his second outing. Recorded live at The Saloon, North Beach, in San Francisco.

                                                                 Barstool Blues
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