The Gorge Hosts A Blues Festival
The annual Gorge blues festival stops by Sunday with the most diverse lineup in its short history.
In the headliner slot for the House of Blues Tour is Joe Cocker, the gravel-voiced Brit who galvanized the rock world with his giddy performance at Woodstock in 1969.
Perhaps no other Beatles cover so completely rearranges the outcome of the original than Cocker’s “With a Little Help From My Friends.” Cocker’s yowling version stripped the song of its Ringo Starr niceness.
His “Mad Dogs and Englishmen” tour was one of the concert highlights of the early ‘70s.
Cocker’s subsequent slide into alcoholism was spotlighted by a brutal John Belushi “Saturday Night Live” parody. But Cocker had the last laugh. His prodigious output has slowed in recent years and his voice, always a blunt tool, has been ravaged by excess; still, he’s a powerful performer and a marvelous interpreter of blues-related material.
Blues legend Buddy Guy will appear, too. His incendiary guitar work runs the blues gamut from Delta funk to Jimi Hendrix. In fact, he was a major influence on Hendrix.
In 1991, Guy released “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues,” a comeback record that pulled down a Grammy and re-established Guy as one of the most dynamic performers of the modern blues.
His 1993 album “Feels Like Rain” and 1994’s “Slippin’ In” also won Grammys.
The revamped Fabulous Thunderbirds are also on the bill. With vocalist/harp player Kim Wilson at the helm, the current edition of the Thunderbirds shy away from the rock-oriented material they toyed with earlier in their career, hanging close to their blues and R&B roots.
Since guitarist Jimmie Vaughan left the group for a solo career in 1990, the T-Birds have evolved through two lineups and now offer perhaps the strongest presence in their long and distinguished career.
, DataTimes MEMO: The House of Blues Tour, with Joe Cocker, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, Buddy Guy, the Radiators and Too Slim and the Taildraggers, begins at 3 p.m. Sunday at the Gorge Amphitheatre. Tickets are $52.50, $42 and $31.50, available through Ticketmaster.