As expected, Forget, Saskatchewan based bluesman Ken Hamm humbled a lot of pickers in the audience at the Cave, for an Oct. 24 Lethbridge Folk Club show.
He had approximately 40 people listening intently as he flexed his fingers on a National steel guitar, acoustic guitar and banjo. I arrived late in the show, but caught a solid hour of exceptional music ranging from traditional blues standards to old folk songs and beautiful original instrumentals.
An immediate highlight was a song called “ Where Do We Go When The Inn Shuts Down,” which Hamm introduced as “A little town on the east coast called Moncton.”
Hamm told stories to the enraptured crowd and played gorgeous slide, alternated with quick finger-picking while singing tortured melodies in his smooth, yet gravelly voice.
He traded the National steel guitar he was playing gut wrenching slide blues for an acoustic guitar, which he carefully tuned before playing a few folk songs including a torrid tale about two 1920s strike breakers in Thunder Bay who were found murdered after a cold winter.
He followed that up with an old Charlie Patton song “Jelly Roll,” which was redone in the ’70s and a beautiful instrumental featuring some Chet Atkins-like picking.
He switched to banjo for the last couple songs in the set including a fingerpicked version of blues classic “ Roll and Tumblin Blues” as well as a beautiful Spanish inflected song from Elizabeth Cotton who wrote the classic “Freight Train.”
That earned Hamm a standing ovation, so he come back for one last song “ North Road Blues.”
Leon Barr opened the show, but I missed his set.
