Published Thursday, July 18, 2002
SHARON
plays tonight at Hot Rod
Herald Staff Writer
Australia has a small but enthusiastic blues scene, and Dave Hole was ably serving up his slide-guitar based tunes Down Under when he decided to record an album to sell from the bandstand.
Hole's life turned downside up when Guitar Player magazine reviewed that album, "Short Fuse Blues," in 1991 -- calling his playing "ferocious, fire-breathing" -- and added a feature story on him later in the year.
"Prior to that, I played only around Perth and the country regions of western Australia," Hole wrote in an e-mail interview from Munich, Germany. "I made a living but was not a recording artist and was virtually unknown outside of western Australia."
The Guitar Player coverage interested Alligator Records in Chicago, which signed him and made Hole a player on the international blues scene.
Hole released five more albums on Alligator and his current tour includes a stop tonight at the Hot Rod Cafe, Sharon.
"I spend about six months of the year at home in Australia, but I usually only tour there once a year, usually for a month or so, which covers all the major population centers," said the Perth resident. "The other six months I'm on tour in Europe, U.S.A. or elsewhere."
Hole said there are only minor differences among audiences around the world. "If pushed, I would characterize Australian audiences as rowdy, European ones as respectful and U.S. ones as knowledgeable."
The 54-year-old native of Cheshire, England, started playing slide after years of standard guitar technique to incorporate into his performing the sound of Elmore James, Robert Johnson and Robert Nighthawk.
A slide player glides a metal or glass cylinder across the strings on the neck of the guitar instead of fretting them.
"After a while, I found that audiences were requesting the slide songs more and more," Hole said. "I also found it intriguing to explore the possibilities of slide. It seemed to me (and still does) that there's a lot more that can be done with it."
Hole's playing mimics the emotions of the lyrics. He begs for his girl to come home with piercing steel-on-steel cries on "Jenny Lee," and his slide loses an argument with his wife over how he spends money on "Blues Begins at Home."
The instrument shrieks with the pain of resignation for a woman he can never have on "Out of My Reach."
Hole loves to fill every crack of a song with his playing, a trait that he said came from working with only a bassist and drummer behind him.
"I developed a fairly busy style in order to keep the three-piece afloat," explained Hole, who is touring with bassist Roy Daniel and drummer J. Mattes.
Writing many of his own songs, Hole doesn't claim to be stretching the boundaries of the blues or challenging the accomplishments of any of his heroes.
"I think every song you've ever heard is in your head somewhere and, when you sit down and open up to writing, a song fragment of any of these can emerge," he said. "Hopefully, this will be in an interesting and novel combination."
Hole's latest album, "Outside Looking In," from 2001, shows his range, from rocking electric numbers (B.B. King's "You Move Me So") and wailing blues ("Outside Looking In" and "How Long?") to gently evocative acoustic numbers ("Nobody"), a little Bo Diddley bounce ("Insomniac") and a prototypical blues shuffle ("Living on Borrowed Time.").
Players like Hole have put Australian blues before an international audience, and Down Under has spawned its own crop of bluesmen -- Phil Manning, Mal Eastick and Kevin Borich -- who have inspired younger musicians.
"Having said that, the legendary American bluesmen remain primary influences for blues players all around the world," he said, adding Blind Willie Johnson, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and Howling Wolf as idols.
Tonight's show kicks off at 9. Information: 981-3123 and online at www.quakersteakandlube.com
You can e-mail Herald Staff Writer Joe Pinchot at jpinchot@sharon-herald.com