Live, barely, from Tampa Bay

Wiped out by a day of travel, guitarist Walter Trout still managed to record a live CD at the Tampa Bay Blues Festival.

By CHRISTOPHER BLANK, Times Correspondent

© St. Petersburg Times, published March 31, 2000

ST. PETERSBURG -- Blues guitarist Walter Trout will always remember his performance at the Tampa Bay Blues Festival, and not just because he recorded it for an upcoming CD.

Two hours before Sunday's show he was sitting in the Moon Under Water cafe, crying.

It had come to this: His flight from Los Angeles had been delayed. So along with his wife, kids and baby sitter, he missed the connecting flights. They were rerouted on others. After 24 hours of sleepless transportation, they arrived in St. Petersburg the day of the show.

"I've been doing this 30 years and I've never been burned so bad from traveling," Trout said. "I was in the restaurant talking to my wife about canceling. I said, "I'm physically screwed, I haven't had any sleep, I can't eat.'

"The waiter came up to me and asked "Can I help you?' and I just started weeping."

Trout choked down a spring roll and a banana. He thought of the fans. He considered that Blues Revue magazine was doing a cover story on him. And more importantly, that the show was to become his third live album since leaving John Mayall's Bluesbreakers in 1989.

"I just sucked it up and went on," Trout said. The live CD is scheduled for release June 13.

Recording a live show for professional posterity is more complicated than, say, carrying a tape recorder into the "tapers pit" at a Dylan concert. In this case, a mobile sound studio, built into the back of a blue freight truck, was driven from Atlanta, parked backstage, and wired into the sound system. The show was recorded on 32 separate tracks -- one for each instrument and microphone. Additional mikes picked up crowd noise.

Even with all that preparation, there was no guarantee that the concert would be good enough for music store shelves. A flubbed note, feedback, power surges -- any of these common glitches can ruin a recording.

Outdoor events are especially rife with what-ifs, and Sunday's show had its share of nettlesome elements: a chance of rain, wind blowing across the microphones, no rehearsal, and no solid sound check. Not to mention an exhausted performer.

Producer Jim Gaines put it bleakly before the show: "It's hit or miss. The whole point of recording live is so it doesn't sound like it came from the studio, but there is always the chance that things go wrong." Gaines -- who has worked Carlos Santana, Coco Montoya, Bernard Allison and John Lee Hooker -- was there to make sure they didn't.

While Trout worried about his energy level onstage, Gaines hunkered behind the glowing sound board in the truck with sound engineer George Cowan. No note or drum beat escaped detection.

Larry Lisk from the Suncoast Blues Society said, "I don't know what it is, but there is something about Jim that makes any album he touches just that much better."

To the audience, Trout's performance was golden. He lent credibility to the poll taken by the BBC that labeled him the sixth best guitarist in the world, just behind Jimmy Page. He tossed out heavy riffs. He tore the air with electrified melodies. He fed off the response of the crowd.

Exhausted and hungry, Trout finished his set with the appropriate Bob Dylan song, I Shall Be Released.

After the show, there was the wagging of heads in the mobile sound studio. On the technical side, one of the drum mikes had blown. Not a total loss, but something that would have to be dealt with at Morrisound Studios in Tampa, where Trout and Gaines set up shop through Wednesday.

"We'll fix it in the mix," said Marie Trout, Walter's wife and manager, referring to the process of getting the CD ready for pressing.

What can't be fixed is Trout's own assessment of his work.

"I'm probably the only one who could tell that I've had better nights playing," he said after hearing the tape of the show. "Jim said he loved it. I was physically weirded out. I'm just glad the audience was so good. If it weren't for them, I wouldn't have made it."

Trout has been considering titles for the album. He has a favorite, but you'll have to be a fan of the film This is Spinal Tap to appreciate it.

Hello, Cleveland: Live from Tampa Bay.

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