Today, I had the pleasure of seeing for the first time, American Blues artist Doug MacLeod, do his thing.
He was a most entertaining performer with his humorous introductions to songs. He explained, during one of these stories, that all the old master bluesmen from whom he learnt his style, never thought of themselves as artists, but more as entertainers. He called it humbilisation (if that's how you spell it).
As well as being an engaging and likeable entertainer, Doug MacLeod is a master guitarist and songwriter supremo. One of his strings broke during his performance at Basement Discs, so he improvised with 5 strings.
Bless the Basement Discs for putting on these shows - where else would you get such an opportunity to see so many diverse and interesting performers.
2 comments:
I suppose really the best entertainers are ( by their very nature)true " artists".
And by the way...I love humbilisation...great word!
Yeah, humbilisation is a great word - that's why I mentioned it. It has overtones. And I agree with you about the best entertainers being true artists. The quality of entertainment when you go to a show is always enhanced by the artists's ability to entertain as well as perform. The dreariest shows are those where the "artist" just stands there and doesn't attempt to engage the audience at all. Most of the musicians I go to see, understand this implicitly. After all, the artist relies on his/her audience in order to survive in his/her chosen career and it is expected that they put some effort into the act.
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