Thursday, August 20, 2009
Music news John Nemeth's Hungary-man blues
Posted by Grant Britt on Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 2:41 PM
John Nemeth
$7. 9:30 p.m. Thurs., Aug. 20. Blind Willie's, 822 N. Highland Ave. 404-873-BLUE. www.blindwilliesblues.com.
It's an unlikely recipe for a bluesman. The son of a Hungarian freedom fighter, singer/harpist John Nemeth was raised in Boise, Id. on a daily diet of Hungarian folk, opera and classical music. "Through osmosis you learn a lot about melody from listening to Brahms and Lizst and Mozart and Chopin and Beethoven and all those cats, and all these Hungarians who are just playing minor blues at breakneck speed," Nemeth says.
He found his calling at 14 when friends at school turned him on to Junior Wells and Freddie King. Later, he gigged around Idaho for nearly a decade before moving to San Francisco in '04 and signing with blues label Blind Pig in '06.
Despite harp skills that have elicited comparisons to Little Walter, Nemeth broke into the business as a singer. He sounds like a '50s crooner with a '60s soul sensibility, swooping and soaring like James Carr with the smoothness of Little Junior Parker. "Soul music is just like country music," Nemeth says, "except for the black approach to singing it and the backbeat's different."
Nemeth embraces his country roots on the title track from his latest, '09's Love Me Tonight, which he calls "a mix of Buck Owens and Fats Domino writing a tune together," with "an Otis Redding approach for hitting the bridge." But Nemeth is not just another white guy rooting around in the soul bag. His mix of rural and uptown sounds and the passion and pain he wrings out of his songs show that the crooner can successfully blend the heart of Joe Turner with the throat of George Jones.
He doesn't limit himself to soul or blues, either. On '07's Magic Touch, he expanded his musical worldview with "Come On" featuring a Skatelites-sounding rhythm section mated with mariachi horns with Nemeth playing a Celtic-flavored harp solo on top.
Despite his considerable vocal and harp skills, Nemeth believes his songs will be his legacy. "I think I write pretty good songs," he says. "People seem to remember 'em, and I think I do a good job of delivering."
(Photo courtesy Robert Hakins)
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