Jackie Greene and The Mother Hips together on one stage make for a magical night in the San Francisco Bay Area. Even better, the show was at the beautiful Fox Theater (and yes, apparently every city has a Fox Theater). For those of you not familiar with Jackie’s work, his resume reads like a who’s who of bluesy jam band music, but not so far down the Grateful Dead rabbit hole that you have to be high as a kite to enjoy it.
Jackie recently finished up touring with The Black Crowes and now word is that he’s focused on touring and recording a new solo record. It’s about time since his last record; the brilliant, critically acclaimed Til the Light Comes came out in 2010.
Back to Jackie’s resume, this guy plays with the best of them around town and beyond, including the current supergroup Trigger Hippy which includes Joan Osborne, Steve Gorman (The Black Crowes), Tom Bukovac (Renowned Session Guy), and Nick Govrik. He’s also jammed time and time again with Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead and Chris Robinson calling themselves the Weir, Robinson, Greene trio. They should probably work on that band name a bit.
The show was pretty incredible. I had never seen The Mother Hips, and they absolutely killed it and set the stage perfectly for Jackie and his band. Highlights from the set were of course the classic Jackie Greene fan favorite “Gone Wanderin’,” but I think his best work was on his last album and it was awesome to hear quite a few tracks from that one including the title track “Till the Light Comes” and “Medicine,” which I consider to be Jackie at his finest.
Jackie treated the crowd to a fantastic acoustic set as expected then came back fully electric for a jam of the ages with members of The Mother Hips to close out the night with the Hips classic “White Headphones” from the album Kiss the Crystal Flake (essential listening for California soul / blues infused rock fans).
The bottom line here is that this was simply a fantastic night of music delivered by a bunch of stellar musicians who gel together perfectly. Let’s hope Jackie delivers a new solo record for the fans this year and keeps this run going.
On a side note, I ran into Nicki Bluhm of Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers (married to Tim Bluhm from The Mother Hips) and she mentioned that her band was in the studio recording new music as well. She’s one of the best singers on the planet right now, second to only Nicole Atkins in my opinion. She made a record a couple of years ago called Driftwood that is brilliant and I would love to see what she does next for a solo release.
Check out more photos from the show in the gallery here.
