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A Conversation with Willy Porter (continued)
PM: What about his buddy, Pierre Bensusan [see our review], do you like his playing too?
WP: Yeah, I'm big into him. I've got a few of his records around. And I have to say, I think he's one of those guitar players who could probably do it all. You could throw him in a jazz band and he would just smoke like Charlie Christian, you know?
PM: Yeah, he's frightening.
WP: And then you could put him in a solo finger-style context, and he's just ripping, and then put some loops in there...he's a freak of nature.
PM: He truly is.
PM: I've seen you in concert three times.
WP: All right.
PM: I saw you at unlikely and far-flung joints like the Apple Farm Festival in Jersey.
WP: Oh, right on!
PM: And I saw you at Kerrville one time. [see our story about a first visit to the Kerrville Folk Festival in Texas] And I saw you at the Ryman, in my town.
WP: Oh, cool, with Jeff Beck.
PM: That Jeff Beck show is called legendary in your press kit, and I was there and I'm damned if it wasn't.
WP: Well, I don't know if it was or not.
PM: Oh, it was, my man.
WP: I'm not the guy who writes that stuff. But thank you.
[laughter]
PM: I mean, it was a couple of thousand guitar geeks there to see Jeff Beck--
WP: I love the dude.
PM: --on their feet screaming bloody murder about this cat they'd never heard of. Well, I had, but most of them hadn't.
WP: Yeah, that was a pretty flattering gig to get to do, playing with him. That was probably the coolest thing I've ever done, easily.
PM: You put them right on their keisters that night.
WP: Well, even aside from the show, though, getting to ask Jeff Beck how he's getting his tone and just to hang out with the guy. He's another one of those guys who's just--he doesn't have anything to prove, so he doesn't come off as all insecure and uptight about anything. And that was just so cool.
PM: They say unless he's touring he doesn't even touch his guitar, he works on cars and stuff.
WP: I know, man, that's what's so cool about it.
PM: [laughs]
WP: When he picks up the guitar, man, never, ever did I hear him run a scale or do anything like that. He picks it up and he's playing some totally outside kind of a country rockabilly thing for a minute, and then this or that, but it's always music. It's always a song. He and Martin Barre are cut from the same mold that way. Martin doesn't sit there and play scales, either. He's always playing a song. continue
