Night of blues brings down the house

Mar 23  2010


Last Wednesday night, Valley blues fans were offered a real treat.

Carlos del Junco and the Blues Mongrels graced the Capitol Theatre stage. They played to a packed house full of people of all ages. The band's opening act was Port Alberni's own Kevin Falkenberg and the Family Stoned.

Born in Havana, Carlos emigrated to Canada with his family when he was just one year old, but he's deeply in touch with his Latin roots. He discovered the diatonic harmonica at the age of 14, and he's now ranked with the
all-time greats like Paul Butterfield and his mentor, Howard Levy, formerly with Bela Fleck and the Flecktones.

He has recorded with Bruce Cockburn, Kim Mitchell, Oliver Schroer, Zappacosta, and has also worked with Dutch Mason, Hoc Walsh (Downchild Blues Band) and Holly Cole. His latest CD, Steady Movin', has just been nominated for a Juno Award in the blues category.

Carlos started the show with his a capella harmonica rendition of Amazing Grace, which captivated the audience. The thing that was amazing about it was that Carlos himself sounded like a one-man band. Parts of his rendition
sounded like he was playing an accordion, while other parts were like bagpipes.

While playing a 10-hole diatonic harmonica, Carlos uses a "overblow" technique taught to him by jazz virtuoso Howard Levy, enabling him to play chromatically.

Carlos and the Blues Mongrels performed a number of songs from their newest album entitled Steady Movin'. Carlos and his band played mostly their own compositions. However, two of the songs were loosely-based covers of Some Sweet Day and Don't Bring Me Down, both of which they had added their own Mongrel twist. At one point, Carlos told the audience that the reason why he and the band call themselves Mongrels is because they don't restrict themselves to only one genre, instead they range genres such as blues, jazz, gospel and country.

When Carlos and his band played their instrumental song Dull Blade, the audience was put into a trance-like state. Within the song, each of the musicians were doing their own thing, generously adding to the rich and
groovy composition.

Throughout both sets of 45 minutes each, Carlos and his band were smiling, to themselves and with each other. Sitting in the audience, I could feel their positive vibrations as I'm sure the rest of the crowd felt as well.

The whole concert was amazing, but I feel that the most memorable moments were when Carlos was showcased playing harmonica solos. Those moments were simply phenomenal.

During the encore, Carlos received a thunderous applause and a standing ovation.