San Francisco Blog

So there you have it, folks, the essence of James Hunter wrapped up in four statements. Here's some more: Hunter is the older, classier, and less coked-up version of Amy Winehouse, belting out some 60's soul with such conviction that if you closed your eyes, Hunter at Bimbo’s on Friday could have easily been Sam Cooke at the Harlem Square Club in 1963. Of course the audience was a bit whiter. Actually almost exclusively so. And I’m guessing a bit older as well. With the crowd drawing heavily from the 35-60 year old set, the more vintage members of the crowd perhaps served as the ultimate critics: They were when this music came out the first time around.

And all signs from them pointed to approval. They clapped in time and danced as well as they could. (Though the venue seemed to call for some soul-style grinding, Bimbo’s wooden dance floor was shoulder-to-shoulder packed, making most the moves of the woman-hugging-her-husband-from-the-back-and-swaying type.) Oh and we can’t forget the snap: as the two sax players whipped out the snapping move during one of their breaks, a whole contingent of the crowd down front followed suit while pumping their forearms up and down like a hatchet. Oh yeeeeeah! At times, the whole event was something like a 1964 high school reunion, but I'll admit this year’s attendees were looking fine: The fedora hat count on the wooden dance floor was three, with a couple of gentlemen even pulling out the two-tone wing tipped shoes, and the ladies came glammed out in fishnet stockings and polka dot dresses, one carrying a metal lunch box as purse.

Hunter and his band blazed through a fantastic set of short songs from his current album “The Hard Way.” His two sax players bellowed out tight fills, pausing occasionally to shake some spirit hands over the audience through heavy back beats from the drum kit and organ fills from the keyboardist.

Hunter held down center stage with his subdued pompadour, adding in dry, self-deprecating quips that made it seem he himself is a bit surprised he’d struck it big so late in life: “If you buy [our c.d.], me and my mates will scribble on it for you. I warn you now it will reduce it’s value considerably.” The drummer refrained from adding a ka-ching from the cymbal after that bit, though Hunter’s tendency towards being a ham went overboard during the encore as he took the stage smiling to reveal fake Billy-Bob teeth. A self parody of British dental hygiene? Who the hell knows, but maybe humor is a generational thing - the 40-something dude to my right seemed to think this was the funniest thing ever.

False teeth aside, all the elements of a crowd-pleasing encore were there: a hearty call and response between Hunter and the audience, the saxes quoting “Tequila” and the theme from “The Pink Panther” in their extended solos, and Hunter slapping his guitar strings and letting out an anachronistic “Yeoooooow!” I’m not sure if the Brits understand American music better than we do, but they certainly have mastered it. But Notes Guy was spot-on with this: James Hunter and his band are awesome, indeed.