Walter Trout, Frankie & Savva @ The Gov, Adelaide 2/2/2024

Walter Trout plays the blues. Having played with John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Joe Tex and many others in his younger days (he is seventy two years of age now), Walter plays the blues as the blues should be played, with feeling. He was lead guitarist for Canned Heat in the 80’s, so Walter’s blues also border on rock. Next, he had five years with John Mayall, living the blues around the world.

Having had a liver transplant in 2014, he also suffered brain damage, causing him to lose the ability to speak and play the guitar, so Walter, now recovered, knows he is on borrowed time and is living his life to the fullest with the blues.

Frankie & Savva opened for a rapidly expanding crowd at The Gov, playing their brand of blues and boogie. Bad Bad Boogie set the scene as to what was to come. It was just Savva playing a mean guitar with Frankie on sultry vocals. They have a new album out soon and the title track, about a trip to Memphis, titled Three Kings & Elvis came next.

Tonight was songs about the U.S.A, highways and Memphis, which featured in a couple of songs. Frankie swapped to a twelve-string guitar for some Mississippi Delta blues, which made the audience happy. Final song of the evening was a cover of Canned Heats On the Road Again, and the audience lapped it up.

Did I mention Walter Trout played the blues? The band and Walter sauntered on stage with no fanfare or intro music, plugging in and launching into Bo Diddley’s I Can Tell. “It’s great to be here” said Walter at the conclusion to the song, “At this point it’s great to be anywhere. We’re going to have fun tonight”. I Got a Feeling followed with a harder rock approach to the blues. Walter’s son John joined the band on stage for Wanna Dance from the 2020 Ordinary Madness album proving like his dad, he was no slouch with a guitar. Walter tried to dance at the end of the song – let’s just say Walter can’t dance, but it was amusing.

A story of meeting B.B. King at fifteen years of age and telling him he wanted to play the blues led to a B.B. King infused Say Goodbye to the Blues. He met B.B. many years later but B.B. didn’t remember meeting Walter as a lad. Ride, the title track of his latest 2022 album of the same name followed, with another story of the song. This time about Walter being ten years old and wanting to run away from home. Walter is not only a great guitar player, but his vocals are strong and powerful as well, especially for a man about to turn seventy three.

Keyboard player Richard T Bean took the spotlight with some solo blues piano playing and Walter just on vocals, before the band joined in. Walter was good at telling stories of how songs came about and of playing with so many famous people. He was humble about it and not bragging. He gave credit to his wife of thirty three years for helping with the lyrics to the title track of his forthcoming album, Broken. “It’s an album, not a download, not a stream, not a CD, but an album” Walter told us. Beth Hart appears on the song on the album and with Beth in town soon, one wonders if she will do her interpretation of it. One hopes so. Check the song out on YouTube, it is wonderful.

Red Sun, a Floyd Lee cover, closed out the set with the band firing on all cylinders. During the song, each band member got introduced by Walter and each given a short solo, before firing back into the song to finish the set.

After a band bow, they left the stage for the shortest I have ever seen, come back for encore. They literally walked off and straight back on. “Those sitting down, time to get your arses off the seat and stand up for this one” we were told and the band threw themselves into a wild, loud Going Down (An Alabama State Troupers cover). It was simply magnificent.

Then it was over. Although one hundred minutes of music was played, Walter barely touched the tip of his output, with over thirty solo albums having been released. But everyone in the room left with a smile on their face, having witnessed a true survivor and one of the great guitar players of our time.

My only disappointment was, no Merch store. I had a pocket full of money for T Shirts and CD’s.

You can’t fake playing the blues. Playing the blues correctly is a feeling and Walter Trout certainly has that feeling. Oh, and did I mention, the man can sure play the blues…hard. Outstanding.

A bit of Trivia; Walter Trout was at Woodstock. He didn’t play, but he did get to meet Janis Joplin.

Live Review By Geoff Jenke