Starting in 1957 he spent 10 years playing seven wild nights a week at a hotel in Juarez, Mexico, a border town of depravity perhaps second only to Tijuana, and was not “discovered” in the States until the 1990s. The 73-year old guitar slinger still flashes a raw, raucous style of rocking blues, R&B and rock ‘n’ roll that confirms his time spent in relative isolation and makes him stand out like a jalapeno pepper in a fruit salad.
Hunter’s backing band of Bobby Parris (drums), Tommy Washington (keyboards) and Tracy Mortimer (bass) warmed up the crowd with a nasty funk groove called “The Walking Catfish,” “Knock On Wood” sung by Mortimer and Al Green’s “Let’s Stay Together” with vocals courtesy of Parris. The big man then made his entrance with a flourish on his original instrumental “Hey Baby,” slapping his strings for a percussive thwack on the swinging shuffle. More funk followed on “That’s It” as Hunter accompanied his reedy voice with short, sax-like bursts. He changed it up with “Crazy Love,” using the languid pace of the melancholy slow blues to showcase his deep, honking guitar tones greasing rolling, dynamic licks that began and ended with musical logic. “The Thing” goosed the energy back up as the rangy bluesman snapped off dyads like a bleating horn section contrasted with rapid mandolin-type strums.
Sam Cooke’s classic “Bring It On Home” demonstrated the band’s interpretive powers as Hunter emphasized the blues roots of the composition with 9th chords, reconstructed the melody during his solo and then took it up a notch with a hip shaking I-IV vamp for a coda. He ended his set with “John’s Walk” by strolling through the crowd while coaxing one inventive line after another from his Strat on the slow blues, allowing ecstatic audience members to strum his strings while he fretted with his left hand. Signaling his guys to halt, he segued into the “Marine’s Hymn” and exited the room to hoots and hollers as the band shuffled on in his absence. It was not hard to imagine him in his younger days swinging from the rafters at the Lobby Bar located across the Rio Grande mud from El Paso in the fifties.
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