One of guitarist Ronnie Earl’s albums is called Language of the Soul (Bullseye). That’s what he spoke last Saturday at the House of Blues, pouring his sweat and his heart into a performance that strove for connection with his audience, and possibly something higher.
After a few taps of his foot to set the beat, Earl launched his set with a searing fusillade of gorgeously defined notes, playing with inspired determination and finesse that he sustained throughout the night. After wringing a breathless series of melodies and singing bends and caressing vibrato-shivered tones from his strings, he explained to the crowd that his intent was to take us all to church, which he defined as "a gathering of souls." As the concert unfolded and his guitar preached its gospel in lush organ chords, delicate jazz-fueled scales, note-sustaining feedback, and blues licks plucked from the mud of the Delta and Chicago’s windy streets, his denomination became familiar. Thirty-two years ago, Jimi Hendrix spoke of the "Sky Church," a spiritual place he believed his music created in the air with sound. That’s where Earl preaches too.
At the House of Blues his playing offered flashes of Hendrix, Otis Rush, Kenny Burrell, Magic Sam, Hubert Sumlin, and other poets of the electric guitar, but it was always marked with the range, delicacy, intensity, and constant improvising that are his brand. To those who have followed the Groton-based musician’s instrumental work closely, the performance may have seemed like a small epiphany.
Storm clouds of depression have hung over Earl in recent years, coloring his music. Last year’s Ronnie Earl and Friends (Telarc) had him revisiting the sound of a ’60s Chicago jam session with stellar guests like Irma Thomas and James Cotton. On Healing Time (Telarc), in 2000, he explored an organ-guitar jazz-combo sound. Both albums find his talents intact but sometimes subdued. And for the past two years he’s played live with a second guitarist, the capable Paul Marrochello from the Boston rock outfit Binge. But at the House of Blues it was just Earl, with the crack support of bassist Jim Mouradian, drummer Lorne Entress, and organist David Limina. And that was enough. Early on, he jokingly promised to "play a lot of notes." He delivered, with the bonus of all of his rekindled fire and grace.
