Award winner David Vest to rock the piano in Bow Island

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Alabama born, Victoria based blues piano player David Vest is excited to return to  Bow Valley, for the second time, July 26.David Vest Plays Bow Island, July 26. Photo Submitted
 The first time he  was inspired a close brush with a freight train inspired “Freight Train Rolling,”  the first single off of his latest CD “Roadhouse Revelations.”


“I’ve only been there once,” said  the Maple Blues award winner from Victoria, doing some last minute packing for a trip to the  Winthrop Blues  Festival in Winthrop, Washington.


“We were driving  from the hotel to the theatre and came to these railroad tracks. It never  occurred to us there were active. But we saw this freight train hauling a car coming at us full tilt. And Jimi Bott, my drummer on that tour who has also played with the Fabulous thunderbirds said‘ I think I can beat this train.’ Luckily the other three of us talked him out of it,” Vest related.


“But I had the melody and the first three lines of the song right then,” he said.
 Bott won't join him on this quick  Alberta visit, which  also includes a stop in Edmonton, however Downchild rhythm section bassist  Gary Kendall and drummer Mike Fitzpatrick plus former Fathead guitarist Teddy Leonard will be joining him.


“ I met Gary four or five years ago at the Hornsby Island blues camp and he put this group together,” he said.


 They will be playing most of the new album, which is already topping blues charts in Canada.


“ And a few years ago “East Meets Vest”  was nominated for a Maple Blues award, it didn’t win. MonkeyJunk won. They're a great band and put out a great album. We’ll be playing some songs from it too (East Meets Vest) ,” he continued.


“It”s all about creating an experience for them,” he said.


He is excited about returning to the Bow Island Theatre.
 “I don’t think there is a musician who has played there who doesn’t want to come back to it,” he said.


“When I  first got there, my agent told me it was a theatre in the middle of nowhere and I wondered where all of the people came from. It’s a subscription series. You buy the entire season. And people come there from all over Alberta and the United States. It’s a labour of love and run by volunteers,” he said.


 “I guess they bought the theatre from the city which had slated it for demolition. But they renovated it. They got hardwood from old churches and a hired a sound guy who has toured with big rock acts like Journey and Triumph,” he said.
 The 70-year-old Vest has played with numerous blues greats including Big Joe Turner, who had  a variety of hits in the  ’50s and ’60s including “Shake Rattle and Roll,” “Honey Hush” and “ Flip, Flop and Fly.”

He replaced Kansas pianist/ hit-maker and rock star Big Joe Turner's piano player  Van “the Piano Man” Walls.

 


“ That was in the early ’60s. I was 21 when Big Joe hired me. I already knew all of Van's parts and Big Joe Turner was impressed by that. He said ‘I feel like I’m back in Kansas,’” he reminisced.


 He won a Maple Blues Award in 2012 for best piano player.


“It's a full circle. When I won the award, I took it back to my hotel in Toronto and went online to see who else had won the award. I looked back and  saw Van “The Piano Man” Walls won the first one,” he said.


“ It’s lovely. I’m still doing this at age 70 and I’m grateful for it,” he said.


“I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t playing piano,” he said adding he grew up in a family of gospel singers
‘I’ve been playing since 1957 and some time before that but I wasn’t getting paid for it so I don’t count those years,” he rumbled.


 He noted he comes from a family of singers, but was immediately captivated by the sound of the piano and  learned to play whenever he could, so his grandmother  got him piano lessons.


“ I grew up at a time just before guitars took over rock and roll. Not that there's anything wrong with guitars, I play myself — but people like Fats Domino and Little Richard were the rock stars then. And  ‘Great Balls of Fire’ doesn’t even have any guitars on it, just piano and drums,” he said.


“I like to keep guitarists in the back of the van and rib them about that,” he laughed.
 Tickets for the show, which begins at  8 p.m., Saturday, July 26 cost $32 plus fees.

— By Richard Amery, L.A. Beat Editor
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