John Hammond brings legacy, metal guitar to Carnegie

John Hammond

Carnegie Lecture Hall (Oakland)

Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

$20 (student… John Hammond

Carnegie Lecture Hall (Oakland)

Saturday at 7:30 p.m.

$20 (student rate)

412-394-3353 for tickets

When John Hammond comes to play for Pittsburgh audiences, he’ll bring with him a love for the Steel City forged more than 40 years ago.

“I love Pittsburgh,” he said. “It’s a place where I actually had a hit single.”

He’ll also bring a guitar made almost entirely out of metal. This might sound like a strange thing, but to bluesman Hammond it’s an essential tool of the troubadour trade.

“It’s unlike any other kind of guitar,” Hammond said of his National resonator. “It has a tremendous volume level that’s a little intimidating at first because any mistake you make is that much more amplified. But when you get a feel for it, it’s perfect. It just creates its own mood.”

That mood will permeate Oakland’s Carnegie Lecture Hall this Saturday when Hammond performs as the first entry in the Calliope Acoustic Masters concert series showcasing some of America’s finest roots and folk musicians.

“We are delighted to present John Hammond at the Lecture Hall on Saturday,” said Calliope Executive Director Patricia Tanner. “He represents the caliber of artist that Calliope strives to present and helps us further our mission of presenting and preserving traditional music.”

Hammond certainly fits that camp and has displayed a passion for playing Country blues since he started playing music in the first place.

“It was definitely the blues that made me want to play the guitar,” Hammond said. “This was 1960 when I got my first guitar. I knew all these songs because I’d been a blues fanatic for about eight years before that. At an early age I became a fan and bought records and so forth and about the time I began to see everybody play acoustic guitars, I thought to myself, ‘I can do that.’”

And play guitars he did. Hammond embarked on a career performing at coffee houses and eventually at clubs in New York, where in 1966 he put together a short-term band for an unknown guitarist from Seattle named Jimi Hendrix.

“I knew he was great,” Hammond said. “I knew he would be really successful, but I had no idea he would become as big as he became. He was the highest-paid artist of his time. He made more money than Frank Sinatra.”

When Hendrix went off to pursue his career elsewhere, Hammond continued recording and performing the traditional blues songs he loved — sometimes with the artists who wrote them.

“I’ve had the chance to play with a lot of my idols who started their careers in the 1930s,” Hammond said. “I got to tour with Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf and Jimmie Rodgers … a lot of the great Chicago blues players as well as the Country blues guys, so I didn’t have any lack of inspiration.”

That inspiration has stayed with him and, even to this day, he maintains a dedication to the genre.

“I love it,” he said. “I have no fancy explanation [as to how it stays fresh]. I’m a blues fanatic still, and when you nail it, the audience knows you nail it, and that’s what it’s all about. It’s putting it across.”

In performing as a singular bluesman, Hammond delivers an intense experience to the audience, even without supporting instrumentalists.

“It’s the focus when it’s just one person performing that gives it power,” he said. “You have to focus the attention of a crowd … it makes it a little scarier but it’s that much more intense.

Hammond has also performed with a number of groups, but says that he still prefers solo performance.

“When you have a band with drums and bass, you can kind of float on the top and play more single note lines,” he said. “I enjoy playing solo more than I enjoy playing with a band, although I had some great band experiences. I’ve worked very hard at getting good at playing solo.”

That solo work is beginning to extend into his own songwriting — an area that Hammond hasn’t been particularly known for, even though he’s released more than 30 albums.

“I’m looking more at doing songs I write and are more reflective of my own take on things,” he said. “I know so many songs, so many classics and unknowns as well, but I never really thought of myself as a songwriter until a few years ago when I started working at it.”

As ready as Hammond is to work on those songs, it’s live performance that keeps him playing music.

“It’s always been important for a player to be out there playing gigs,” he said. “There’s a lot of artists who think they can’t tour unless they have a new recording out there and it’s great to have a record … but to have that ability to go out on the road and win audiences … that’s the criterion.”