WE On the afternoon of February 15, 2020, I was sitting in a café in Oakland, California, the hometown of Ron Thompson, when I got the news that this consummate blues man had passed away. Upon hearing this sad news, the first thought that raced through my head was a selfish one. In all the years he had been performing in the Bay area, I never once made the relatively short trip up the coast to hear him. His live performances were legendary. Now, I knew that I would never have the chance.

Perhaps this is why Ron Thompson’s most recent CD on The Little Village Foundation (LVF) label is such a godsend. From the Patio is that chance. Thompson is captured live on a couple of dates in the summer of 2014. These shows were part of Thompson’s fourteen-year, Wednesday night residency at the Poor House Bistro in San Jose.

As I enjoyed Oakland that long weekend, I thought about how much Ron Thompson’s life and music was the embodiment of this multi-cultural, albeit often gritty, jewel of the East Bay. Like Oakland, Thompson’s musical career is often just an afterthought, if anybody thinks about him at all. To fall in love with Oakland you have to root around in it. It may not knock your socks off at first glance like its glamorous neighbor across the bay, San Francisco, but like Thompson’s music it is worth the effort.

Ron Thomson is where Bob Geddins, Lowell Fulson and Sonny Barger meet up for a drink.

Back in the summer of 2014, organist Jim Pugh was in the process of conceiving his Little Village Foundation (LVF). He often sat in with Ron Thompson at the Poor House Bistro, as he did on these recordings. In 2015, the LVF released a series of four CDs and Ron Thompson was one of the artists to be included in that inaugural batch of music. He was the first straight ahead bluesman to have a release on this exciting new label.

That album entitled Son of Boogie Woogie was a very pleasant surprise that I didn’t see (or hear) coming. His blazing and often manic attack on guitar had been harnessed just enough to give the entire proceeding the musical tension that is the hallmark of blues at its finest.  That release was easily the best of Thompson’s career.

Whether or not the stark beauty of that album could be delivered in this live setting is answered in the first few notes of the first song Meet Me in the Bottom. Thompson channels the rough and tumble guitar of Juke Boy Bonner. He does the same thing in the next song Lightnin’ Hopkins’ Bring Me My Shotgun.

The first of three Thompson originals, Mardi Gras Boogie, is performed, and one can see now that Thompson can leap across the Sabine river between Texas and Louisiana, with the same ease in which he can bridge the bay area sounds of San Francisco’s Fillmore district and East Oakland.

Here Thompson covers Bob Geddins’ Tin Pan Alley in a simply stunning rendition of that classic blues.  Thompson had been a sideman for Lowell Fulson, among others, throughout his somewhat sporadic career.  An album highlight (and there are many) is his take on Fulson’s Sinner’s Prayer.  

Throughout From The Patio Thompson effortlessly toggles between traditional electric guitar stylings and slide. His slide guitar playing is at times extraordinary, as he resists the temptation to overplay his hand. His vocals are adequate. What makes this aspect of his performance work, is there isn’t even the faintest whiff of bullshit anywhere near his singing.

Gary Smith plays harmonica on one track, a cover of Little Walter’s One More Chance With You.  Kid Andersen sits in on two songs, Bobby Womack’s That’s How I Feel and J.T. Brown’s Doctor Brown. Andersen is the album’s producer and mixed and mastered the recording at his Greaseland Studios.

The man who is largely responsible for this album’s release is executive producer Jay Meduri. He owns the Poor House Bistro and wrote the excellent liner notes for this CD.

I’m sure Meduri is looking forward to getting back to the business of live music. All of us fans are anxious for that to happen, but nobody more so than the musicians who have had their livelihood, their art and their lifestyle stripped away from them in an instant by this pandemic.

As for Ron Thompson, he had battled with medical issues, as well as other demons for years. His passing, of complications from his battles with diabetes at the age of 66, wasn’t all that surprising for anybody who knew of his history. However, like the disappearance of live blues music, it was still a sad event.

Ron Thompson’s From The Patio at least offers up some redemption. From The Patio receives my highest recommendation and is a candidate for BLUES JUNCTION’s album of the year.

- David Mac

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