Never heard of Charlie Hunter? Well, I hadn’t either – but he has recorded 17 albums, so the joke is on me, I guess. Last Sunday I was talked into checking out “an evening with Charlie Hunter” at Jammin’ Java, a coffee house in Vienna, Virginia – and was quite impressed. I especially like these small, intimate shows, and when the music is good, it’s bonus!
Charlie Hunter is a guitarist – but not your ordinary guitarist. Instead of your typical six-string, he plays one with seven strings. Used to be eight, apparently – he removed one because his hands are small and he rarely played the eighth. Of the seven that remain, three are bass and four are guitar strings. With these, he plays a bass line, rhythm, and melody – all at the same time. As a result, between him and drummer Eric Kalb, you get what pretty much sounds like a complete band. It’s hard to hear unless you use headphones or have good speakers, but check it out:
Charlie seemed to be a pretty good all-round and personable guy. When we drove up, he was casually outside chatting with some fans, and during the break, was talking to some teenagers about cell phones or something. After the break, he came back with some pretty energetic blues, some short samples below:
Finally, at the end, he did a really interesting piece that’s hard to describe. What I found interesting is that all the sounds he produced on this instrument seem to have been done without the aid of any effects pedal – it was simply in his manipulation of the strings. And this last piece kind of makes you wonder whether we’re even talking about a guitar anymore:
After the show, I was tempted to go and see whether they’d been hiding an extra bassist or guitarist behind the stage…
