John Hammond On The Cherry Esplanade

by Mary Jasch

On a blue sky day, the acoustic sounds of blues legend John Hammond wash over the crowd at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Families and friends spread out on the grass of the Cherry Esplanade. Everybody soaks up the song.

Hammond's brand of good time blues booms through the air -� flirting harp, teasing guitar, tapping body, hammering strings, gutteral groovin' on a Sunday afternoon.

"I'm just your fool... I can't help myself. I love you baby. There's no one else. And I ain't crazy, you are my baby. I'm just your foo-oo-ool..."

Other things go on in the park like lavender tours and Audubon film, fountains and water lilies and the rose garden bursting in full swing, but here, everybody's wound up in Hammond's tunes.

"Oh, you must be tryin' to drive me crazy. Treating me the wa-ay you do. I'm asking please have mercy baby. Honey let me be happy too."

Emotion in sound with earthy lyrics of love, varying, growling, silken, always enclosing the fan into his reach. Tom Waits, Muddy Waters, Rolling Stones... Round and round in encompassing song - demanding, telling, begging, if-you-say-so guitar.

"If I were to pick my dream weekend in the spring, it would be outdoors in a beautiful place I felt safe in and listen to my favorite musicians," says Anita Jacobs, director of public relations at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.

Jacobs says there are not many outdoor places that are secure and safe, especially with little kids. "Just to be able to lie down on the grass and listen to music in New York is a unique opportunity."

Behind the musician and along the paved walk to the rose garden, three parades of women in flowing white, veils afloat, skim under the arbors, their grooms and maids in tow. Jacobs works with the idea of why people go to gardens, like these couples on their way to bliss, and plans music accordingly.

"There are birds twittering and other sounds happening. To drown out everything is certainly not the point," says Jacobs. "And there are all the reasons people go to gardens - to be outdoors.

"We needed music that's fresh enough to work for someone who just happened to walk through the garden, and edgy enough to pitch toward young adults with an interest in Jimi Hendrix. John Hammond is a great mix. Did you notice all the grey-haired people there like my mother who followed his career since they were teenagers and all the young people?"

"I don't care when you go...
Someday baby, you ain' goin' worry old John anymore."

Mouth like a megaphone - thick voluminous sound like good strong coffee. He breaks a string and fixes it himself as he talks about a long-ago day when he opened for Neil Young who had ten guitars waiting in case he broke a string.

Delta blues master John Hammond has recorded over 25 albums in nearly 50 years of playing with almost every blues legend, including Jimi Hendrix, Clapton, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Bill Wyman, Michael Bloomfield .... He's won multiple W.C. Handy Awards and a Grammy.

Besides all that, why did Jacobs choose him to play in the garden?

"I followed his career. He's got a very developed sound. When you hear John Hammond play, you'll know it's John Hammond within the first few minutes. He puts a unique stamp on what he does," she says.

"He grew up in the village. He's somebody that loves New York and outdoors things. It seemed possible to tempt him to come out to the garden, and I have to program music that I like," she must be saying with a wicked grin.

Hammond's concert is the last of the Springfest series, but more concerts at the Garden will resume in the fall.

Check www.bbg.org, or 718-623-7220

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published July 01, 2003