In the pocket: Blues rockers return to the stage
Downtown Dave & the Deep Pockets played their last pre-quarantine gig on March 8, so when they booked a late May show outdoors at Broken Spoke in Laconia, frontman Dave Glannon counted the days. Fate, however, had other plans for his blues-rock powerhouse. A broken well pump forced them to cancel, though the owner paid half their guarantee, a reminder of why the Spoke is a favorite venue for the band.
The cash was a comfort, but for Glannon, music is passion first, profession second. He was ready to get down and play his harmonica, to jam with guitarist Paul Size and a rhythm section of drummer Don Boucher and bass player Erik Thomas. So he moved the show down the road and turned it into a party.
“Everybody was already there, like right around the corner, and my friend has a place at the lake,” Glannon said in a recent phone interview. “It just felt so good to get together and play.”
Their summer calendar is slowly filling; on the Seacoast, they have a show booked at Hampton’s Ashworth-by-the-Sea on Aug. 22.
“We love that place, it’s kind of a new one for us,” Glannon said. “It’s absolutely gorgeous, and you’re right on the beach. Playing outdoors, the sound is just coming through the air, and seems to draw people in.”
Glannon became a musician at age 41, inspired by the purchase of his first compact disc player, when they were a new thing. He bought two CDs that day, Aerosmith’s Live Bootleg and Muddy Waters’ Still Hard. The latter looked cool, had Johnny Winter backing blues legend Waters on guitar, and was bargain priced.
It changed his life.
“I think I played it for three months straight,” Glannon said. “That’s when I realized this is something I would really love to do.”
Attending an all-star benefit show at the original House of Blues in Cambridge a while later cemented his instinct.
“There were all these great people — Jerry Paquette, Racky Thomas, Jerry Portnoy, a bunch of others. … I went by myself and was just standing there taking in all the action, and I realized I really had to pursue it,” Glannon said. Realizing that learning to play guitar would take a lot of time, “I figured harmonica was the quickest way to get into that.”
In the mid-2000s Glannon practiced in his garage and went to Tuesday night blues jams hosted by Paquette at KC’s Rib Shack in Manchester — always as a spectator. One night, after prolonged prodding by his then-wife, he stepped on stage.
“I played one song and started to walk off, but Jerry stopped me,” he said. “He said, ‘You don’t sit down until I tell you to.’ So I kept coming back. … He must have seen something there.”
Glannon spent four years playing in Paquette’s Kan-Tu Blues Band, then set about forming the Deep Pockets in 2010.
“I love the blues and I like that style, but I wanted to do something more up-tempo,” he said.
Band members have come and gone; none remain from the lineup that traveled to Memphis after winning the 2015 Granite State Blues Challenge. Boucher came aboard shortly after the competition. Size, a Texas expat who played in The Red Devils, is the most recent to join. ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons included Size on his 10 Guitarists Who Blew My Mind list, which also included Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page and Jimi Hendrix.
Glannon thinks the current Downtown Dave & the Deep Pockets is the best ever, for a few reasons.
“These are four people who truly get along, have great respect for each other, great talent, and are in tune with everything that is going on,” he said. “On stage, it’s pure magic, three to four hours of thinking about nothing but the music at hand. It helps keep you sane.”
For upcoming shows and to hear some of their music, visit downtowndaveandthedeeppockets.com.
— Michael Witthaus