PORT TOWNSEND — Ultimately, the blues is an optimistic music. It’s about moving through life, dancing sometimes, and sometimes just making your way through sorrow to the other side.
So believes Orville Johnson, a true blues man. Fresh from teaching a class in bottleneck slide guitar at Fort Worden State Park, Johnson spoke about this weekend’s Acoustic Blues Festival, the 21st annual to fill venues all across town.
Johnson, who’s played the blues for a good 40 years now, has long been a part of the festival’s Blues in the Clubs nights as well as the concert-hall shows at Fort Worden.
He will join harmonica man Grant Dermody for a late-night show at the Public House tonight, and then take the McCurdy Pavilion stage at Fort Worden for the “Routes of the Blues” extravaganza Saturday afternoon.
Johnson, a singer since he was a teenager in church in southern Illinois, is using another kind of voice these days. It’s the dobro, “a slide guitar you play on your lap.”
The dobro sings songs without words, which is what Johnson loves about it.
“When you’re speaking in music, that sort of leaves a space people can fill up with their own ideas,” he said. “It communicates to everyone in different ways.”
Joining Johnson this week are many other well-seasoned players, including Sunpie Barnes of New Orleans. A harmonica and accordion player — “I do whatever’s necessary” — Barnes will cohost the zydeco dances tonight and Saturday at the American Legion Hall in downtown Port Townsend. On Saturday, he’ll join the “Routes of the Blues” lineup at Fort Worden.
Barnes grew up in rural Arkansas, following his uncle Sunpie, a piano player, around all of the time. His aunt nicknamed him little Sunpie. He learned to play the harmonica quite well, thank you — and then he had one vivid dream.
In it was an accordion. The instrument took up residence in his mind, until one day he saw it, that exact one, up on the music-store wall. It was to be the first thing Barnes bought over time, with financing.
But then, in a series of serendipitous events, Barnes got a job playing the accordion in a Sprite commercial, then got another such gig, and paid the loan off quick.
That was 1989. Barnes went on to be an internationally known player. His itinerary after this weekend takes him from France to Guatemala to Tokyo. This is his fifth trip to Port Townsend Acoustic Blues, where he teaches accordion to players of various backgrounds.
“Teaching makes you rethink things, and think about them a lot more clearly,” Barnes said. “One of the things I really love about teaching, is I get to learn.”
When he steps up on stage, Barnes brings with him a big Petosa accordion, made in Seattle.
“I play with a full, orchestrated sound with all the buttons and all the keys,” he said. “We’re going to have a great time.”