Gabriel Gratzer: One man and his guitar

Tokyo (Nov. 10)—Argentine bluesman Gabriel Gratzer wraps up a 1-1/2-year world tour with a series of gigs in Tokyo starting Friday. The Daily Yomiuri spoke over the telephone with the gaucho of the blues earlier this week during Gratzer's visit to Taiwan, where he was playing a blues festival.

"It's amazing. I never knew the Taiwanese were so into the blues," Gratzer said. "[But] the blues is universal. It's the roots of everything...It appeals directly to the heart of people."

Not only does this universal appeal reach as far afield as Taiwan, it clearly made it to Buenos Aires, too. But hasn't tango historically expressed the blue side of Argentina?

Asked if he saw any connection between the blues and tango, beyond both being played in a minor key, Gratzer said: "Maybe the older blues of the late 1930s--when blues started moving into the cities--and tango have something in common. But tango is more sophisticated in its form and composition, even the lyrics. But the sense is perhaps the same. And indeed, both musics came from Africa."

Gratzer first fell in love with the blues when he heard the Beatles.

"'For You Blues,' 'Lady Madonna'...had a very strong blues influence," he said, "So I looked behind, to see where their music was coming from, and I started discovering what the blues was all about."

This search led Gratzer to British blues bands, such as John Mayall, Alexis Korner, and then American artists such as Albert King, B.B. King, and Buddy Guy.

But electric blues bands did not fit Gratzer's inner vision of the true blues--one man and his guitar.

"That's the image of the blues I had in my head--one man with his guitar--just that--his guitar and his singing," Gratzer said.

Gratzer found this image personified at a concert he attended in the 1980s by Cristina Aguayo, an Argentinian gospel and blues singer. This feeling was immediately reinforced by some Robert Johnson recordings Gratzer heard soon afterward.

"I knew I was on the road, it felt like being home," Gratzer said of this encounter with his ideal form of blues.

Since Gratzer started playing with Aguayo in 1989, the blues has been a road more traveled for Gratzer. Along the way, he has organized blues festivals, edited a blues newsletter, and cut four very impressive CDs. He has also opened for just about every international blues act that has performed in Buenos Aires: Billy Branch, Dave Myers and John Primer to name a few.

But for Gratzer, the truth in blues remains one man and his guitar.

"In blues, it's all about the beat and the feel. And the first beat is your heart. If your heart don't work, you die--same as the blues," Gratzer said.


Gabriel Gratzer will play:
Nov. 11, 8 p.m. at The Warrior Celt in Ueno, Tokyo, (03) 3836-8588;
Nov. 13, 7 p.m. at Club Wire in Shinjuku, Tokyo, (03) 3207-6953;
Nov. 14, 7 p.m. at Rossa Fiesta in Roppongi, Tokyo, (03) 3475-1322;
Nov. 16, 7 p.m at Rock Factory in Roppongi, Tokyo, (03) 5545-4242.