As a child gorwing up on a farm north of Regina, Jack Semple first heard the Beatles, then B.B. King, and his love of music was born.
He will be bringing that love of music, especially of the blues, to Weyburn with his band to perform a tribute to the late B.B. King as the season finale for the Weyburn Concert Series on Monday, May 1, at the Cugnet Centre, starting at 7:30 p.m.
Semple writes and performs “Modern Blues” without forgetting where he came from, and in this show, he will be playing the blues shuffle style of his lifelong hero, B.B. King, naming the moment he met him as “the highlight moment of my life.”
He had seen King perform a number of times, but it was after his show in Regina in 1995 at the Conexus Arts Centre that he was able to meet him in person, and had him sign his Fender Stratocaster guitar.
“He was friendly, humble and totally generous with his time. There were about 40 people in line to meet him, and he talked to every single person and got photos taken with them.”
While he knows most of King’s blues songs, Semple watched videos of him playing in concert so he could get a sense of his style and rhythm of playing. The blues shuffle style of King “is really joyous music, so we really try to emulate his spirit.”
Semple noted there were three great “Kings” of blues, including Albert King and Freddie King, but B.B. King was considered as the top guitar god of that genre.
“When he played the guitar, it was like he was talking. There wasn’t a flurry of fancy notes. I try to evoke it, but there’s only one B.B. King. I’ve got a repertoire of maybe a dozen licks by B.B. King, and I can string them together until the music takes over,” said Semple.
To complete his tribute to his hero, Semple will be playing a Gibson ES335, which guitar and blues aficionados will know as the make and model of King’s guitar, which he affectionately named “Lucille”. Semple will have four players on stage with him, on drums, bass, keyboards and saxophone — not quite the 15-piece band that B.B. King toured with for many years, but the music will be the blues that King made famous over his long career. These include his biggest hit, “The Thrill is Gone”, to “Caledonia”, “Why I Sing the Blues”, “When Love Came To Town” and “Let the Good Times Roll”.
He will include a couple of his own original songs, including one from his latest album, “In the Blue Light”, but the show for the most part will be about B.B. King.
Semple took a trip to the heart of the blues, Memphis, Tennessee, last year, and while he was there he saw a huge poster of B.B. King from around 1948 or 1949, with a huge band and buses behind him. “He was a superstar of the blues even way back then.”
In his own music career, Semple started by playing with various Regina-based bands, and later relocated to Toronto in the late 1980s to become the lead guitarist of The Lincolns, a popular funk and rhythm and blues band. He left the band after two years and returned to Regina to pursue a solo career and to spend time with his family. After his move back to Regina, Semple contributed to television and music scores and appeared in the title role of Guitarman, a 1994 television movie. Semple also commenced a solo recording career that has resulted in the release of 10 albums. In 1992, Semple came to national prominence through winning the MuchMusic “Guitar Wars” contest. Semple has been twice nominated, in 1999 and 2000, for a Gemini Award for his soundtrack work on the television series, “Incredible Story Studio”.
Semple won a Juno award in 1991 for best roots recording. He has won two Western Canadian music awards for “Qu’Appelle” and “In the Blue Light”, his latest album, and Semple continues to perform as a solo artist and with The Jack Semple Band, across Canada and across America.
