Christmas Day mandolin blues in Thailand

**Ron McMillan** · Dec-25-2017, 11:32pm

A show here in Chiang Mai (North Thailand) last night was a treat. Blues mandolin maestro Bert Deivert and guitarist Willie Salomon played a lovely little venue in the city called Thapae East Venue for the Performing Arts.

All blues, and no Christmas music - which for me was perfect. Here's a sample. There will eventually be a few more up on YouTube on the same 'properjob' YouTube account. Filmed on my little Zoom Q2n camera; the original files are amazing, but too big for YouTube, so we'll have to put up with the compressed versions.

**Bert Deivert** · Dec-26-2017, 2:42am

Special Agent Blues by Sleepy John Estes. The riff for it evolved from listening to the playing of Son Bonds as the 2nd guitar on the track recorded in 1938. I used ideas from that and came up with a signature lick I could use for this song. I love the song and play it at nearly every live performance. Yank Rachell doesn't play on the original track so I worked out a part that I thought reflected a Yank feel but with my own style. Thanks for the video Ron!