Lampano Alley: Red-hot blues

MANILA, Philippines – The late great blues legend, B.B. King, once said: “If you’re white and you play the blues, you’re black once. If you’re black and you play the blues, you’re black twice.” But what if you’re brown and you sing the blues? Are you brown-black once? Or perhaps brown-black twice? 

Whatever. 

Ray “Binky” Lampano, quite possibly the pre-eminent Pinoy blues singer, flew into town from Los Angeles where he now lives to do two gigs, one at Strumm’s in Makati and the other at 70s Bistro in Quezon City, where we caught him 3 days before his scheduled flight home.  

Binky opened his set at the venerable 70s Bistro with his own version of “Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood,” originally sung by Nina Simone, reworked by The Animals in 1965 and ranked No. 322 in the Rolling Stone Magazine‘s 500 Greatest Songs of All Time. Right from the opening bars of the song, we knew without a shadow of doubt we were in for a nightlong treat.  

That done, the band – apart from Binky on vocals, Edwin “Kwachi” Vergara on guitar, Simon Tan on bass, Rey Vinoya on drums and Tom Colvin on blues harp – segued to their rendition of BB King’s “Why I Sing the Blues”:  “When I first got the blues/they brought me over on a ship/Men were standing over me/And a lot more with a whip/And everybody wanna know/why I sing the blues/Well, I’ve been around a long time/Mm, I’ve really paid my dues.” We suddenly remembered that we were fortunate enough to watch BB King with Ray Charles at the CCP complex (Folk Arts Theater?) sometime in the 1990s, and Binky brought that magical night back to our consciousness, complete with white-hot guitar licks, muscular bass lines, thumping drum beats, tasty harmonica runs and over-all solid musicianship from his band.   

But the highlight of an unforgettable blues-and-beer-drenched evening, as far as we’re concerned, was Binky’s take on the scorcher, Lolit and the Boys’ “Ganyan Lang”: “Suliranin ay may sukdulan/guhit ng langit na walang hanggan/ganyan lang, ganyan lang, ganyan lang/…hinay-hinay sabi/ magkamali di bale/tulungan mo ang iyong sarili/kagat ng dilim/halik ng liwanag/kailangan ko pa bang ipaliwanag/ganyan lang, ganyan lang, ganyan lang.” 

Here, Binky coaxed the audience to sing the refrain along with him, in the blues genre’s classic call-and-response fashion, to which many responded with a tipsy and understandably out-of-tune “ganyan lang.” Binky is a master at having his audience feeding off the palm of his hand, and at the same time keeping things on even keel with the injunction, “order pa kayo ng beer…”

What kept the audience spellbound with Binky is that he has mastered the art of communicating with his audience. His grasp of musical dynamics was much in evidence. He would sing the lyrics at the top of his voice using the microphone, but then discard the sound apparatus and project his voice across the room in the manner of a stage actor. The 70s Bistro, after all, is not a big place (it can accommodate maybe around 100-150 people at the most). His phrasing was also remarkable, no doubt helped along by his facility in the language, having stayed for more than a decade in the US. 

Formidable names

It was an all-blues evening graced by formidable names in Pinoy music. Ace axe-men Kakoy Legaspi and Paul Marney Leobrera took turns displaying their mastery of the electric guitar, while lawyer Butch Saulog also helped out Binky and the boys on a few songs with his keyboard pyrotechnics.  

Proof positive that Binky commands the respect of his peers is that a few other mainstays of the local music scene came to watch his gig. Chikoy Pura of The Jerks was there. So was veteran guitarist Nitoy Adriano. Pendong Aban and wife Chat of the now-defunct Grupong Pendong, also LA residents, likewise dropped by to watch Binky’s gig. 

Ex-Malaya reporter and music aficionado (now also Vice President Jojo Binay’s spokesman) Joey Salgado, along with wife Desiree Carlos, shared a table near the front row with the Abans and Eat Bulaga mainstay Julia Clarete, who was  taking swigs of Emperador brandy as the night wore on.  

In another table, we spotted ex-Manila Chronicle staffer and now Alphaland property development executive Apa Ongpin clearly enjoying the music with ice-cold beer along with renowned photographer Neal Oshima. 

Over in another table near the stage was Roy Allan Magturo of the Philippine Blues Society, which organized Philippine participation in an annual international blues competition in Memphis, Tennessee for the past two or three years. Binky served as mentor to the Philippine entries in this blues competition where some of the  world’s best blues bands took part. 

Binky fronted a band named Dean’s December (the band’s moniker was taken from a novel by Saul Bellow), formed in 1985, when the Pinoy alternative music scene was beginning to emerge centered around two venues, Red Rocks in Timog, Quezon City and Mayric’s along España in Manila. The band issued a self-titled album in cassette format at a time when New Wave ruled the airwaves and bands sprouted like wild mushrooms and were snapped up by the major recording companies. Two of the cuts in that album,  “Healing,” and “It Doesn’t Snow in Manila,” can still be accessed on YouTube.    

Binky then came out with a solo album, “I Read the News” in 1992. “Kwentong Looban” spoke about life in the city’s underbelly, having grown up in the proletarian part of Pasay City, where his father was a cop. That, too, you can click on YouTube. 

Of course, Binky’s obsession with the blues may be said to have been shaped by such blues masters as BB King, Freddie King, Buddy Guy, Eric Clapton, John Mayall and Robert Cray, among many others.  

Among those who have kept the blues alive in  this part of the Pacific are rock and roll icon Joey “Pepe” Smith, Wally Gonzales, Jun Lopito, The Jerks, Blue Rats, and Bluesviminda. But Binky has sufficiently carved a name for himself in the local blues firmament with his distinct vocal style and stage presence.

IT teacher

When Binky arrived at the venue around 9 pm he was limping and carried a walking cane. We asked him why. This medical condition, he said, came out almost of the blue, as one day he just felt severe lower back pain. The doctor diagnosed it as a “desiccated  pelvic bone.” Because of his limp, he moved cautiously on stage, but not without losing his close connection with his audience.

In LA, Binky shared, he is a full-time teacher of Information Technology courses at a community college, with hardly time to do any professional music gigs. In fact, he is unemployed two months in a year in between his teaching job.

At first, he said, his students were unaware that he had been a mainstay of the alternative music scene in the 1990s in the Philippines. Until someone got wind of the fact that his nickname back in PI was Binky and Googled his full name. Now everyone in the campus knows him through his songs posted on YouTube.   

By the way, Binky’s stage name in the US is “Beancurd Jnr.” We did not get the chance to ask him why he adopted this stage name. We can translate that to mean, literally, “Anak ng Tokwa”, isn’t it? He may be Beancurd Jnr in the US to emphasize his Pinoy and Asian roots amid a profusion of notable Stateside blues acts like Sleepy John Estes, Barrelhouse Chuck, Hound Dog Taylor or Blind Mississippi Morris, but he’s still the Binky we used to know. – Rappler.com

 

Butch Hilario writes a weekly column on political, economic and social issues for a business broadsheet. He used to write a music review column for the Manila Chronicle in the mid-90s.)