LIVENATION PRESENTS @ SONGBYRD
Wednesday, June 14, 2017
D: 7:00 // S: 8:00 PM
—
About Hamish Anderson:
“I started playing guitar when I was 12,” notes Melbourne-raised, LA-based Hamish Anderson. With “Trouble,” the raw, chunky opening cut and title track of his debut full-length studio CD, a couple of things become clear toute de suite: 1) The affable young Aus- tralian is intimate with a six-string, and 2) His music belies his youth. This child of the ’90s, raised on his dad’s classic rock vinyl, has roots that go deeper than you’d guess. Much deeper. “I don’t think I’d ever thought about guitar before lis- tening to the Beatles’ White Album,” he’ll tell you. “Listening to ‘Back in the U.S.S.R.,’ something just clicked; it’s all I’ve thought about since.”
But his roots go deeper still. A student of the three Kings (Albert, B.B., and Freddie), Anderson also ad- mits to following Fleetwood Mac founder Peter Green, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Jeff Buckley and Tom Petty. He effortlessly namechecks blues legends Robert Johnson, Buddy Guy, Elmore James, and Son House, revealing a love for a genre that predates him by decades. “I think with the blues and rock music it was the honesty of the music and—especially the blues—the relatability of it; everyone experiences the blues.”
Anderson left his homeland in the spring of 2014 to give it a go in America because “the blues and rock is what I connect with, and it’s all from here.” Seeking opportunity, he aimed for the moon and hit the stars; within months this then-23-year-old wunderkind had become the very last artist to open for his hero, B.B. King, and he’d been heralded by guitar slinger Gary Clark Jr in REVOLT TV as someone to watch under the age of 30.
