Hugh Pool’s Cabin Fever Tour returns to Michigan

By Ross Boissoneau

Sun contributor

Got cabin fever? You’re not alone. Fortunately, help is on the way.

Guitarist and vocalist Hugh Pool’s Cabin Fever tour will touch down at the home of James Walker in Suttons Bay on Tuesday, Feb. 20. “WNMC has sponsored (concerts) and Mulebone played at (his) house. We’ve become friends,” says Pool.

Mulebone is the bluesy duo with Pool and wind player John Ragusa, which has performed in northern Michigan numerous times. He and Ragusa still work together, and Pool is also part of an electric trio that plays in the New York area. This is simply a chance to play some dates that showcase a different side of his musicality.

So, with his two kids out of the house and his wife busy with community work, Pool saw a chance when his studio work slowed down to grab some guitars, get in the car and head to the Mitten State for a series of dates. While he’s toured and played around the area for a number of years, he says it’s typically been during the summer, and this is a chance to switch it up.

“I’ve been to northern Michigan in July. It’s amazing. The weather’s great, the people are relaxed,” he says. So why come here in February? For one thing, it gives him a chance to perform without as many of those multiple summertime distractions, when he can be “the only game in town.”

It also gives him a break from life in the studio. Pool owns and runs Excello Recording in Brooklyn, which has kept him busy. “I’ve spent a lot of time in the recording studio over the past 25 years. I play a lot of different instruments — banjo, mandolin, guitars, bass.” Whatever the session needs, basically.

He enjoys it and says the studio work is an excellent way to keep his chops up, but it’s not like playing in front of an audience. “It’s great for your musicality, but it’s not great for keeping your blade sharp as a performer.”

Pool says that growing up in western Pennsylvania, he wasn’t really exposed to the blues, but the rock music he heard was derived from variants of it. “Dylan, Neil Young, the Allman Brothers — the shaggy flannel shirt thing.” Later he discovered songwriters like Loudon Wainwright and John Hiatt. “That’s a big part of what I do,” he says.

While Mulebone is all about rootsy blues, he says these shows will be feature his original songs and some bluegrass favorites as well as a selection of Mulebone tunes. While he often favors slide and fingerstyle playing with Mulebone, he says these performances will include more flat-picking.

“I’m going to do this very humbly,” he says: just a small, good-sounding PA system, a couple guitars and Pool.

One thing about such a tour is that he can be totally flexible, switching guitars however and whenever he wants. There’s also total freedom in what songs to play. “The set list changes for sure. It’s a conversation with people,” he says. He says a song that he likes may not work as well as he’d hoped, while another he may be skeptical of turns out to be a crowd pleaser. “Audience response is critical for which songs stay and which don’t stay.”

Tickets for Pool’s Feb. 20 show at 1535 S. Norvick Road are $20 in advance at purplepass.com/hughpool and $25 at the door. Pool will also be performing at Common Good Bakery in Traverse City on Feb. 17 and Peninsula Township Library Feb. 19.