The last time Jason King played at Harrah’s Lake Tahoe it came as a surprise.
The Reno guitarist was in the audience at a Tommy Castro and the Painkillers concert last year when Castro played an extended solo as he walked through the South Shore Room. He came up the aisle where King was seated, unhooked a strap and handed his guitar to King, pointed two fingers downward and shouted, “It’s in ‘A.'” A veteran “gunslinger,” King continued the solo as he made his way onto the stage to finish the song before he sat in for another.
King will be back in Tahoe Tuesday, Feb. 11, for the second blues night at Center Stage, right outside the South Shore Room on the casino floor. The Tuesday night blues shows, which will continue for at least seven weeks, are presented by the Buddy Emmer Band. A different artist is featured each week.
Last week, Rick Hammond put on an impressive display of musicianship on a new red Gibson guitar he picked up a few days earlier in Memphis when he competed in the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Challenge.
Brian Chandler, the entertainment technical supervisor, was happy with the turnout.
“This could keep rolling,” Chandler said. “If it works well in the winter, it will be killer in the summer.”
Chandler said he has considered having a midweek music event with Emmer for about a half-dozen years.
King also competed at the IBC. He and lap slide guitarist Tommy Stiles were in the solo/duo category. As members of the Jason King Band, King and Stiles also competed as the Reno Blues Society’s IBC band representative in 2011 and 2012.
King is working on two follow-up projects to his album “Black Skies & Blue Shoes,” which received readers’ choice acclaim in Blues Revue magazine. He said he wants to soon release an acoustic and a full band album of his original music.
The Jason King Band also plays Sunday, Feb. 16 at Biscuits and Blues in San Francisco.
In the Tahoe Onstage video above, the Jason King Band performs “Ask Me Yo Questions” last summer at Northstar California.
Jason King, right, sits in with Robert Randolph for two songs at a recent show in Crystal Bay. Tahoe Onstage image by Tim Parsons
Tuesday Night Blueswith the Buddy Emmer Blues Band
Featured artist: Jason King
When: 8:30 p.m. to 12:15 a.m.
Where: Harrah’s Lake Tahoe Center Stage
ABOUT Tim Parsons
Tim Parsons is the editor of Tahoe Onstage who first moved to Lake Tahoe in 1992. Before starting Tahoe Onstage in 2013, he worked for 29 years at newspapers, including the Tahoe Daily Tribune, Eureka Times-Standard and Contra Costa Times. He was the recipient of the 2011 Keeping the Blues Alive award for Journalism.
