Dan Patlansky

Some of the better guitar players and a few “blues-nuts” may understand when I paint the following picture.

A Battle-scarred red 1962 Fender stratocaster, scalloped fretboard, extra wide (bass guitar size) frets and extra heavy gauge strings tuned down a semi-tone a la Jimmy Hendrix style.

This is more a weapon of mass destruction than a guitar and it is the preferred tool of a serious axeman called Dan Patlansky.

Proper blues gigs are hard to find in South Africa and a really good three-piece blues-band is even rarer, so when you do find them, they are to be treasured. In a three-piece set-up, there is nowhere for a mediocre player to hide. No keyboard or second guitar to cover-up the little mistakes. Every error is instantly obvious. But as unforgiving the three-piece environment is for the average musician, so rewarding it is for the master of his craft and his audience. There is space tor the musicians to explore, every subtle bend of a string, every tiny tickle of a cymbal can be savoured and this is exactly what you can expect at die Boer.

When I heard Dan Patlansky the first time in 2002, he was 19 years old, playing in a nice, dodgy, smoky blues bar called Julians in Northcliff, JHB. My jaw literally dropped open.. It was supposed to be impossible for somebody that young to play the blues-guitar that well. At that stage, I have been playing the guitar longer that Patlansky had been alive, yet two weeks later I went for my first lesson with the young prodigy.

Now 25 years old, Dan Patlansky has already achieved what most accomplished guitarists will not master in a lifetime of trying. He’s is beyond the stage of trying to impress his audience with too many notes... (although he can be blisteringly fast if he wants to ). Instead he has lately concentrated on being an artist and doing justice to the music of some of the great players he has learned from. He can make the guitar moan softly in anguish, sing with playfull happiness and growl in anger.

Blues can be played on most instruments, but it is on the electric guitar that this genre really comes into its own, and Dan Patlansky is one of the finest exponents of this artform you will ever see. Whatever you do, don’t miss it!

Jurgen Human : Oct 2007