Kevin Borich is one of our greatest musical champions. The indefatigable master guitarist has weathered all sorts of challenges – including surviving cancer in the late 2000s – and is still raring to go! – By Ian McFarlane
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t’s a Saturday afternoon and I’m down at my local watering hole in rural Victoria. I’m sitting next to legendary guitarist Kevin Borich, and I’m struggling to hear him speak. Not that there’s too much extraneous noise going on, it’s just that he can barely talk above a hoarse whisper. His road crew is busy setting up the equipment and he’s due to hit the stage in a couple of hours to sing and play a gig. In between COVID lockdowns, he’s been on tour with the Kevin Borich Express, the current line-up being KB, John Carson (drums) and Chris Gilbert (bass). Gilbert, in particular, is concerned about Borich’s resilience in the face of possibly having to pull the gig at the last minute. Rest assured, after he’s mentally and physically prepared himself for the task, KB and his sterling rhythm section take to the stage for two fine sets. The crowd is small, in comparison to past glories – I guess you take what you can in these times – but every person there is thrilled to see one of our very best players up so close. There’s no issue with KB’s playing ability, but what about his vocals? He’s swigging straight Manuka Honey from a pot to sooth the vocal cords and he makes it through the night, possibly a little worse for wear, but triumphant. The set list incorporates the likes of ‘Lonely One’, ‘Soapboxbitchinblues’ and ‘Rollin’ & Tumblin’’ in the acoustic set, then ‘The Place’, ‘Heart Starter’, ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’ ‘Goin’ Downtown’ and more in the electric set... with maximum slide the order of the night. I’ve seen KB play so many times over the years – going back to the La De Das at Festival Hall in 1974 as an impressionable 14-year-old – and his performances never fail to impress me. To try and explore his career authoritatively is a difficult task, there’s so much to cover. A couple of weeks later, I catch up with KB over the phone. We jump around all over the place in our conversation so here is a semblance of the Kevin Borich story. It was great to see you guys play recently at my local. You got to do a tour in May. I think everyone was just champing at the bit to go and see bands play live again. You were really struggling with your voice; how did you go with the next show at Archie’s Creek?
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That was tough but somehow, I won the crowd and they really enjoyed it. I was so eager to play I didn’t think about the match fitness. It was four shows in a row. I don’t do that much anymore, no one does; three if you got the weekend. It shocked me and the thing I forgot about the week before I did 2,000 kms to play a Newcastle gig and I hadn’t fully recovered from that drive. Then driving down to Melbourne, I thought ‘what a fuckin’ idiot’ but because the gigs were there I thought ‘what a blast! Let’s go, let’s do it!’. You’ve got a great rhythm section, with John and Chris. Yeah, they’re great. They’ve been with me for many years now. Chris plays the upright bass too which is really something. How do you pick the songs? You’ve got so many songs in your own repertoire, plus all the blues tracks you can pick from. You did ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’’, you could have done ‘Little Red Rooster’, ‘Stormy Monday’... Well, I pick the ones that go over well, and then I try and introduce new ones as I go along. I do 98% my own stuff. Obviously, you pick the ones that work but you can’t keep doing that all the time, so then you try and introduce other ones with a similar feel basically. You can do that when you’ve got regular gigs. It’s all a shambles at the moment, there’s no regularity of work. ‘Rollin’ and Tumblin’’ is great because of that oompah-oompah feel and so I just have to write something else with that feel. I’ve done ‘Little Red Rooster’ a lot. People love to hear ‘Gonna See My Baby Tonight’, which you still play. The song I really enjoy is ‘Morning, Good Morning’ and also your version of ‘All Along The Watchtower’. Would you consider revisiting some of those older La De Das songs? I’d do ‘Morning, Good Morning’ but ‘Watchtower’ I played so often at the time... it’s a great one to get people up to take a lead in a jam and that’s what usually happens. I’d pull it out if I was doing something special with someone. But that just takes up time for something of my own. When I was doing a lot of Hendrix stuff, I got canned for doing that, a Hendrix copier. I thought ‘bugger that I’ll leave that behind’ because they kind of find a way to pick at you. >>>
