Happy Birthday John Popper: Performing Live With Blues Traveler At 1997 Bridge School Benefit

John Popper celebrates his 55th birthday today. The Blues Traveler frontman and harmonica ace was born on March 29, 1967 in Chadron, Ohio but grew up in the Northeast and attended high school in Princeton, New Jersey where he formed a band that would become Blues Traveler in the late 1980s.

As founders of the jam-centric H.O.R.D.E Tour, Blues Traveler was at the forefront of the burgeoning jam scene of the early 1990s along with H.O.R.D.E tour mates like Phish, Widespread Panic, Col. Brice Hampton’s Aquarium Rescue Unit and more. Blues Traveler soon found mainstream success with their 1994 album Four buoyed by hit singles “Run Around” and “Hook.”

A few years later, Blues Traveler appeared at Neil Young’s Bridge School Benefit concert at Shoreline Amphitheater in 1997. The acoustic sets featured the original Blues Traveler lineup of Popper, guitarist Chan Kinchla, drummer Brendan Hill and bassist Bobby Sheehan. Sheehan sadly died from an accidental drug overdose less than two years later.

While armed with their ’94 hit record and their recently released fifth studio album, Straight On Till The Morning, Blues Traveler kicked off their set on October 19 with a song that wouldn’t appear on an album until 2008’s North Hollywood Shootout, “The Poignant & Epic Saga of Featherhead and Lucky Lack,” which began with some of Popper’s instantly recognizable harmonica playing.

Blues Traveler also showcased their early catalog with “Sweet Pain,” which saw John on guitar, off the 1991 album Travelers and Thieves. The quartet then turned to material from Straight On Till The Morning with “Canadian Rose” and “Carolina Blues,” the latter seeing Popper showing off his copious blues harmonica chops. Travelers and Thieves’ “Optimistic Thought” followed before the band offered a cut, “Believe,” from their 1993 album Save His Soul. Blues Traveler saved the last slot for their hit, “Hook.”

To celebrate John Popper’s birthday, watch Blues Traveler’s complete October 19, 1997 set at the Bridge School Benefit concert below:

Setlist

Source: JamBase.com