| JJ Grey & Mofro JJ Grey is a southern singer-songwriter icon whose work recalls Ronnie Van Zant and Tom Petty and who hails from Lynyrd Skynyrd's hometown of Jacksonville, Florida. His band, Mofro is a tight unit that plays Grey's music, a combination of classic soul, funk, southern rock and fourth generation blues.
Grey’s 2001 debut, Blackwater, was produced by Galactic's original producer Dan Prothero and released on his label, Fog City records. The band hit the road, slowly developing a reputation for its outstanding live performances. The second album, Lochloosa, came out in 2004 and cemented the band's reputation as one of the best young American groups. Alligator records signed Mofro and released Country Ghetto in 2007, which turned out to be a breakthrough record both critically and in terms of airplay. That year Grey mounted his own festival, The Blackwater Sol Revue, in St. Augustine, Florida, a Labor Day event that was successful enough to repeat again in 2008.
2008 also saw the release of the dynamic Orange Blossoms, once again produced by Prothero.
| Marcia Ball
Image by Mary Bruton
When Marcia Ball sits down at the piano, crosses her legs and starts to belt out her irresistible take on Gulf Coast blues and R&B the party is on! Marcia has been one of the most popular performers over the 20-year history of Michael Arnone's Crawfish festival, in large part because her performances are so warm and generous, but also because she so clearly loves the event itself. Marcia usually sticks around to soak up the atmosphere, and has been seen long after her set is over doing a Cajun two step over at the dance hall.
Marcia is a great songwriter and a fantastic interpreter of the New Orleans R&B canon, especially the work of her main musical inspiration Irma Thomas. Last year's excellent Peace, Love & BBQ album, her fourth for the Alligator label, added another chapter to her impressive catalog of recordings. Marcia wrote eight of the album's 13 songs and musical luminaries Dr. John, Wayne Toups, Tracy Nelson and fellow Crawfish fest performer Terrance Simien contributed to the sessions.
Ball was born just across the border from Louisiana in Orange, Texas in 1949 and was raised in Vinton Louisiana, where she started playing the piano at age five. Marcia was influenced by several piano players in her family beginning with her grandmother, whose collection of sheet music provided a wealth of background for early lessons, and her aunt, who updated her on contemporary music. But her transformational moment came when the 13-year-old Ball heard Irma Thomas sing. The Soul Queen of New Orleans moved the young pianist in a new direction. "Once I started my own band," said Ball, "the first stuff I was doing was Irma's."
Over the years Marcia has fashioned a style with roots in both the New Orleans piano tradition and the Texas singer-songwriter style. She is a truly unique artist whose performances at the New Orleans Jazz Festival -- not to mention her memorable Crawfish Festival appearances -- never fail to inspire her dedicated audience. She was the first woman to participate in New Orleans' annual "Piano Night" series and has gone on to be one of the event's featured performers.
Ball has been a legendary musician dating back to20her days with the fabled Frida and the Firedogs, a signature band from the era when Austin, Texas was “Groover’s Paradise” in the words of that Texas musical sage Doug Sahm. Ball started her solo career as a country singer before surrendering to her Gulf Coast roots to pursue an approach combining New Orleans R&B, blues and Cajun tunes driven by her hard-driving piano playing and easy-swinging, party time vocal delivery. She assimilated the rhumba and boogie style of Professor Longhair into her playing effortlessly and is now one of the true inheritors of that tradition.
Ball recorded six outstanding solo records for Rounder during the 1980s and '90s as she built her reputation as one of the best live acts on the touring circuit. In 1990 she was featured along with Texas vocalists Angela Strehli and Lou Ann Barton on the Antoine's Records release Dreams Come True, but her crowning achievement was her 1998 collaboration with her inspiration, Irma Thomas, and blues great Tracy Nelson, Sing It! The title track of that album has become a staple of Ball's live shows. The album was nominated for both a Grammy and a Blues Music Award as "Best Contemporary Blues Album," and Ball won the 1998 Blues Music Award for "Contemporary Female Vocalist Of The Year" and "Best Blues Instrumentalist-Keyboards." | Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience
Anyone who's ever seen the astonishing live performance that Terrance Simien delivers will understand why he was the easy winner of the inaugural Grammy award for best Cajun/Zydeco album with his live release Live! Worldwide. For more than two decades the 8th generation Louisiana Creole has been shattering the myths about=2 0what his Creole Zydeco music is and is not, all the while building an audience of millions of fans who, taking a page from the Grateful Dead, call themselves "Beadheads." Leading his Zydeco Experience Band, Simien has become a highly respected, internationally recognized touring and recording artist and Cultural Ambassador for his state. He has presented thousands of performances, toured millions of miles to over 40 countries and reached at least a million people during his eventful 25 year career. Simien has appeared in numerous films, with a featured performance in "The Big Easy."
In 2005 he became the first Zydeco artist to perform in Cuba for the US State Department. In 2006, Carnegie Hall sent him and this band to Mali, West Africa to present “Creole for Kidz & The History of Zydeco” as part of a unique distance learning program entitled Global Encounters. 2007 offered another global opportunity and a rare Creole cultural exchange and tour with the US State Department to Mauritius, Rodrigues and Seychelles where he connected his own Creole culture with the indigenous Creole/Kreol population of these countries. He and his band were the first American artists to perform in Rodrigues, a country of 40,000 people with a Creole culture still in tact.
Simien helped to keep Zydeco alive when he started touring at 18, a time when the only other touring Zydeo group was the Sam Brothers. He went on to be recognized as the hottest act on the circuit and became a huge hit at20festivals, tossing beads to the crowd with his toes as he played his customized accordion. A multiple award winner at OffBeat's Best of the Beat awards over the years, Simien won the Best Accordionist award earlier this year | Tab Benoit
The great Louisiana guitarist Tab Benoit was one of the surprise hits of last year's Crawfish fest when he played a blistering set for the campers-only crowd at the pavilion. This year he returns to play on the main schedule. After his high profile appearances at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and the Democratic Nation Convention with his side project Voice of the Wetlands All-Stars Benoit may have eclipsed his own fame. The All-Stars include Johnny Sansone, Anders Osborne, Dr. John, George Porter Jr., Cyril Neville, Johnny Vidacovich and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux. But to fans of Louisiana music, Benoit is already an institution as a solo artist, and his distinctive swamp rock guitar playing,20superior songwriting and soulful vocals have earned Benoit accolades from all over the music industry. Benoit has been nominated for Grammy awards and has won the Contemporary Blues Male Artist of the Year Award at the Blues Music Awards for two years running.
Benoit developed his style playing regular gigs at Tabby's Blues Bar in Baton Rouge, where he learned from venerable Louisiana bluesman Tabby Thomas. Benoit, a native of Houma, Louisiana, grew up listening to the Cajun music popular in his hometown as well as rock & roll and blues. He put all those elements together to forge his own style. Benoit was discovered by New Orleanians when he competed in a blues contest at the bowling alley that became Mid-City Lanes, the home of Rock 'n Bowl, where Benoit is now a regular performer. After signing a multi-album deal with Justice records, Benoit began to place songs on television shows including Northern Exposure, Melrose Place, Party of Five and Baywatch Nights. More recently Benoit has been an avid campaigner for preserving the Louisiana wetlands. Last year Benoit released Night Train to Nashville backed by his stalwart accompanists, Louisiana's LeRoux. | Pine Leaf Boys
The Pine Leaf Boys have the distinction of winning the first Grammy award for a performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. The young Louisiana Cajun band won the 2009 Cajun/Zydeco Album award for Homage Au Passé (Homage to the Past), recorded live at last year's Jazzfest. The Pine Leaf Boys' exciting mixture of Cajun and Zydeco styles caught on like prairie fire after the group became the youngest band ever signed to Arhoolie Records. Their second release, Blues de Musicien, was nominated for the first Best Cajun/Zydeco Album award, won last year by another act featured at the 20th renewal of Michael Arnone's Crawfish Festival, Terrance Simien and the Zydeco Playboys.
Homage Au Passé owns another distinction in that it was nominated as a download-only release on iTunes, although it has subsequently been released as a hard copy CD on Lionsgate Music.
The Pine Leaf Boys formed in 2005 in Lafayette, La. Since the mid-1970s, Lafayette has served as the center of the Cajun/Creole cultural renaissance, spawning the important revivalists Zachary Richard and Michael Doucet avec BeauSoliel.
The band has undergone personnel changes but it still fronted by the talented Wilson Savoy, accordionist and vocalist Wilson Savoy, the son of accordionist and accordion maker Marc Savoy and the Grammy-nominated guitarist, singer, producer and author Ann Savoy — both major figures in the Cajun renaissance. Wilson is joined on the front line by fiddler and singer Courtney Granger, who is related to Cajun legends the Balfa Brothers. Drummer, accordionist and singer Drew Simon, guitarist Jon Bertrand and bassist Thomas David round out the lineup. | Assembly of Dust
 Assembly of Dust's 2007 studio album, Recollection, drew numerous parallels to the Band's epochal Music From Big Pink, and having lived through the era when the Band turned the rock world on its head I understand the comparisons. The group, led by Strangefolk singer/songwriter Reid Genauer, has a great collective identity in which Genauer's songs are well balanced and the band has a wonderful vocal harmony sound. Everything fits well in the finely crafted arrangements that guitarist Adam Terrell, bassist John Leccese and drummer Andy Herrick all contribute to.
The band has a dedicated fan base dating back to its outstanding live recording The Honest Hour, and should add its distinctive local flavor to the mix of Louisiana bands that provide the essential identity of Michael Arnone's Crawfish Festival. Assembly of Dust fans have something else to look forward to as well. The band has recently completed its latest album, which should be available in time for the festival.
| Benjy Davis Project
 Benjy Davis is a great Louisiana singer, songwriter and guitarist whose roots rock sound is one of the most distinctive signatures in contemporary Louisiana music. The Benjy Davis Project is a crack five piece unit based around the two guitar overlay of Davis and Jonathan Lawhun, an array of keyb oards played by Michael Galasso and the airtight rhythm section of Matt Rusnak on bass and Mic Capdevielle on drums. Based out of Baton Rouge, the band has slowly built a national following since its inception in 2001 but has really emerged since the release of its fourth album, the breakthrough recording Dust. The album, produced by David Z. (Prince, Fine Young Cannibals, Jonny Lang, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Big Head Todd & the Monsters), captures the energy of the band's live sound. “These sessions were more raw, more real,” Davis says. “David wanted to record us where we were and how we played at that moment in time. And we were introduced to more elements of the arrangement process, the architecture. And we did it in four days, so there was more pressure to perform, in a good way.” Dust includes several great songs -- “The Rain,” “Whose God?” “I Love You” “Green and Blue” -- the stamp Davis as an American songwriter for the ages. “I think it’s partly about realizing that someday I’ll be someone’s dead great-great-grandfather," says Davis, "and I want them to know what I said and why I said it. Not just that I was a singer and wrote some love songs.” | Guitar Shorty
Houston-born William "Guitar Shorty" Kearney got his nickname as the pint-sized 17 year old axeman in the Walter Johnson orchestra. He made his recording debut on "Irma Lee"/"You Don't Treat me Right" in 1957 for Cobra records backed by Otis Rush on second guitar, then toured with the Ray Charles band before joining forces with Louisiana legend Guitar Slim, who gave Shorty the opening spot on his live shows and showed him some of his crowd pleasing acrobatic moves. Shorty worked constantly through the late 1950s and 1960s, playing shows with Little Milton, B.B. King, Lowell Fulson, Sam Cooke, Otis Rush, Johnny Copeland and T-Bone Walker. After moving to Seattle Shorty married Jimi Hendrix's stepsister Marsha Hendrix and became a strong influence on Jimi's playing. Shorty played in relative obscurity while living in Los Angeles during the 1970s and '80s before enjoying a revival after recording the album My Way or the Highway (1991) for England's JSP records. Shorty then signed with New Orleans-based Black Top records, which released three albums of his during the 1990s -- Topsy Turvy, Get Wise to Yourself and Roll Over Baby -- while featuring him at the label's annual Blues-A-Rama bashes at Tipitina's. In 2001 Evidence records released Shorty's I Go Wild album. Shorty's career received another boost when he signed with Alligator records to release the strong Watch Your Back in 2004. The spectacular We The People followed, winning the Contemporary Blues Album award in 2007 from the Blues Foundation. | Steve Riley & The Mamou Playboys
 Image by Rick Oliver Accordion player, producer and bandleader Steve Riley started out at age 16 touring with Cajun legend Dewey Balfa. Throughout his career, the unpredictable Riley has covered a wide range of Louisiana roots music from Cajun to Zydeco and swamp pop, all the while serving as an inspiration to the new generation of Cajun bands, including the Pine Leaf Boys, the Lost Bayou Ramblers, Feufollet and the Figs, who Riley produced. Riley and David Greely, the founding members of the Playboys, have been working for over eighteen years along with Kevin Dugas on their New Cajun Music. On their first four albums, one of which (Trace of Time) was a Grammy finalist, they extended the Cajun renaissance into the nineties by exploring obscure reaches of archival territory. All that tradition provided the foundation for some later radical unorthodoxy. The albums Bayou Ruler and Happytown set new standards for alternative Cajun music. After the addition of Sam Broussard and Brazos Huval the band put out Bon Reve in 2003, which garnered another Grammy nomination. But 2005's Domino was the best Playboys release yet. A new disc may well be out in time for this year's Crawfish festival. | Bonerama
"We've always wanted to play this festival, and it's even more fun than I expected," said Bonerama's co-founder and frontman Mark Mullins at last year's Crawfish fest. So much so that Michael Arnone has asked Bonerama back for the 20th anniversary of his infamous crawfish fiesta.
With its massed trombones on the front line, Bonerama has developed one of the most distinctive new sounds in New Orleans music over the last decade, a combination of traditional brass band, rock, jazz and R&B. The band has been honored in hometown awards presentations for its achievements both as a jazz ensemble and, in 2007, as "Best  Rock Band" at Gambit's Big Easy Awards ceremony. Virtuoso trombonists Mullins and Craig Klein were two of the city's most respected players when they founded Bonerama in 1998 to develop a new funk rock vista for the trombone. Mullins and Klein were well known for their work in the Harry Connick big band, but they needed an outlet for their desire to rock out and party down with a second line funk sound. Currently Mullins and Klein are working with the classically trained trombonist Steve Suter. The band added a potent bottom line with the addition of the imaginative and dynamic sousaphone player Matt Perrine, some edge with guitarist Bert Cotton, and the propulsive groove laid down by various New Orleans drummers. In 2001, Bonerama released its debut album Live at the Old Point and began to play sold out performances from New York City to San Francisco.20A performance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival earned a rave review in Rolling Stone. In March of 2004 Bonerama recorded Live From New York with special guests including Galactic’s Stanton Moore on drums, and the legendary trombonist Fred Wesley of the JB Horns. The band overcame the death of Brian O'Neill to make a third live album, Bringing It Home, recorded at Tipitina's and featuring Bonerama-ized versions of Led Zeppelin and Beatles tunes alongside originals and a Thelonious Monk composition. The band made history when Mullins, Klein and Rick Trolson made up the "Best Trombonist" category at last year's OffBeat awards, the first time all the nominees in a category were from the same group! Mullins, the perennial winner in the category, took home the award again in 2009. Perrine also won an OffBeat award in the Best Tuba/Sousaphone category. Last year the band released a collaboration with the contemporary rock band OK Go, "You're Not Alone." |
Eric Lindell  It's been 10 years since Eric Lindell cruised into New Orleans and immediately became part of the local scene. His affinity for classic R&B tunes has influenced his outstanding, hook ridden songwriting, and his soulful vocals and guitar playing make him the complete package. Lindell will be showcasing material from his new album Gulf Coas t Highway, at this year's festival. Gulf Coast Highway, featuring Lindell's buddies from New Orleans drummer Stanton Moore and bassist Robery Mercurio of Galactic, is one of the best albums released in 2009 and makes Lindell's set an event not to be missed.
| Trombone Shorty and Orleans Avenue
Image By Bo Streeter
New Orleans trombonist/trumpeter/singer Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews has burst onto the popular music scene recently with a series of high profile performances on America's biggest stages. The then-21-year-old stole the show at the New Orleans Superdome when he joined U2 and Green Day for a celebration of the reopening of the famed stadium. Executives at the NBC television network were so impressed with the public response to his performance of "O Holy Night" on a Christmas season broadcast that they featured the clip on the network website. And on festival stages across the country Andrews won over countless new fans with his electrifying shows.
Insiders already knew Andrews was a rising star. Lenny Kravitz was so impressed he invited Andrews to tour with his band in 2005 as a featured member of his horn section. Even Queen of Cool Nora Jones wanted Trombone Shorty to play with her when she appeared at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
"He's not that short," she wryly noted after he played a beautiful solo in the middle of her set.
Jones isn't the only one to notice how suddenly Andrews has outgrown the nickname he earned as a child when his precocious talents on tuba, trombone and trumpet made him a local celebrity and an obvious heir to the tradition of New Orleans jazz greats from Louis Armstrong to Wynton Marsalis.
While he is still one of the city's most important jazz musicians, Andrews has been attracting attention lately with his charismatic stage presence as a vocalist and frontman for his exciting rock project, Orleans Avenue, a high powered electric funk outfit that blends elements of heavy metal, hip hop, R&B and New Orleans brass band music into a heady mix of James Brown, AC/DC, George Clinton, and New Orleans sounds from traditional second line to its own hip hop signature, Bounce.
Andrews hand picked the members of Orleans Avenue from the ranks of fellow students at the prestigious New Orleans Center for the Creative Arts (NOCCA). Recently he has spent most of his energy developing this band and they've taken their music to another level, getting wild reactions from youngfunk/R festival crowds and coining a new kind of dance music that has critics raving. The band includes Mike Ballard on bass, James Martin on tenor sax, Pete Murano on guitar, Joey Peebles on drums, and Charlie Smith on keyboards.
A product of New Orleans' culturally rich Treme neighborhood, Andrews was a bandleader by the age of 6.
While Andrews was navigating New Orleans as a youngster with his band in tow, he was also absorbing lessons at the knee of his older brother James, a dynamic musical performer known as "Satchmo of the Ghetto." It is safe to say that by the time Andrews hit his early teens, he had a PhD in the ways of the streets, which you can still hear in his music. At NOCCA=2 0he polished his technique, emerging with a solid theoretical foundation and an elegance in his playing that placed him alongside such distinguished alumni as Wynton and Branford Marsalis, Harry Connick Jr., and Nicholas Payton.
This year Andrews won OffBeat's Best of the Beat award for best trumpet player and his band won in the best R&BFunk category. In previous years Andrews won Best of the Beat awards for Performer of the Year as well as Best Contemporary Jazz Performer.
| Papa Grows Funk
Many longtime Crawfish fest goers are excited about the return to the lineup of the mighty Papa Grows Funk for this 20th anniversary. Papa Grows F unk is a musical collective, but it was keyboardist/vocalist/songwriter John Gros who put this all star lineup together for a regular Monday residence at the Old Point Bar in Algiers back at the turn of the century. Gros, one of the fast-rising stars on the New Orleans neo-funk scene, organized the gig together with Japanese superstar guitarist June Yamagishi of the Wild Magnolias, outstanding former Galactic saxophonist Jason Mingledorff and one of the finest bassists in New Orleans, Marc Pero. The original drummer has since been replaced by another star, Jeffrey "Jellybean" Alexander. Gros himself is a veteran of George Porter, Jr.'s band, Mulebone and countless sessions. At first the aggregation was a true jamband playing a new kind of New Orleans funk, leaning toward rock. It was half original, half covers, Meters songs, "Chameleon," Bill Withers tunes, with loose arrangements and a lot of hot soloing. Doin' It, which came out in 2001, reflected those strengths.
The band grew in leaps and bounds over the ensuing two years. The second PGF album, Shakin', demonstrated the band's rapid development since the first album with 13 originals. Shakin' ranks with the classic funk recordings in the New Orleans canon by the group's parent bands. Gros contributed several originals to the album, which features his vocals prominently. The inspirational "If I..." and "House of Love" feature lyrics by his older brother Ward Gros. "He has a collection of lyrics and poetry that he writes and I just go through 'em," said John, who wrote both music and lyrics for "Rat a Tang Tang," the song on the album that most quickly imprints itself on the listener.
By the time of the third album, Doin' It, PGF had gone from being a new variation on the Meters classic sound to one of the most creative improvisational bands in New Orleans, ranging from Curtis Mayfield R&B to Frank Zappa fusion. The band's fourth CD, Mr. Patterson's Hat, reflects life in New Orleans in the wake of hurricane Katrina and is the band's most fully realized studio effort yet. The title song is named after a semi-retired auto mechanic who frequents the band's weekly Monday night gigs at the Maple Leaf. "You might think you're throwing down, but if Mr. Patterson ain't dancin', you ain't groovin'," declares John Gros. | | Big Sam's Funky Nation Trombonist Big Sam Williams has emerged as one of the hottest bandleaders in New Orleans in recent years fronting the supercharged brass/funk ensemble Big Sam's Funky Nation. Williams came to prominence as part of the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, but his effusive nature and huge sound soon led him to bust out on his own. Sam is now a major player on both the funk and jam band scene. In 2003 the group released its first album, Birth of a Nation, which reflected its roots as one of the house bands at the Funky Butt on North Rampart Street in New Orleans and featured the anthems "Big Sam's Blues," "Big Sam's Funky Nation" and "Ain't Nothin' But A Party." Big Sam got slammed by Katrina in 2005, losing his band and being forced to move to San Antonio for two years. But he kept working, recording a second album in 2006 with musicians from Florida, Take Me Back, and working with Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello on the great New Orleans tribute record The River In Reverse. But Big Sam is as New Orleans as red beans and rice, so he made his way back home and reconvened the New Orleans lineup of the Funky Nation for his best album, last year's Peace, Love and Understanding. This record really captures the Big Sam sound, from the hard edged solos and trombone riffs to the second-line party atmosphere and Sam's exciting MC-style call-and-response with the audience. Big Sam has also played with Dave Matthews, Widespread Panic and Karl Denson's Tiny Universe. | Jeffery Broussard & The Creole Cowboys
 Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys, winner of OffBeat's 2008 Zydeco Band of the year award, is one of the hottest zydeco groups working today. Broussard was a leading member in Zydeco Force, an influential band in the nouveau zydeco movement. His accordion and vocals helped define this new style of Creole music, incorporating the soulful sounds of R&B into contemporary zydeco music and dance. The son of esteemed accordionist Delton Broussard, young Jeffery began h is musical journey on the drums in his father’s legendary band, the Lawtell Playboys, who were themselves innovators, adding some R&B and funk to traditional roots music. The band also includes D’Jalma Garnier III, one of Louisiana’s finest Creole-style fiddlers. Garnier began playing at age five, studying classical music on the violin. He comes from a long line of accomplished musicians, with a French connection that began with his grandfather. D’Jalma went on to become an accomplished guitar player. In the late 70’s he moved to Austin, where he spent the next 15 years playing everything from jazz, rockabilly, blues, funk, R&B, Tex-Mex, country and even beat poetry. He was a founding member of the Cajun band File for ten years, and has played with numerous Creole and Cajun musicians. Urged by his father, he picked up the fiddle again to study his grandfather’s Creole style of music, and in the early 90’s he studied with Canray Fontenot. With the passing of Canray in 1995, Garnier felt an urgent desire to preserve and pass on this unique style=2 0of fiddle playing, and to keep Creole music alive. To this end, he continues to perform and to teach the music and the culture of his Creole heritage. | | | John Boutte with Paul Sanchez
New Orleans native Paul Sanchez wanted to write and perform his own songs, so he went to New York City, where he became part of the “anti-folk” acoustic music scene in lower Manhattan during the 1980s. It was a short period of his career, but it defined what he wanted to do as a musician. The bulk of his career, though, has been in New Orleans, where he originally worked with the Backbeats, then after his return to the city in 1990 with Cowboy Mouth. Both of those bands included Fred LeBlanc, whose larger-than-life stage presence overpowered the laconic Sanchez. Even though Sanchez wrote several of Cowboy Mouth’s signature songs, including “Hurricane Party,” LeBlanc always overshadowed Sanchez.
Meanwhile, Sanchez was working with one of New Orleans’ most creative and eccentric singer-songwriters, John Boutte, co-writing Boutte’s “At the Foot of Canal Street” and including Boutte in the mix on the last Cowboy Mouth album. Both Boutte and Sanchez released albums last year. Exit to Mystery Street represents a turning point in Sanchez’ career, the first of his solo albums that really lives up to his aspirations as a songwriter and a truly collaborative effort with Boutte that finally gives this outstanding vocalist a setting that allows him to display the breadth of his talent.
Dave Pirner produced both records, and the Soul Asylum front man’s pop instincts took over magnificently. The genius of sel ecting Pirner is immediately apparent on “Door Poppin’,” a song co-written by Sanchez, Boutte and Vance Vaucresson which opens both albums. Sanchez comes off as an easy swinging roots rocker in his version, which provides a relaxed setting for his burnt orange vocal. Boutte, who possesses one of the greatest voices in American music, an instrument on a par with Aaron Neville’s, delivers a powerful performance on his album opener, which gets an uptempo, New Orleans street shuffle backing track.
The Sanchez record moves effortlessly through its paces, from the wonderful Matt Perrine tuba track lines on the title track to the vocal collaboration with Fredy Omar on “Adios San Pedro,” the glorious 1960s-style harmony with Susan Cowsill on “Sedation,” the terrific love song “For the Rest of My Life” and the pure pop songwriting of “Up to Me,” a song Nick Lowe would have been proud to write. “Johnny and his June,” written with his wife Shelly and Mary Lasseigne, shows Sanchez at his anecdotal best in a tribute to Johnny Cash and June Carter. Sanchez has made the record of his life here, an album that shows off his writing skills, singing ability and overall musical versatility. The record balances New Orleans street music, singer/songwriter introspection and rock ’n’ roll eclecticism with the grace of a cocktail waitress balancing a trayful of martinis at happy hour.
Boutte’s excellent album pales only slight ly by comparison, perhaps because it feels like it could be the prelude to even greater things. As it stands, it’s a high quality combination of songwriting, featuring seven songs co-written by Boutte and Sanchez including a show-stopping remake of “At the Foot of Canal Street.” Boutte shows how inventive an interpreter he is on a cover of the Johnny Mercer/Harold Arlen classic “Accentuate the Positive.” There is also a version of Neil Young’s “Southern Man,” a song that has become a powerful element in his live performances. The record also includes the lively romp of “Cutting Heads,” the Mexicano lilt of “Sisters” and Boutte’s own New Orleans R&B classic “Broke Down the Door/The Treme Song.” | High and Mighty Brass Band
The High and Mighty Brass Band (HMBB) is a “party already is progress.” Their performances are both fiercely entertaining and refreshingly inspiring. Not only do they have musical talent, but they also have a level of camaraderie that highly unusual in newer groups. The group’s sincere enthusiasm and dynamic energy connects with every audience member who is willing to participate. Their sound is mix of classic New Orleans Funk, R&B and more modern influences of Afro-Beat and Hip Hop. “Rolling 8 deep,” HMBB includes Kevin Louis on Trumpet, Chad Gales on Alto Sax, Mark Williams on Trombone, Ron Caswell on Tuba, Al Street on Guitar, Jess Birch on Percussion, Evan Howard on Drums and Jamie Neumann, Dancer and Percussionist: everyone sings and everyone plays. Beginning with a heavily percussive and tribal groove, the horns weave through solos, building and stretching the energy to its limits. Visit www.myspace.com/highandmightybrassband to hear a few tracks |
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