Yes! I’m super excited to announce that I will be playing at The Slippery Noodle Inn in Indianapolis on September 11th and 12th with the Jeff Jensen Band!
Those of you who came over from the dearly departed Bark’s Doghouse (the domain barkm.com has expired, but you can still get there using barkm.wordpress.com if you feel the need) might remember my post about the Jeff Jensen Band. Well, since then, Jeff and the crew have released a new CD, entitled Morose Elephant, which is charting everywhere and contains some gorgeous blues. They completed their first European tour earlier this year, and they’re riding a huge wave of momentum as Jeff has been nominated for the Blues Foundation’s Rising Star award.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the other members of the trio. Veteran bassist Bill Ruffino lays down some of the strongest grooves that I’ve ever heard, and young lion Robinson Bridgeforth plays the blues with sensitivity beyond his years (he also has a great fusion band called REACH that just released a new recording).
The Slippery Noodle is one of the greatest Blues clubs in America. It’s right downtown in Indy on Meridian St. You can still see the holes in the wall from the gunfights that occurred back when it was a brothel in the early twentieth century. There’s plenty of room for ALL Riverside Green readers in the back room where they have the headlining acts.
Here’s a link to a video from when I played with the gents in Atlanta last year. Considering I’d never head that song before that very second, I think we did okay.
So put it on your calendar. Friday and Saturday, September 11th and 12th, Slippery Noodle, Indianapolis. Looking forward to seeing you all there!
Unfortunately that is too far afield for me to be able to fit that in. But I respect anyone who appreciates the blues, in whatever form, and moreso for playing them and keeping that style alive.
But since both you and your older “bubba” are seriously into music, I wanted to take an opportunity to namedrop a new musician on the scene, and to get your and your brother’s opinion of him and his group.
Specifically Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats…a band out of Denver that is starting to get some serious airplay from alternative radio stations and from public radio. Their best-known work is a song called SOB but to get a better cross-section of what this singer-songwriter is capable of, check out their live performance last year in Boston, which can easily be tracked down on youtube, as is also the case for the official version of SOB.
SOB kicks out the jambs in a way that hasn’t been heard in more or less mainstream outlets in decades (IMNERHO, anyway), but some of his ballad style work is also quite moving, at least to this old head/blues hound.
But enough about me, and more particularly, about my taste in other people’s music.
How about you and your bubba put up some videos, audio or whatever, of more of the stuff you guys crank out.
At the very least you might bring a bit of joy into a few more peoples’ lives, and anyway, you never know when an A&R guy, or his GF’s brother’s former college roommate’s uncle might be such an A&R guy.
But at least give us, the B of the B&B, the opportunity to groove on your music, or clean out our refrigerator vegetable drawers, as the case may be.
Could even be material for another poll, one way or another. Don’t see how, other than a lame-ass battle of the bands concept, but then again, it’s you guys’ website, so figure out a question for a poll, just for the pure unadulterated H of it.
One possibility, though it would be more work than a poll giving only finite choices, would be to have your readers nominate what they think is really good contemporary work (or even leave of the contemporary part), thus giving all of us an opportunity to discover more music we might not otherwise come across.
But at least let us have a chance to hear more of both of you, musically, as well as perhaps at least you two guys dropping some names for us to listen to.
And since I am wandering around this morning, mentally and spiritually speaking, let me add a suggestion for your brother’s Made in the USA trip.
Seems some company in PA took over the Oneida silverware manufacturing operation, and are making a good go of it so far…caters mostly to the high end…fancy cutlery for the well-to-do, and outstanding dining facilities in good hotels, etc.
Didn’t write down the name of the successor company, but there was a feature article in the Philadelphia paper, the Inquirer, about them, so between that fact and Google, they shouldn’t be hard to find.
But if Jack wants to do something with it and can’t find them, let me know and I will see if I can’t get a friend/contact at the paper to run it down for me.
“Slippery Noodle…a heckuva good name, I must say.
And some of your, and bubba Jack’s, polls need another choice … “How in the heck would I know, I just like listening to the music”.
But if the intent is to do a good, faithfully reproduced cover, I’d have to go with the Ovation. However, if the intent is to totally rework the concept, and play something recognizably the same song but completely redone in a different mood, vein, whatever, then I would have said the Hummingbird, beca
Accidentally got the last one sent before I was done.
The final idea was that if he wanted to completely revamp the whole thing, just using Croce’s songs as a springboard from which to depart, then I’d say a bad-ass guitar would match up nicely with the mood and feeling of the task at hand.
Sort of like, do you want to paint a picture that looks like Jackson Pollock could have done it, or do you want to do something that is a radical departure from what has already been done, clearly not just a cover or copy, but rather something like one of the jazz greats taking a classical song from the Forties or Fifties and riffing so fiercely in the middle that you could still tell it was, for example, My Funny Valentine, but seriously NOT just a straight cover.
Both have their raisons d’ étre, but chopping different wood requires a different ax. Or so it seems to me…
If fate EVER brings you to perform in Virginia you let me know!
I haven’t been to Indy for awhile, but the Slippery Noodle is a good place to catch a band. Well done.