Are you coming to Club Helsinki to see a show? Please call our box office at 518.828.4800 for reservations instead of booking online reservations. Web reservations are for the Restaurant at Club Helsinki only.
"Kottke has an uncanny ability to make music sound like capital-A art..." - LA Times.
For nearly four decades, Leo Kottke has relentlessly pursued a unique musical vision that has placed him among the foremost acoustic guitar stylists of our time - or any other time, for that matter. A six and 12-string guitar virtuoso, Kottke has dazzled audiences with his amazing fingerstyle approach - amassing a worldwide following and winning 7 Grammy Awards in the process.
Produced with the support of: WKZE 98.1
The self-taught guitarist first surfaced with his now-legendary 1969 recording, Six and Twelve-String Guitar. He has since blazed a singular stylistic path - creating music which draws on blues, jazz, and folk influences. Classical precision, popular appeal, jazz fluency, 20th-century harmony, syncopated rhythms, and lyrics that feature quasi-literary characterizations all vie for supremacy in his music and challenge our preconceived notions of how acoustic guitar music should sound.
"My music is maybe hard to categorize," Kottke allows. "It doesn't fit conveniently into the bins at record stores. That works for me, though ... I don't rise and fall with trends. Most listeners seem to have room for this stuff. It's been great that way." Classic Kottke albums like Chewing Pine (1975), Balance (1979), Time Step (1983), My Father's Face (1989), Great Big Boy (1991), Peculiaroso (1993) and One Guitar, No Vocals (1999) have consistently won over new fans while continuing to surprise and delight longtime aficionados. Over the years, Kottke has worked in the studio and shared concert stages with everyone from Lyle Lovett, John Fahey, T-Bone Burnett and Rickie Lee Jones, to Paco de Lucia, Pepe Romero, John Williams, John McLaughlin and Joe Pass.
Longtime Kottke devotees have learned to expect the unexpected. Kottke's ability to embrace folk idioms and pop melodies as readily as he assimilates jazz and classical influences makes him unique among guitar virtuosi.
But for all its technical brilliance, wicked syncopation and harmonic sophistication, Kottke's music is eminently accessible. At heart he's a populist. Audacious, intelligent and funny, Leo Kottke's musical performance defies traditional categories and is, simply put, a delight to hear.
Winsome, wicked and witty, Chic Gamine embody the '60s girl-group vibe all grown up and living in a new century. Wall-of-sound harmonies, hip-shaking beats these women could be straight out of Motown, before you throw in the curveball of French pop and four rotating lead-singers.
By all the laws of the music business, this group is like the unicorn it probably shouldn't exist, let alone be performing at the Olympics and winning Juno Awards. And yet, here they are, soon to release their official U.S. debut, a group singing soulful, captivating four-part songs that artfully span the musical map.
In 2007, three Winnipeg-based friends and former band-mates Ariane Jean, Andrina Turenne and Annick Bremault recruited Montreal drummer and percussionist Sacha Daoud, and a fourth singer, Winnipegger Alexa Dirks, for a fresh new project. Utterly seductive, Chic Gamine's Canadian debut album teased with traces of Daoud's Brazilian roots winding their way underneath the irresistible vocal hook of rhythm and blues, nouveau-pop and vintage soul. Chic Gamine alchemized these mixed elements into compelling musical magic.
Chic Gamine's musical relationship has been fruitful from the start; a demo flowed effortlessly from their first recording outing in 2007. Then came a score of performances across North America where audiences went wild. Highlights include opening for Motown great, Smokey Robinson, and playing in a lineup featuring the legendary Mavis Staples - who ended up revealing to the awestruck band-mates that they reminded her of her family, the Staple Singers. In 2008 came their self-titled Canadian debut, which went on to win a Juno Award for Best Roots Album of 2009. Chic Gamine has since been a regular feature on critics' best-of lists, won a coveted spot on Radio-Canada/Espace Musique's Musical Revelations of 2009/2010, and enticed the world to fall in love with their performances at the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Games. Also in 2010, they tucked their sophomore Canadian release under their belts, and were rewarded with a second Juno nomination, also for Roots Album of the Year. 2011 was spent touring intensely, playing U.S. and Canadian music festivals as well as a 6 month, coast to coast tour with Marc Broussard. Up next, their long-awaited first official release in the United States, due out in early 2013.
Chic Gamine (which translates roughly as stylish mischievous young thing - let's face it, the French say these things so much better) will tease and tempt you with a nostalgia- inspired, fresh new sound the mix is indescribable, but unbearably tasty. Do you believe in Chic Gamine? You'd be a fool not to.
"Widely regarded as one of the most brilliant songwriters of her generation" - Biography Magazine.
Suzanne Vega emerged as a leading figure of the folk-music revival of the early 1980s when, accompanying herself on acoustic guitar, she sang what has been labeled contemporary folk or neo-folk songs of her own creation in Greenwich Village clubs. Since the release of her self-titled, critically acclaimed 1985 debut album, she has given sold-out concerts in many of the world's best-known halls. In performances devoid of outward drama that nevertheless convey deep emotion, Vega sings in a distinctive, clear vibrato-less voice that has been described as "a cool, dry sandpaper- brushed near-whisper" and as "plaintive but disarmingly powerful."
Produced with the support of: WKZE 98.1
Bearing the stamp of a masterful storyteller who "observed the world with a clinically poetic eye," Suzanne's songs have always tended to focus on city life, ordinary people and real world subjects. Notably succinct and understated, often cerebral but also streetwise, her lyrics invite multiple interpretations. In short, Suzanne Vega's work is immediately recognizable, as utterly distinct and thoughtful, and as creative and musical now, as it was when her voice was first heard on the radio over 20 years ago.
Her self-titled debut album was released in 1985, co-produced by Steve Addabbo and Lenny Kaye, the former guitarist for Patti Smith. The skeptical executives at A & M were expecting to sell 30,000 LP's. 1,000,000 records later, it was clear that Suzanne's voice was resonating around the world. Marlene on the Wall was a surprise hit in the U.K and Rolling Stone eventually included the record in their "100 Greatest Recordings of the 1980's."
1987's follow up, Solitude Standing, again co-produced by Addabbo and Kaye, elevated her to star status. The album hit #2 in the UK and #11 in the States, was nominated for three Grammys including Record of the Year and went platinum. "Luka" is a song that has entered the cultural vernacular; certainly the only hit song ever written from the perspective of an abused boy.
The opening song on Solitude Standing was a strange little a cappella piece, "Tom's Diner" about a non-descript restaurant near Columbia University uptown. Without Suzanne's permission, it was remixed by U.K. electronic dance duo "DNA" and bootlegged as "Oh Susanne." Suddenly her voice on this obscure tune was showing up in the most unlikely setting of all: the club. Suzanne permitted an official release of the remix of "Tom's Diner" under its original title, which reached #5 on the Billboard pop chart and went gold. In 1991 a compilation, Tom's Album, brought together the remix and other unsolicited versions of the song. Meanwhile, Karlheinz Brandenburg, the German computer programmer was busy developing the technology that would come to be known as the MP3. He found that Vega's voice was the perfect template with which to test the purity of the audio compression that he was aiming to perfect. Thus Suzanne earned the nickname "The Mother of the MP3."
Suzanne co-produced the follow-up album with Anton Sanko, 1990's Days Of Open Hand, which won a Grammy for Best Album Package. The album also featured a string arrangement by minimalist composer Philip Glass. Years earlier she had penned lyrics for his song cycle "Songs From Liquid Days." Continuing to battle preconceptions, she teamed with producer Mitchell Froom for 1992's 99.9F. The album's sound instigated descriptions such as "industrial folk" and "technofolk." Certified gold, 99.9F won a New York Music Award as Best Rock Album.
In 1996, Vega returned with the similarly audacious Nine Objects Of Desire, also produced by Mitchell Froom, who by then was her husband. "Woman On The Tier (I'll See You Through)" was released on the Dead Man Walking soundtrack.
Suzanne's neo-folk style has ushered in a new female, acoustic, folk-pop singer-songwriter movement that would include the likes of Tracy Chapman, Shawn Colvin, and Indigo Girls. In 1997, Suzanne joined Sarah McLachlan on her Lilith Fair tour which celebrated the female voice in rock and pop. She was one of the few artists invited back every year. Suzanne was also the host of the public radio series "American Mavericks," thirteen hour-long programs featuring the histories and the music of the iconoclastic, contemporary classical composers who revolutionized the possibilities of new music. The show won the Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.
In 2007, Suzanne released Beauty & Crime on Blue Note Records, a deeply personal reflection of her native New York City in the wake of the loss of her brother Tim and the tragedy of 9/11. But the record is not a sad one, per se, as her love for the city shines through as both its subject and its setting. In it, Suzanne mixes the past and present, the public with the private, and familiar sounds with the utterly new, just like the city itself. "Anniversary," which concludes Beauty & Crime, is an understated evocation of that time in the fall of 2002, when New Yorkers first commemorated the Twin Towers tragedy and when Suzanne recalls her brother's passing. It's more inspiration than elegy, though: "Make time for all your possibilities," Vega sings at the end in that beautiful, hushed voice. "They live on every street." Produced by the Scotsman, Jimmy Hogarth and featuring songs such as "New York is a Woman" and "Ludlow Street," Beauty & Crime is that rare album by an artist in her third decade; an album that is as original and startling as her first. Beauty & Crime won a Grammy for Best Engineered Album, Non-Classical.
Suzanne Vega is an artist that continues to surprise. In 2006, she became the first major recording artist to perform live in avatar form within the virtual world Second Life. She has dedicated much of her time and energy to charitable causes, notably Amnesty International, Casa Alianza, and the Save Darfur Coalition.
In 2009 Suzanne was invited by Vaclav Havel to perform in Prague to celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Velvet Revolution. Joining her on stage were Renee Flemming, Lou Reed and Joan Baez. In early 2010 she embarked on a 38 city tour of North America in support of her new record, Suzanne Vega, Close Up, Vol 1, Love Songs, released on her own label, Amenuensis Productions. This is the first of four CD's that looks back through her extraordinary songbook and re-imagines the work in an intimate, striped down production, grouped as "Love Songs," People, Places and Things," "States of Being," and "Songs of Family." The tour was highlighted by a performance at Lincoln Center's Allen Room as part of their American Songbook Series. Suzanne also conducted a series of residencies and workshops at Universities and Music Schools on this tour, including stops at Harvard, University of California Santa Barbara and Banff in Canada.
This is music that moves forward by turning the clock back haunting, primal and strangely heroic THE LONDON TIMES
The Handsome Family is a songwriting collaboration between Brett and Rennie Sparks. Their lyrics and music are very intense, highly descriptive and full of meticulously researched narrative and exhilarating musical re-imaginings of everything from Appalacian holler, psychedelic rock, Tin Pan Alley and medieval ballad.
The Handsome Family is a songwriting collaboration between Brett and Rennie Sparks. Their lyrics and music are very intense, highly descriptive and full of meticulously researched narrative and exhilarating musical re-imaginings of everything from Appalacian holler, psychedelic rock, Tin Pan Alley and medieval ballad.
The Handsome Family's music has always attracted intellectual and devoted fans. Their songs are frequently covered by many notable artists including Jeff Tweedy, Andrew Bird, Kelly Hogan and Christy Moore. Their work has garnered praise from Bruce Springsteen, Ringo Starr, and an unnamed singer on American Idol.
The bands new May release, Wilderness, the CD will have a companion release in a book also entitled Wilderness which contains essays and art by Rennie Sparks. The book expands and intertwines the ideas of the CD, making you consider anew everything from ant spirals and woodpecker tongues to the immortal jellyfish and the secret language of crows. The black and white version of the book will be published by The Handsome Family while Carrot Top Records will be releasing a deluxe box set of Wilderness which includes a full-color, fine-art version of the book, the LP and also a poster and postcards featuring Rennie Sparks' colorful animal imagery.
YOUNG PARIS (Milandou Badila) is a Hip Hop/Electronic artist from Hudson, NY and born in Paris, France into an artistic family of African dance and drum performers. His father, Elombe Badila, was one of the founders of the first National Ballet of the Congo (Africa), which united different villages to come together in Dance. This unification developed to later effect the influence of Congo's Independence as a Country!
23 year old YOUNG PARIS began to express himself as a lyricist at the age of 16. His genre bending approach to music started when Steve Durand, a Montreal raised producer who has toured with Melissa Auf der Maur, asked him to rap over an Indie Rock song. Overly inspired, he continued composing with Steve's music and his lyrics.
They completed 5 songs in a 6 month stretch of working and building with each other, both of them trying to understand how the world of hip hop can collide with the world of Rock. "The goal became more than making sense of the collaboration, but have an effect on people lives".
Since working with Steve, YOUNG PARIS raised $10,000 on Kickstarter and released his first full LP, "Pet The Lights", on his birthday, Sept 13th, with a sold out CD Release joined by the one and only "Tommy Stinson" from the Replacements/current Bassist for Guns N' Roses.
Now focusing on a fusion record "High Boots 'n Leather", he's created a compilation of outer world like music videos proven to amplify the expectation of his performance.
YOUNG PARIS has since been to 8 countries, worked with artists in France, Canada and Africa.
An all-star re-creation of the Band's classic concert film
Featuring the Rev Tor Band & friends
A benefit for Music in Common
The Last Waltz LIVE is a re-creation of The Band's classic 1978 concert film featuring The Rev Tor Band and friends. The show includes renditions of all the hits by The Band featured in the film, such as "The Weight", "Up On Cripple Creek", and "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as well as songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Eric Clapton and many more. A diverse array of local, regional, and national artists perform the songs of the film's original special guests, making the show a unique, all-star experience showcasing the finest talent from the local music scene and beyond. All profits from the Last Waltz LIVE benefit Music in Common, a non-profit organization whose mission is to strengthen, empower, and educate communities through the universal language of music.
Listening is Ben Taylor's first album in four years, the last being the critically acclaimed The Legend of Kung Folk Part 1, which had CNN commenting that the album, "reflects the broad palette of pop" and Blurt Magazine declaring, "For some time now Ben's been busy carving out a unique niche for himself in the music world." Ben himself once described his work as "organically handcrafted songs," and given the painstaking thought and care he puts in to his art, who are we to argue? As a successful and eclectic independent artist for the past ten years, it isn't just anyone who takes four years to put out his or her next album (Listening being his fourth album).
Listening, flawlessly fuses the sounds and styles of folk, pop, soul, urban, reggae and country, and is, as Ben says, "an evolution. A self-described 'late bloomer' musically, Ben didn't start singing until his early 20s. The hesitation is understandable, given the daunting example of success set by his parents, James Taylor and Carly Simon. While Ben thought of other vocations he could pursue, including a wilderness guide or martial arts instructor, he was drawn to the family business. Ben had a true affinity for music, and not surprisingly, a love for words. "My scholastic career was not successful. My attention wanders, and I like to follow it. It's a creatively lucrative process for me. My internal jukebox was always so much louder than my teachers."
Listening was co-produced by Ben and his long time musicians; drummer Larry Ciancia, bass player Ben Thomas and guitarist David Saw (Saw also co-writes most of the music with Ben). The songs on Listening certainly support Ben's clear progression as a songwriter. The track, "Worlds are Made of Paper," which references The Beatles "Yesterday" as Ben's favorite Beatle's song, is a philosophical ode on the transience of life ("Yesterday" get it?). With a strong bass beat that dissolves in to a campfire chorus, Ben and the band happily sing with an indifference to this temporary thing we call life. The album's first single, "Oh Brother" embodies the best of songwriting in personal form with a life lesson hidden in an melodic yarn for Ben's younger twin brothers, who like most 11 year olds, are already struggling with outside judgments and fitting in.
While he enjoys being in the studio, Ben is looking forward to getting out on the road too. "If you take being in the studio over playing live, you lose out. They are both important parts of the same process. You need to write a song, perform it in front of people and have an audience react to it. It helps me with the writing and presentation of the recorded song if I play it live before I record it. To me, you don't really hear your song for the first time until you share it."
Ben's also excited to be on a label for the first time in his career. "For most of my career, I put out my own stuff on my own time. I start really well but then slow down. Now that I have a proper label, I love sharing the reins of my creative process. If you're too close, you often don't have good insight and don't know when to stop. I love what I do and one of the best things about being a musician is getting to hang out with musicians all day! They're mostly a joy to be around," Ben says with a laugh.
An admitted harsh critic on his own work, Ben is quite happy with the end result of Listening. "I hope people like it. I am immensely self-critical, and almost always want to start from scratch when I finish an album. The hardest thing about being a member of my family is the expectations I put on myself. The best thing about it has been my ability to overcome that in order to be the best performer and musician I can be. My wish would be that any one who spends time with Listening just digs the songs."
Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound bring their funky brand of world-beat-influenced rock 'n' roll to Club Helsinki Hudson.
Cebar's quirky take on bluesy rock with an underpinning of R&B and jump blues, laced with his witty vocals, buzzfeed guitar licks, and gritty percussion raised on African, Latin and Caribbean influences, is like a Midwestern version of NRBQ, or Frank Zappa meets Tom Waits in the garage with Latin Playboys.
Produced with the support of: WKZE 98.1
Paul Cebar cut his teeth musically in the coffeehouse folk scene of the mid-1970s in Milwaukee. His first paying gigs took place in late 1976 with an emphasis on solo recasting of small combo jump-blues and other early R&B. Rambling about the Midwest in the 1980s with occasional forays east and south, his band the Milwaukeeans began to rely more and more upon the original material that reflected Paul's ongoing and deepening fascination with African, Latin American and Caribbean rhythm & blues analogues.
Paul Cebar Tomorrow Sound carries on that legacy, exploring new musical avenues and paths, including collaborations with upstate New York's David Greenberger, the man behind the Duplex Planet zine and NPR broadcasts.
A longtime favorite of Club Helsinki audiences, the award-winning bluesy soul-gospel trio the Holmes Brothers - bassist/vocalist Sherman Holmes, guitarist/pianist/vocalist Wendell Holmes, drummer/vocalist and brother-in-spirit Popsy Dixon - take songs from all over the musical map, be they blues, soul, gospel, country, bluegrass, or R&B, and refine them into their unique blend of sweet harmonies and soulful grit. It makes the brothers as adept at covering the Beatles and Blind Willie Johnson as Hank Williams and Nick Lowe. They take it to church one moment and take it to the juke joint the next. And they make it all make sense.
"Singer Rachael Price is a damn sultry vocalist - full-bodied and lush, with a warm soulfulness to her ever-so-slight Nashville twang. It's a voice destined for big things." Style Weekly
Lake Street Dive are at once jazz-schooled, and classically pop obsessed. Beginning with catchy songs that are by turns openhearted and wryly inquisitive, this northeastern quartet proceeds to inject them with an irresistible blend of abandon and precision. Composed of drummer Mike Calabrese, bassist Bridget Kearney, vocalist Rachael Price, and trumpet-wielding guitarist Mike "McDuck" Olson, Lake Street Dive encompasses a myriad of possibilities within its members' collective experiences, and the resultant music is a vivid, largely acoustic, groove-driven strain of indie-pop. "It seems the only limitation we have," Kearney explains, " is that we try to make music that we would like listening to."
Lake Street Dive first gathered in a room together when they were students at Boston's New England Conservatory. "Mr. McDuck assembled the four of us, said we were now Lake Street Dive, and we were a 'free country' band," Bridget Kearney remembers. "He wrote this on a chalkboard in the ensemble room that we had our first rehearsal in. We intended to play country music in an improvised, avant-garde style like Loretta Lynn meets Ornette Coleman. It sounded terrible! But the combination of people and personalities actually made a lot of sense and we had a great time being around each other and making music together."
Lake Street Dive makes the most of pop music virtues: solid, evocative song craft; propulsive grooves; and Price's disarming, forthright vocals. However, it's a personal strain of pop that is refracted through the band members' rich backgrounds: a sinewy Motown bass line is reborn with woody heft on Kearney's upright, Calabrese's drumming mixes timekeeping with more adventurous jazz-inflected outbursts, McDuck's nimble trumpet is an unexpectedly warm counterpoint to Price's singing. It all makes for a sound with familiar roots, but with a slant that is entirely their own.
The dynamic New Orleans brass ensemble Soul Rebels mixes horns, vocals and percussion on original compositions and covers of the likes of Stevie Wonder ("Livin' in the City") and Eurythmics ("Sweet Dreams"), always laying down a dancing groove. Graduates of university music programs throughout the South, the musicians in Soul Rebels took the marching band format they had learned in school and incorporated influences from outside the city as well as late-breaking local styles R&B, funk and hip-hop especially through half-sung, half-rapped lyrics. Called "the missing link between Public Enemy and Louis Armstrong" by the Village Voice, the Soul Rebels combine top notch musicianship and songs with grooves that celebrate life in time-honored New Orleans style.
"Smither is an American original, a product of the musical melting pot, and one of the absolute best singer-songwriters in the world." - Associated Press
"Bathed in the flickering glow of passing headlights and neon bar signs, Smither's roots are as blue as they come. There is plenty of misty Louisiana and Lightnin' Hopkins." - Rolling Stone
Having distilled his own signature sound of blues and folk for over 40 years, Chris Smither is truly an American original.
A profound songwriter, Chris continues to draw deeply from the blues, American folk music, modern poets and philosophers with this 14th record of his lengthy career. From his early days as the New Orleans transplant in the Boston folk scene, through his wilderness years, to his reemergence in the 1990s as one of America's most distinctive acoustic performers, Chris Smither continues to hone his distinctive sound.
Produced with the support of: WKZE 98.1
He has always traveled his own road, eschewing sophisticated studio tricks and staying true to his musical vision. He has developed and maintained loyal friendships over the years with kindred-spirited musicians like Bonnie Raitt and the late Stephen Bruton while at the same time throughout his career been inspired by and inspiring to today's next-generation of musicians.
Reviewers continue to praise his dazzling guitar work, gravelly voice and songwriting. The New York Times: "With a weary, well-traveled voice and a serenely intricate finger-picking style, Mr. Smither turns the blues into songs that accept hard-won lessons and try to make peace with fate."
His 12th studio record, is a masterwork. It sports the unmistakable sound he has made his trademark: fingerpicked acoustic guitar and evocative sonic textures meshed with spare, brilliant songs, delivered in a bone-wise, hard-won voice. It is also his first recording to feature all Smither-penned, original songs. Along with longtime producer, David Goody Goodrich, other featured musicians on Hundred Dollar Valentine are drummer Billy Conway (Morphine, Treat Her Right), Jimmy Fitting on harmonica, and Goodrichs ex-Groovasaurus bandmates, Anita Suhanin (vocals) and violinist Ian Kennedy (Page/Plant, Lemonheads, Juliana Hatfield, Peter Wolf, Susan Tedeschi).
Toronto-based quintet Enter the Haggis is touring behind its innovative new album, "The Modest Revolution," all songs on which were drawn from the pages of a single day's issue of Canada's #1 daily newspaper, the Globe and the Mail. Fortunately for the 17-year-old Celtic-tinged indie-rock band (and unfortunately for bluegrass fans), that day's issue included the obituary for legendary banjoist Earl Scruggs, inspiring the song "Down the Line." The album's music is equally as innovative as the subject matter, ranging from hard rock to Radiohead-like electrock ("Hindsight") to rootsy folk-rock ("Copper Leaves," about the death of the Canadian penny) to the group's trademark anthems. The handful of musicians command a bevy of instruments, including fiddle, organ, banjo, bagpipe, accordion, mandolin, horns, harmonica, cello, drums, bass and plenty of electric guitar. The band's signature group harmonies are also ubiquitous.
Oliver Mtukudzi & the Black Spirits is one of Afropop's living legends. A gifted guitarist and soulful vocalist, Mtukduzi - along with Angelique Kidjo, Hugh Masekela and Ladysmith Black Mambazo - is one of the most successful African recordings artists in North America. His organic, savvy mix of traditional ways, pan-African influences, and cosmopolitan pop forms became widely known as "Tuku" music, "Tuku" being his nickname.
Singing mostly in Shona, the dominant language of Zimbabwe, as well as in Ndebele and English, Mtkudzi's songs from his first songs protesting colonial injustice to his latest compositions calling for respect and kindness have always been invested with a sense of urgency. His music is heavily influenced by a humanist chimurenga ethos, which, in turn, is inspired by the hypnotic rhythms of the mbira (thumb piano). His music also incorporates South Africa mbaqanga, the energetic Zimbabwean pop style jit, and the traditional kateke drumming of his clan. One of Tuku's biggest fans is Bonnie Raitt, who has not only called Tuku "a treasure," and recorded a cover of "Hear Me Lord" but also credits Tuku as the inspiration for the song "One Belief Away" on her album "Fundamental."
At Club Helsinki, Mtukudzi will perform with his group the Black Spirits, a full band with guitar, bass, drums, percussion, and two backup singers.
Jazz greats Karl Berger and Ingrid Sertso will lead the Omi Improvisers Orchestra, featuring baker's dozen musicians from around the globe, in a unique concert of "guerrilla jazz." Ensemble members hail from South Korea, Sweden, Russia, China and Italy, and are participants in the Music Omi International Musicians Residency Programs at the Omi International Arts Center in Ghent, N.Y.
This years fellows include a remarkable diversity of musicians, including a traditional Chinese erhu virtuoso and electronic composer from China, an Italian jazz guitarist, a Russian composer and multi-instrumentalist, and even a traditional Celtic vocalist from Columbia County. The Music Omi 2013 fellows will perform for the first time ever as an improvising orchestra. They will create new music live and present interpretations of works by the legendary trumpeter Don Cherry, with whom Berger performed in the 1960s, and others.
Berger, a pianist and vibraphonist, and Sertso, a vocalist, along with saxophonist Ornette Coleman, founded the Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, N.Y., the birthplace of the world jazz movement. Berger and Sertso were recently named "Jazz Heroes" by the Jazz Journalists Association.
Led by the dynamic singer-guitarist Michael Powers, this Club Helsinki favorite is the missing link among Southern porch-blues, down-and-dirty Chicago blues, and the hard-rocking R&B of British invasion-era rock groups. Michael Powers carries on the legacy of such blues greats as mentors Jimmy Reed and James Cotton on his own compositions as well as on choice renditions of classic blues by the likes of Willie Dixon, Etta James. Muddy Waters, and Jimi Hendrix.
The New Jersey native spent his summers down south, where he first met to Jimmy Reed, who taught him his first barre chords. While still in high school, he served his apprenticeship touring in James Cotton's band during the summer when school was out. He has recorded, performed with and shared stages with Johnny Winter, Pinetop Perkins, Popa Chubby, Hubert Sumlin, the Holmes Brothers, Buckwheat Zydeco and James Brown himself. Today, Michael Powers is known for his blistering live performances and as a master of authentic electric blues.
"This poor boy's answer to tough times is to keep rocking, which Prophet has done with distinction since the '80s..." - Philadelphia Inquirer
Nobody harnesses the distinctive sound of a Fender Telecaster quite like Chuck Prophet.
Chuck Prophet's catalogue is overflowing with insightful character studies, jangle-pop perfection and energetic barroom rockers. And that accounts for just some of the songs he has written, recorded and forgotten. In the 25-plus-year career, Prophet has established himself as a minor god in the roots pantheon - a sharp, prolific singer-songwriter who always seems to have a new batch of tunes ready to go. Chuck's latest cd, Temple Beautiful, is a nuanced, insightful and passionate ode to San Fransisco and has met with the highest praise from critics and fans alike.
He's written with a wide range of artists from Dan Penn to Alejandro Escovedo, laid down tracks on sessions for everyone from Warren Zevon to Kelly Willis and taken the stage with Jim Dickinson, Lucinda Williams and Aimee Mann. Perhaps you've seen him on TV? Prophet's been on Austin City Limits, Letterman and Carson Daly, most recently as the closing track on a recent episode of True Blood.
That's the comforting part about Prophet, he's solely his own musician, but his music offers a comfort that you intimately know from the first chord. Backed by the weight of his band, guitarist James DePrato (guitar), Paul Taylor (drums), Kevin White (bass) and Stephanie Finch (keys, guitar). You know Chuck Prophet.
"...his live shows are elegant and nearly devastating." - Ben Ratliff NYTIMES
Nick Lowe has made his mark as a producer (Elvis Costello - Graham Parker - Pretenders - The Damned), songwriter of at least three songs you know by heart, short-lived career as a pop star, and a lengthy term as a musicians' musician. But in his current "second act" as a silver-haired, tender-hearted but sharp-tongued singer-songwriter, he has no equal. Starting with 1995's "The Impossible Bird" through to 2011's '"The Old Magic," Nick has turned out a fantastic string of albums, each one devised in his West London home, and recorded with a core of musicians who possess the same veteran savvy. Lowe brings wit and understated excellence to every performance.
Somewhere in London a musician carries the keys to the musical kingdom. In his Technicolor sonic scope are all kinds of sounds, from rock to country to soul to pop. Nothing is off limits, as long as it has a groove and goodness based in reality. The musician has been performing for 40 years, but is as fresh today as the first time he stepped on stage. There are no tricks or short cuts here. His songs are as solid as the earth, yet carry no lingering hype or heaviness. The musician is Nick Lowe, the headmaster of British rock, and his new album, At My Age, is such a cause for certain celebration that fans and neophytes alike should mark its June 26 release as a date to remember.
Maybe most interesting of all, At My Age was really an album that almost didn't happen. "It's a record that I never really started," Lowe says. "What normally happens in recent years when I feel like I want to do a record is I get an idea or feeling, along with about three or four new songs, which is a major body of work for me, because I'm not very prolific. When those two things coincide I call everyone up and we go in and record. And if that goes well, those three or four songs will serve as sort of the engine that will drive the writing and recording of the rest of the record. But that process never happened with this one, due to the dramas that have been served up to me in the last five years."
For Nick Lowe, it's always been about quality over quantity. In 2001 he released The Convincer, seen by many as one of the highlights of a long and illustrious recording career. After that, though, all went quiet on the studio front. There were scattered dates, a live album and assorted sightings, but no new studio release. That changed this year. Once he got back with his steady team of band mates Bobby Irwin (drums), Geraint Watkins (keyboards) and Steve Donnelly (guitar), there was no stopping them.
Sometimes the biggest gift of all comes when least expected, because as a collection of songs, At My Age has the feel of an all-timer. There are brand new Nick Lowe classics like "A Better Man" and "I Trained Her To Love Me" next to the obscure covers that are a total trademark of the ever-elegant Englishman, like Charlie Feathers' "The Man In Love" and Faron Young's "Feel Again." And, as a special surprise, singer Chrissie Hynde guests on "People Change." All are done with such supreme style and absolute substance that by album's end, this is one collection that feels like a long-lost friend, music to bring on the good times and see listeners through the bad.
One constant quality of Nick Lowe is that he knows what he's doing, and how he wants to do it. "I still love playing with the same guys I've been playing with for, well, ages. They're really great players, and they get me. They can do all kinds of different stuff, and we know what we don't like. We will work on it a bit, but not labor over it. For me, it's never like, 'For the next album I'm going to Peru and find a nose flute.' Never."
With someone like Nick Lowe, who has been such an unending influence on music as a performer, songwriter, producer and all-around proud fan, there is always the question of how he knows when his songs are ready for their public debut. "When I can pick up an acoustic guitar and play the thing through," he says, "if I can do that and it feels like someone else has written it, or I'm playing a cover song so it doesn't sound like me anymore, then it's done. I don't try to make it anything, because when I try to make it something I can't stand it. It needs to be as natural as possible, and generally not sound too much like me. It's an inner gyroscope that lets you know when it's done."
Sarah Lee Guthrie and Johnny Irion have new songs and a new sound, brought to life by their friends Jeff Tweedy and Patrick Sansone of Wilco on their brand-new album, Wassaic Way, due for release on Route 8 Records on August 6. The 11-song album introduces a new Guthrie and Irion, with resonant melodies amid lush soundscapes that vividly evoke a range of moods, from carefree and playful to contemplative and melancholy, taking advantage of the beautifully organic blend of the duo's harmony vocals. The album captures the husband-and-wife duo at their creative peak, blazing paths into new territory at the same time they reveal (and revel in) their influences, from the Beatles to Neil Young to Wilco (of course). Indeed, the album could well be their own "Double Fantasy" Irion's performance on the title track conjures up the bittersweet love songs John Lennon shared with Yoko Ono on that other husband-and-wife duo record. And Guthrie has never sounded so dreamy.
At the forefront of the traditional-music revival, the Wiyos play and compose old-timey music inspired by the early American musical idioms of the 1920s and '30s. Gleefully subverting genre distinctions, their music comes from a time before commercial formatting separated blues from country, ragtime from gospel, and swing from hillbilly. Their sound is reminiscent of days-gone-by, when live bands could be heard both on the radio and at community dances, juke joints, and house parties. It's this approach that presumably garnered the attention of none other than Bob Dylan, who hand-picked the group to open his monthlong summer tour in 2009. The trio - Michael Farkas, Teddy Weber and "Sauerkraut" Seth Travins - has also prominently been featured on BBC TV programs "Folk America Hollerers, Stompers and Old-Time Ramblers" and "No Sleep 'Til Yell," as avatars of the jug-band revival.
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