After Rhythm and Roots – A double shot of Zydeco!

CJ Chenier in Pawtucket Sep 7 + Buckwheat Zydeco at Narrows Fest Sep 9
After Summerfest Providence, I was checking out the web to see where Santa Mamba was going to be appearing next, and one of those places would be the Pawtucket Arts Festival. And it seems CJ Chenier will be performing at the Gala at Slater Mill on Friday Night (Sep 7)! That same weekend, Buckwheat Zydeco will be headlining the Narrows Festival of the Arts on Sunday the 9th. It used to be that Labor Day weekend was the main opportunity to see zydeco bands from Lousiana, but now we are lucky to get them on a semi-regular basis.

The Pawtucket Arts festival is in its Ninth Year and actually starts this week with a concert by Counting Crows, Live and Collective Soul at McCoy Stadium, and ends with a free festival in Slater Park the weekend of Sept 15, including the Stone Soup folk festival. Check it out at PawtucketArtsFestival.org The Narrows Festival is celebrating its 6th annual, and will be held outside the Narrows center in Fall River. See the Narrows website for more info.

Summerfest Providence

This past weekend was the first Summerfest Providence. Held at the Port of Providence, at Conley Dock, it featured live music, food, arts, children’s activities and a Pro Volleyball tour. This industrial area, which is in the shadow of the construction site for the new “I-way” bridge linking Interstates 95 and 195, may not be as picturesque as the signature Waterplace Park downtown, but is also not as congested. The festival was in the gravel parking lot where you catch the ferry to Newport, and was organized by the same people who put on a series of music and other festivals at the Newport Yachting center across Narragansett Bay. Perhaps it was conceived as an extension of that scene, which featured acts such as Little Feat, Robert Cray and Joan Osborne earlier this year.

The Providence festival had two days of music, with a diverse lineup of Bluegrass, Cajun, Reggae, Latin, Blues, Country, Rock and Pop, but we only caught the last 2 acts on Saturday evening. We arrived shortly after 6 pm to the groove of Santa Mamba, a 6-piece Latin band with a rock’n’roll attitude. They were very entertaining to watch, especially the bass player with the Mohawk haircut jumping around on stage. During the break we went to check out the food vendors, which in addition to the ubuiqitous sausage and pepper sandwiches, also offered such RI treats as Saugy hot dogs, Clam Cakes and other seafood dishes from Johnny Angels of Newport, Brazilian barbeque from Casa Brasil in East Providence, and Jamaican fare from Tina’s in Providence. Wine and beer were for sale (for $4 and $5 respectively), with Corona as the main sponsor displaying two a giant inflatable bottles (in keeping with the Beach Volleyball them, I guess) . Soda and water were also available for $2. In the Volleyball Competition, there were men and women playing in bathing suits, on a sand court, but for “some reason” the women’s side attracted a larger group of spectators… go figure!

Then at 8pm the Fabulous Thunderbirds played an energetic 90+ minute set of rockin' boogie blues to an appreciative audience, which had finally grown to a respectable size. The Thunderbirds, fronted by Kim Wilson (the only original member) on vocals and harmonica rocked the house. They did some of their signature tunes such as Tuff Enuff, and Wrap it Up, Why Get Up, and plenty of other danceable songs, as evidenced by the dust cloud in front of the stage. RI sure loves the blues ..maybe some were reliving past shows at Lupo’s. Kim was not even phased by being hit by a beachball a few times, just coolly batted it back out into the audience. We did not return Sunday, opting instead for a bike ride – during which we stumbled across more live music, a local Blues/Classic Rock cover band called Shot in the Dark playing for free in a local park. Sometimes you have to work to find the music, and sometimes it finds you!

I can see the Providence Summerfest growing over the next few years. Since I wasn’t there for the whole thing I can’t give my impressions of the rest of the weekend’s festivities, but there is a more complete account in the Providence Journal.

Have music, will travel!

Music Festivals are a great excuse to travel and see other parts of the country that you otherwise might not get to. Take Cincinnati for example – it doesn’t exactly spring to most people’s mind as a vacation destination, and I probably never would have thought to go there on vacation, but we went last year for the Tall Stacks festival. It’s a confluence of steam boats from all over the United States – kind of like the “Tall Ships” events on the East Coast. Because of the logistics involved, it only happens every few years. The last few times, they have expanded it to include a top notch roots music festival, and last year it was 5 days, with such diverse bands as Beausoleil, Del McCoury, Wilco, Old Crow Medicine Show, Blind Boys of Alabama, Sonny Landreth, Tea Leaf Green, Over the Rhine, Roseanne Cash, Mountain Heart, Sonny Landreth, Big Sandy and the FlyRite Boys, Tim O’Brien, Marcia Ball, Buddy Guy and many more. We found out about it on the Petdekat and Jazzfest message boards. The festival was in a city park on the banks of the Ohio. Between festing, we learned about the region, saw some Civil war demonstrations, rode on a steamboat, walked to Kentucky several times for food and fun, and passed a good time with friends from Ohio and Canada. There are a lot of Germans in that area so the food is of the meat and potato variety, but they also had an authentic Hofbrau house. They eat chili on top of spaghetti and have some of the best ice cream in the world. ….who knew?

In 2002 we went to Lafayette for Festivals Acadiens, then drove to Austin for the first ever Austin City Limits festival. Being fans of Cajun and Zydeco music, we love Lafayette and had visited it a few times, but had never been to Texas. Austin is a great music city and when we went for that first ACL fest (which we also found out about on the Petdekat board), we arrived on a Monday and spent a few days visiting and touring Austin, San Antonio (the Alamo, Riverwalk), Fredericksburg and other areas. By the time our other friends from RI arrived on Thursday we knew the area pretty well. People at the visitors’ center were surprised that we had come all the way from RI for it – I think they had no idea it would catch on the way it has.

New Orleans Jazzfest is the “reason” for our trip to New Orleans every spring, although that one is so much more than a music festival, and over the years we’ve met so many friends there that it is almost like a reunion or convention more than a music festival. New Orleans is such a unique and wonderful place to visit any time, and they seem to have a festival for one reason or another almost every weekend. But during Jazzfest, there is so much going on at the fairgrounds and in the city, it makes your head spin. Fear of Missing Something (or FOMS, as it is called in the Jazzfest forums) is contagious. There is the food, the clubs, arts and crafts, Mardi Gras Indians, parades and secondlines, in-store performaces, meeting up with friends, and other “daze between” happenings that make the week just fly by so fast you need a vacation from the vacation when you get home!

While we have many excellent festivals in the Northeast all summer long, and one of the best(Rhythm and Roots) is yet to come, I find myself wanting to plan another festival trip, which can help alleviate the melancholy feeling that comes every Labor Day when you pack up and say goodbye to Rhythm and Roots for another year.

These are some of the ones I'm considering:
Festivals Acadiens, Lafayette and/or Voice of the Wetlands Oct 13-14.
We love Lafayette/ Acadiana, but haven't been there since 2002; and just saw Tab last night so after looking on his website today, I see VOW is the same weekend as Lafayette. Maybe one day of each and a little travelling around.

Hardly Strictly Bluegrass San Francisco Oct 6-7 . The lineup is not posted but pollstar lists alot of great acts and its free, and San Francisco is a very cool place to visit.

Blues Cruise out of San Diego Oct 6-13. We have never been on a cruise before, but this is the type of cruise I'd go on, if not now, maybe another year.

IBMA World of Bluegrass / Fan Fest Nashville Oct 5-7 - an indoor bluegrass festival with an unbelievable lineup. Haven't been to Nashville in a while, but that is also a good city to visit, lots of good music there anyway. There's also some kind of Americana conference in Nashville, later in the month, that looks intriguing.

Arkansas Blues and Heritage (aka King Biscuit) Oct 4-7. I have heard so many great things about this one, but don’t’ know much about the area… although I guess its not far from Memphis, and Memphis is pretty cool.

Magnolia fest, Florida Oct 26-29 – a camping festival at Suwannee music park in Northern Florida. We went once in 2000 , and passed a good time with some of the PetdeKat Krewe.

Fred Eaglesmith Roots Music Train from Albuquerque New Mexico - to Durango Colorado. A rail cruise! I came across this while browsing the web, but that is already sold out. Maybe another year.


and perhaps some other candidates will emerge....too bad Tallstacks isn't every year, that was a great time in Cincinnati last year!

New Fest in Providence

The inaugural event is scheduled for this weekend, Aug 18-19. Saturday's lineup looks pretty good - bands include Magnolia Cajun band, Santa Mamba, the fabulous Thunderbirds...and more . Only $10 at Providence Piers (where the ferry to Newport docks)

http://summerfestprovidence.com/

Fall River Celebrates America

This year's annual festival had a great musical lineup, thanks to the Narrows Center for the Arts ' partnership with the city to bring in some top notch roots music acts such as Los Lobos and the Iguanas. In fact, the Narrows sponsored a whole stage to showcase the types of performers they bring to the area regularly and also to promote the upcoming Narrows Festival of the Arts in September. On Saturday, we got there around 6 pm and mistakenly entered into the carnival area. After going through metal detectors and having our bags searched by both FR police and National Guard, and making our way down the noisy and garish midway, I was rethinking the evening's plans, until I found out the music stages were on the opposite side, near the Heritage museum. We exited and re-entered into a much more relaxed environment and set up our chairs just to the right of the sound booth, just in time for Dave Mason, who started right on time at 6:30. I wasn't particularly psyched to see this this band, only being familiar with the 70's lite-rock hits such as "It's only you and me and we just disagree", but Joe reminded me that Dave Mason had been a member of Traffic. We really enjoyed the set, which ended up with jamming renditions of "Hey Mr. Fantasy", "All Along the Watchtower" and "Feelin' Alright".

Dave Mason

Between sets we met up with several friends, and had some delicious cacoila sandwiches (Portuguese style pork) from the local food vendor. Then Los Lobos came on around 8:00 pm. There was a large area fenced off, right in front of the stage for the local politicos and other VIP's so the rest of the audience was relatively far back and consisted mostly of chair & blanket sitters - but it wasn't hard to go up to the front/ sides to get a closer look and boogie a bit.



The highlight of the evening for many in attendance was the scheduled fireworks at 9:30 so the Los Lobos set was much shorter than usual, with fewer jams, and included more of the crowd pleasing numbers like "La Bamba" and "Good Lovin"; we called it the "Civic event" set. They were just getting going when they had to end it after the one encore of "Cinnamon Girl" so that the fireworks could begin on time. We watched a few minutes then made our way out, pausing to admire the spectacle over the water every so often, and were able to make a relatively quick escape, without getting tied up in traffic. This made Joe very happy!



These types of public festivals are different than other music festivals that attract a core group of fans, in that there are alot of people who are just there for an evening out regardless of the bands scheduled, because it was so inexpensive ($10 for a four-day wristband). But it's nice to see people in the audience who otherwise might not search out this type of music, and who may become new fans. That is how it was for the closing acts on the Narrows Stage Sunday night - Sarah Borges and the Broken Singles, followed by The Iguanas, one of our favorite bands from New Orleans. Sarah and her band played a very loud and rocking set.... perhaps the sound was turned up extra loud in anticipation of the 21-gun salute from the Battleship that was to take place at 7:20 pm, in tribute to our nations veterans ( and also to Jim Haskins, one of the festival's founders who had passed away during the year) . This was following a display of military exercises, known as a "tattoo", with bands and soldiers marching in formation. I caught some of that, including a moving rendition of "America the Beautiful" by the Army band and chorus.

21-gun salute

On my way back to the Narrows stage, which was still rocking, I passed an elderly gentleman who exclaimed, pointing to the Narrows tent, "Now that's how a band's supposed to sound!" Yeah you right, ROCK AND ROLL! When I returned to the Narrows stage, Sarah was closing out the show with an unamplified sing-along, walking around in the audience. By this time she no longer had to compete with the Battleship.

After about a half hour break, the Iguanas took the stage. The chairs were set up in a u-shaped pattern around a dancing area front & center. The Iguanas played a good set, but many people were filtering out because it was Sunday night. There were a few dancers up front, and a few kids dancing around, but most people remained seated, although they seemed to enjoy the music. When they did the song "The Liquor Dance" it was funny because it was a rather sober crowd. It starts out pretty good, and is easy to dance to but then kind of unwinds, to simulate the effects of alcohol. The new trumpet player was really great, and it took them a while to break out the accordion, but when they did the crowd cheered loudly. Joe Cabral, the sax player, remarked "wow I didn't know we were in accordion country here... "to more applause. So they went nuts on a few polkas and conjunto-sounding songs, much to the delight of the mostly still-seated but enthusiastic crowd.

Click here to see more of my photos from Fall River Celebrates America

Bryan Lee and Blues Power

Talk about Blues Power, this guy's got it! Not too many people were at the German Club last night, but those that were got a full strength dose of straight ahead blues. The first set was Bryan on guitar with his band of guitar, bass and drums. Dressed all in black with a black hat, sunglasses and white goatee, he is quite a presence, even though he sits while playing but stands to sing - and really belts it out. The venue is an old fashioned hall with a great wooden dance floor, and tables around the perimeter (That's where most of the zydeco bands, like Leroy Thomas, Nathan, CJ, and Rosie, etc. play when they come to RI for a one-night gig) It accomodates around 200, but there were only about 50-60, including several dancers, who had plenty of room to show off their moves. Bryan is blind so he kept saying, it doesn't matter if there's 3 or 3000, he loves to play for us, and the audience returned the love. A guest horn section of Doug James on baritone sax and "Carl Q" (ex Roomful of Blues) on trombone showed up for the second set, a little late due to Doug's having played with Duke Robillard in Fall River earlier. ( I was going to go there myself, but it was cold & rainy last night so we opted for the indoor venue) When the horns joined the band, it was like a totally different show, so funky and soulful. They did alot of material from the album "Six String Therapy" which was produced by Duke Robillard and recorded in Pawtucket and also featured Doug on sax. So they knew all the songs and did a great job, even though Bryan kept saying they hadn't played some of them since the album was recorded. The Duke was also in the house and sat in on the last tune. I did not realize that Duke has produced a few of Bryan's albums, including the latest, "Katrina was her Name". Another RI - LA connection. So we got a good show last night, I just wish I had brought more people, but I didn't know what to expect. I should have known, if Sal's books em, GO! They are playing in New London Ct tonight, then in NYC I think. Bryan only travels with the four-piece band, but he seems to really like having the horn section, so maybe some guest horns will show up at the other gigs.

Newport Folk Festival

The Newport Folk fest on Saturday was as much a traditional “folk” festival as the New Orleans Jazzfest is strictly a jazz festival, which is to say purists probably wouldn’t call it a folk festival at all, but it was fine by me. There are plenty of other folk fests around, including the New Bedford Summerfest in early July. While some of the folkier acts, like singer-songwriter Martha Wainwright and some Canadian fiddlers played on the 2 smaller stages, the lineup on the mainstage consisted of Dirty Dozen Brass band, Grace Potter & the Nocturnals, John Butler Trio, North Mississippi Allstars, and headliners the Allman Brothers band. When DDBB opened the festivities at 11:30, many people were just getting there. This year they did something new, setting up reserved seats on half of the field, which were pretty empty for the first few acts, but it made the general admission area much less crowded. It must have been strange for the bands to look out and see people on only one side of the audience and in the back.

DDBB did a good New Orleans style set and there were a few enthusiastic jazzfest-vets in the crowd, attempting to get that secondline vibe going….but we were outnumbered by the chair sitters. At least it was easy to get some good photos early in the day.

After that I went to see a couple of other bands on the outer stages - Martha Wainwright, who had a nice voice but was kind of depressing lyrically, then the Lonesome Brothers, who were quirky and fun hillbilly rock&roll.

Caught most of Grace Potter and the Nocturnals, who rocked. An announcement was made from the mainstage, something to the effect of “hey, a lot of us here in the stage crew are from New Orleans (because Festival Productions does the Newport festivals too) and New Orleans is still really messed up, but you all should come visit! Come down for jazzfest!” This drew cheers from those of us who’ve been there, but I’m not so sure it would have made anyone else want to go - it was kind of a mixed message.

Fort Adams is a state park and there is usually no alcohol allowed, but this year they tried a “beer garden” way out near the water. The line was a mile long, I heard people say it was about an hour wait just to get your ID checked for the privilege of drinking a $6 beer so far away from the stage it didn’t seem worth it. With Dunkin Donuts as the sponsor, there were plenty of fruity cold beverages for sale at regular D&D prices, And of course there was Del’s (RI frozen lemonade) and other beverages which could easily be made more festive with a little pre-planning.

After grooving to the John Butler trio we went to hang in the shade near the back with some friends. From here we could see all the free-loading boat-people enjoying the fest from the water.

On my way to see Assembly of Dust on one of the outer stages I noticed a crowd at the Gibson guitar trailer, where Grace Potter & the nocturnals were doing an unannounced acoustic set. I could barely get near there to see, but I could hear pretty well and was able to snap a few photos by holding my camera up over head. Then I got a front row seat for a few AOD songs - it was too hot too dance much! I really like that band, especially the keyboard jams.

Allman Brothers came on just after 5 pm and played almost 2 1/2 hours.... Luther Dickinson joined them on stage for a version of "The Weight". "Melissa" was nice....We considered leaving a little early just to have an easier time getting out of the traffic but once I heard the first few notes of Mountain Jam, I knew I wasn't going anywhere. That's one of my favorite ABB songs.. so what if we had to wait an hour in the parking lot then it took us almost another hour to wind our way through the narrow streets of Newport to get home. It was worth it.

We were going to go back on Sunday but decided against it - the Newport festival is nice but it sure is a hassle getting in and out of there! So we went to the Seafood Fest at Ninigret park (held at the same place as Rhythm and Roots) but it was kind of lame so we only stayed a little while then just went to hang out at the beach, listening to the re-broadcast of some of the festival highlights from Saturday on WMVY 92.7, including the whole Allman Bros set, then went to the Mews Tavern in Wakefield. Many of the Newport performances are available to listen to on MVY radio online for free, including AOD. The ABB set is going to be available for download on Thursday on this other website called Hittin the Note.

The rest of my pictures from Newport can be viewed here .

Newport Folk Fest 2007

This is the schedule for Fall River Celebrates America, next weekend. Looking forward to Sunday, when the Iguanas and Sarah Borges will be on the Narrows stage, and Los Lobos on Saturday. But there are good bands there all weekend.