A few weeks back, a Tampa brewer unveiled High Road Ale, a tribute to nationally acclaimed Bradenton band Have Gun, Will Travel and named after one of the songs from their upcoming album. The album, "Mergers & Acquisitions," won't be out until September, but Have Gun, Will Travel is releasing a seven-inch single of "High Road." The band will celebrate with fans at a release party at Ace's Live starting at 9 p.m. June 21. Tickets are $7 in advance and $10 at the door. Ace;s live is at 4343 Palma Sola Blvd. Bradenton. Call 941-795-3886 or visit www.aceslivemusic.com. By the way, some details about this event posted earlier on this blog, based on information from the Ace's Live website, were incorrect.
New Orleans native Kenny Neal’s searing guitar work, hot harmonica playing, and emotive vocals have made him one of today’s top purveyors of swamp blues.
He’s also a superb showman, making this easily the best bet for concerts in Bradenton this week.
Based out of New Orleans since 1990, Rockin' Jake relocated briefly to Ft. Worth, Tex. since being flooded out by Hurricane Katrina, then settled in St. Louis where he now makes his home.
Rockin' Jake has been hailed by many as one of the premier harmonica players in the country. His original sound is a hybrid of second line, swamp funk, blues and zydeco with influences from Paul Butterfield, Big Walter Horton, James Cotton, The Meters,WAR, J. Geils Band, Clifton Chenier, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Jake has conjured up this formula that is blowing crowds away from coast to coast. Widely known as a touring juggernaut among his peers, his schedule of over 200 performances per year include clubs, concert venues, and festivals.
Damon Fowler near his Bradenton Beach home. TIFFANY TOMPKINS-CONDIE/ttompkins@bradenton.com
This week's edition of Damon Fowler's Sugar Shack Mondays features none other than the Damon Fowler Group, which just wrapped a world tour that included a Caribbean cruise, dates in Italy, cross-country tour to San Francisco and shows in Canada.
It’s a devilish good time these days for Southwest Florida’s most buzzed-about roots musician.
Damon Fowler has spent the past week on the sold-out Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise, playing his way through the Caribbean with the likes of Taj Mahal, Kenny Wayne Shepherd and Joan Osborne. Fowler makes his second trip to Italy in as many years for 10 dates in February. And a West Coast tour starting in San Francisco -- as well as gigs in Canada and the Midwest -- will keep him busy through March.
This week's edition of Damon Fowler's Sugar Shack Mondays features one of the most respected women on the blues scene, Davina Sowers (pictured).
Here's some info on the singer/pianist:
Davina Sowers hit the Midwest scene in February 2005 and she hasn't looked back since. It didn't take her long after moving to Minnesota from Key West, FL to start making a name for herself. With great vocals and piano, she commands attention on stage and leaves everyone smiling. Davina has been performing since the age of 5, with the support of an extremely musical family. Sowers, a classically-trained pianist, has years of experience in piano performance. She and her band made a big splash at Duluth's Bayfront Blues Festival in 2006 to 2008, having the highest sales in CDs all three years. She has been called the "hardest working blues woman in frigid Minnesota.” “Two things remain consistent in all her shows: her throaty, but cushion-y voice, which has a sort of hard-mattress comfort to it that's part Bonnie Raitt, part Etta James and a little Amy Winehouse; and her band's rollicking New Orleans flavor, driven home by dueling horn players and a bay-outhick stand-up bass." (Chris Riemenschneider, Star Tribune) Davina has already shared the stage with Little Feat, Buddy Guy, Elvin Bishop ... at venues such as House of Blues in Atlantic City, NJ and the Bayfront Blues Festival in Duluth, MN.
Victor Wainwright, the twenty something singer, pianist, “hepcat” from Memphis by way of the Savannah, Georgia; creates powerhouse blues and roots rock by playing his own unique style of boogie piana’. He effortlessly pays frequent homage to past music greats, while simultaneously adding his own youthful excitement. He's a raucous high-octane dynamic performer and crowd pleaser with soul to spare. After earning what he calls a "double major in Boogie, a Ph.D. in Swing and a master's in Rhythm," the "Piana' from Savannah" is undoubtedly making a name for himself in a big way.
Prestage and the arsenal of weapons he learned to play while busking on Beale Street in Memphis should make for great listening and interesting viewing. From his bio:
"I started playing drums with my feet as an attention grabber but soon found out that the drums played with foot pedals actually enhanced my music dramatically," Prestage said.
"Not only were people listening and buyin' discs, they were now dancing and hollerin' to boot.
"Now I am to the point where, if you close your eyes, you would think there was a professional drummer with a full-size drum-kit behind me," he continued.
Sol Driven Train bring hippie vibe to Damon Fowler's "Sugar Shack Mondays"
Be brave blues diehards.
We're venturing outside the proverbial box for the Feb. 7 edition of Damon Fowler's "Sugar Shack Mondays" with superb, genre-hopping, national-touring act Sol Driven Train.
Sol Driven Train’s music weaves through genres like images in a Tom Robbins paragraph. The band’s sonic schizophrenia absorbs songwriting influences like John Prine,Paul Simon and Afro-Caribbean rhythmic explorations, into honest songs of life, love, loss, and long johns.
The 5-piece band, based in Charleston, SC, features rotating lead vocalists, and multi-instrumental talent spread across horns, strings, and percussion. The band members share a musical history dating back to childhood, and their music and live shows are filled with a spirit of positivity and joy, even while traversing subjects of suffering and death.
I'm stoked to see Fowler flex his chops and jam with these guys before he scoots up the East Coast for a tour that includes a couple dates with personal fave Johnny Winter.
Miller grew up in Chicago and spent a decade in the great Lonnie Brooks' band performing magor gigs such as President Bill Clinton's inauguration. The Indianapolis, Ind.-based Miller also backed Anthony Gomes before fronting his own group Biscuit Miller and the Mix in 2000.
Biscuit's chop bag is bottomless, and contains everything from mathematically spaced eighth notes, endless permutations of blues walk-ups and downs, thumps, plucks, taps -- you name it, it's in there.
And Biscuit is just like sunshine, just being in his presence makes you feel good. Hearing him play makes you want to go home and practice.
The Jan. 31 edition of Damon Fowler's Sugar Shack Mondays will be the last to actually feature Fowler performing until he gets back from some East Coast dates for a Feb. 14 Ace's appearance, and then not until April 4, when he returns from an international tour taking him to Italy, Canada and across the U.S.
Click screen at 8 p.m. Jan. 31 to watch "Sugar Shack Mondays"
Fowler will not be present this evening. He's somewhere in Caribbean with Taj Mahal, Joan Osborne & the Holmes Brothers, Kenny Wayne Sheperd and others on the Legendary Rhythm and Blues Cruise.
Kach plays Hammond B-3 organ and sings with Dickey Betts and Great Southern. He's also performed with Gregg Allman, Warren Haynes and toured nationally with Molly Hatchet. When not playing with a Southern rock hero, the Sarasota resident fronts his own act the Michael Kach Group
Mike Kach
I've witnessed Kach singing and playing organ — he excels at both — on the Allman Brother’s Band favorite “Statesboro Blues” while performing with Betts.
Fowler used to wow crowds with a fiery rendition of the ABB epic classic “Whipping Post.” Could we hear some Allman Brothers songs Monday?
“That’s up to (Kach), but I’d be up for it, for sure,” Fowler said.
Expect to hear the Bradenton Beach resident perform songs off "Devil Got His Way" tonight.
"Sugar Shack Mondays" Jan. 3, 2011/Photo by Tracy May
Here's how "Sugar Shack Mondays" operates:
Fowler and I introduce Kach, who then plays with his band for about an hour.
Following the performance, I interview Kach and throw a few questions at my friend Fowler, who I've known now for about a decade.
That’s when the webcast ends.
But not the event, which, incidentally, is free.
After the cameras are turned off, the Damon Fowler Group performs a few songs and then jams with Kach and perhaps some other musicians who have been invited in advance. Last week, in addition to special guest JP Soars, longtime Fowler performing and songwriting collaborator Ed Wright joined the jam.
Damon Fowler's "Sugar Shack Mondays" Jan. 3 with special guest JP Soars
Check out "Sugar Shack Mondays" on Facebook for more pictures and updates here and here.
Damon Fowler tours nationally, records for the highly respected label Blind Pig and his 2009 release “Sugar Shack” reached No. 12 on Billboard’s Top Blues Albums chart.
Fowler also happens to live on Bradenton Beach.
Since relocating about a year ago to Anna Maria Island from Brandon, the singer/songwriter and guitar hero has returned from the road to regularly deliver powerful performances to a packed house at Ace’s.
Billed as “Bradenton’s live music venue,” it’s where Fowler will debut his ambitious new webcast series “Sugar Shack Mondays,” which features a nationally-touring guest each week. I’ve known Fowler for the past decade and gladly agreed to co-host the interview segment of the show.
“Last summer we were playing in Kentucky and the promoter did a webcast of our performance,” Fowler said. “I saw that it was well viewed and how cool and easy it could be.”
Boca Raton-based JP Soars and the Red Hots, the 2009 International Blues Challenge winner, is the special guest for the Jan. 3 premiere of “Sugar Shack Mondays.” The trio recently released the album “Back of My Mind.” Singer/guitarist Soars excels at everything from blues and jazz to rock and metal. Like Fowler, he’s an ace slide player as well.
Have Gun, Will Travel are not only performing at hometown venue Ace’s, which is always special, but the nationally celebrated, Bradenton-based alt-country ensemble will also be screening/debuting its first music video.
The video is for the song “Salad Days,” a love-letter to Bradenton culled from HGWT’s highly recommended 2009 album “Postcards from the Friendly City.”
The video was shot entirely in and around Bradenton.
Have Gun, Will Travel performing "Garden Suite" at Skipper's Smokehouse, Tampa
Have Gun, Will Travel with special guest Grant Peeples, 9 p.m. Dec. 18, Ace’s, 4343 Palma Solo Blvd., Bradenton. Tickets: $5. Information: (941) 795-3886 or www.4aceslounge.com.
Nationally acclaimed artist (and Bradenton Beach resident) Damon Fowler (pictured) excels at soul, blues and country, all of which can be heard on his superb, 2009 Blind Pig Records debut “Sugar Shack.”
Fowler will also be performing songs from his as-yet-untitled Blind Pig follow-up, due out Jan. 18. Bob Margolin, best known for his work as Muddy Waters’ sideman, co-headlines this highly recommended Halloween costume party.
See you there!
Damon Fowler Group and Bob Margolin with Matt Hill and Chuck Cotten will perform at 9:30 p.m. Oct. 30, Ace’s, 4343 Palma Sola Blvd., Bradenton; $10 (advance) $15 (at the door). (941) 795-3886
Buzz Worthy is a forum for Bradenton Herald features writer/columnist Marty Clear to share his thoughts on the Bradenton-Sarasota arts, theater and music scene as well as the national entertainment scene, including television and movies. He welcomes feedback on all these topics.
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