Ghost Town Blues Band at Moline Viking Club -- May 5.
Sunday, May 5, 3 p.m.
Moline Viking Club, 1450 41st Street, Moline IL
Lauded by Living Blues magazine as “21st Century blues at its best,” the Memphis-based artists of the Ghost Town Blues Band perform a May 5 concert at the Moline Viking Club presented by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, treating audiences to the soulful, electrifying effects of, as Living Blues stated, “a shoot-from-the-hip Memphis attitude" and "a welcome changing of the guard."
With their most recent album Shine reaching number one on the Billboard Top Blues Albums Chart, the Ghost Town Blues Band has spent more than a decade captivating audiences in the U.S. and Canada with a second-line horn entrance, cigar-box guitars, electric push brooms, Allman Brothers-style jams, and even a hip-hop trombone player. Self-described as “not your grandpa's blues band,” the six-man ensemble delivers harmonies and homegrown instruments combined with an energetic, roots-rich flavor that led to them winning Europe's esteemed Independent Label Music Award and a 2015 Blues Blast Music Award nomination for “Best Band.”
This sextet from Tennessee boasts multi-instrumentalist Matt Isbell on lead vocals, Suavo Jones on trombone, Taylor Orr on lead guitar, Matthew Karner on bass, Cedric Taylor on B3, and Andrew McNeill on drums, and performing as the Ghost Town Blues Band, the artists have made the finals at both the 2013 and 2014 International Blues Challenge. Known for also employing an unusual array of additional musical instruments that include cigar box guitars and electric push brooms, the ensemble has opened for the likes of Neil Young, the Steve Miller Band, Keb' Mo', John Lee Hooker Jr., and Johnny Lang, and have been the beneficiaries of excellent reviews for albums including Hard Road to Hoe, Dark Horse, and Dust the Dust.
The band's 2018 live album Backstage Pass, meanwhile, won the Ghost Town Blues Band the 2018 Tennessee Music Award for “Best Blues Band” and a 2019 nomination as B.B. King International Entertainer of the Year at Canada's Maple Blues Awards. No Depression called the release “a blast from first track to last,” while American Blues Scene raved that the album “feels like a great night out, capturing the energy of a great band in a perfectly sized club, willing the crowd into submission through talent and musical fluency.”
The Ghost Town Blues Band's May 5 concert at the Moline Viking Club starts at 3 p.m., admission is $15, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)322-5837 and visiting MVBS.org.
