The Rockin' Jake Band, 2 p.m.
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, Muddy Waters, the J. Geils Band, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds.
The five-time winner of Off Beat Magazine's coveted "Best of the Beat" award for best harmonica player tours throughout the country with more than 200 performances per year, including clubs, concert venues, and festivals.
This New Orleans-based musician formed the Rockin' Jake Band in 1995 as an outlet for his original music and unique swampy sounds. His debut album, Let's Go Get 'Em (on Rabadash Records), earned national recognition. In the spring of 2004, the Rockin' Jake Band recorded its first live album. Over four days in Key West, Florida, at the Green Parrot, their most recent album 5 p.m. Breakfast came to life.
Jake is truly a hard-working musician with extraordinary talent. He and his band pour out their souls in every performance with high energy and electricity that consistently brings the audience to its feet.
- Laura Ernzen
James "Super Chikan" Johnson, 4 p.m.
James Johnson was born February 16, 1951, in Darling, Mississippi, but now lives just a stone's throw from the crossroads in Clarksdale, Mississippi. As a small lad James was fascinated with the language and mannerisms of chickens. That is where he got his nickname.
James' first instrument was a stick and string called the diddley-bo. When that didn't give him the range he craved, he made a four-string version out of a Prince Albert can and Popsicle sticks. By the time he reached eight years of age, it was time to help support the family. That meant he put down his diddley-bo and picked up the cotton sack. When he was old enough to drive, he landed a truck-driving job. That got him out of the cotton fields, and it also gave him time to think, and thinking led to writing. By now he had enough money to buy a used guitar from the Salvation Army. Even though it only had two strings, he was able to try to reproduce what he was hearing from guys such as Lightin' Hopkins, Slim Harpo, Elmore James, and that one he felt was closest to what he could play with two strings: Jimmy Reed.
The Chikan boy not only plays guitar but bass, piano, and harmonica, too. If that is not enough, he custom crafts chik-can-tars out of military five-gallon gas cans, complete with wild paint jobs.
In addition to his bandshell performance, Super Chikan will perform Saturday at 2:30 p.m. at BlueSKool.
- John Downard
For more information: (http://www.superchikan.biz).
Walter "Wolfman" Washington, 6 p.m.
Walter "Wolfman" Washington is a rare talent in the world of rhythm and blues. His soaring, deep soul vocals and funky choked-guitar sound are so immediately recognizable that he's never been mistaken for anyone else.
Wolfman has followed a rough and rocky road through the vicissitudes of the music business since he began playing guitar in the house band at New Orleans' legendary Dew Drop Inn nearly 40 years ago. He emerged as a bandleader himself in the early '80s and delivered three critically acclaimed albums for Rounder Records and one for Pointblank, each featuring his passionate soul-funk-blues singing and playing backed by his crack horn-fueled band, the Roadmasters.
The core members of his band heave been together for more than 10 years, and they're one of the tightest units in the Crescent City today. Drummer Wilbert "Junk Yard Dog" Arnold began playing as a teenager some 25 years ago, when Walter allowed Wilbert to play tambourine behind his regular drummer. Since taking over the drum chair, Wilbert has become one of the funkiest drummers in a city full of funky drummers.
Bassist Jack Cruz and tenor saxophonist Tom Fitzpatrick joined about 10 years ago, followed by trumpeter Larry Carter, trombonist Dave Woodard, and keyboardist Luca Fredericksen. Through financial hardship and personal tragedy, Walter has managed the herculean feat of keeping this band together, and the spiritual/musical bond they share yields a palpable energy infused in every performance.
Nearly 20 years of constant playing and touring have shaped the Roadmasters into a gleaming, well-oiled blues machine that blends the soul, gospel, and urban blues roots of its music into a smooth and soulful synthesis. Walter "Wolfman" Washington & the Roadmasters are now poised to take their place as one of the very best rhythm-and-blues bands working today.
- Kristy Adams
For more information: (http://www.walterwolfmanwashington.com).
Sonny Landreth, 8 p.m.
There is not a lot about Sonny's early years on his Web site, other than the fact that he was born in Canton, Mississippi, and moved to Lafayette, Louisiana, as a child. He now lives in Breaux Bridge, Louisiana.
What you really need to know is that Sonny has what is very difficult to achieve in the world of music in this day and age. And that is a style and a sound that are easily recognized as his own. Even though he gives you many song styles - rockabilly, zydeco, slow blues, rockfish blues, etc. - you still can tell who the artist is.
Sonny does this with his unique voice and unusual playing techniques. His extremely light touch with the slide allows him to fret above it, with the peg head producing a sound that is extremely hard to make. That coupled with his finger-picking, palming, and thumb-picking produce a sound that is all his own.
Sonny has seven releases, and they are all worth having in your collection. So please do yourself a favor and catch this unique performer on the bandshell stage.
- John Downard
For more information: (http://www.sonnylandreth.com).
Dirty Dozen Brass Band, 10 p.m.
The Dirty Dozen Brass Band, whose brass generally includes two trumpets, one trombone, and two saxes, first formed in New Orleans in 1975. For more than 30 years, the Dirty Dozen Brass Band has defined and redefined the New Orleans sound on sparkling, genre-busting albums; in thousands of concerts in all parts of the globe; and as in-demand collaborators for everyone from traditional revivalist Danny Baker to space-age rock star David Bowie.
In the course, the Dirty Dozen have bridged the traditions of brass bands, stretching back with the most modern of musical ideas taken from jazz and even classical formats. They've become the godfather to several younger generations that have made the scene more vibrant than ever with their own unique twists. And they took New Orleans music to places it had never before gone.
But it's not just how they New Orlean-ize outside material; it's what they do with the things that actually do come from there as well, such as transforming Jelly Roll Morton's "Freakish" into a harmonically stunning funk-brass workout or deepening the groove of The Meters' "Crissy Strut" or building an entire Fat Tuesday experience on stage with a live version of Professor Longhair's "Mardi Gras in New Orleans."
"Whether you experience the Dozen on stage or on the street, they are guys anyone would feel lucky to see in this lifetime," said John Bell of Widespread Panic. "The music that comes through as they perform resonates with feelings of familiarity, uniqueness, humor, and daring - all at once, all the time,"
- Kristy Adams
For more information: (http://www.dirtydozenbrass.com).
