18 Jun 2009

Very Outside -- Roy Rogers: Thursday, 11 p.m., Bandshell Stage

By Jeff Ignatius

Roy RogersSinger, songwriter, and slide-guitarist Roy Rogers is not a blues purist. He could write a song in the style of Robert Johnson - the reason he became a blues player in the first place - but what would be the point of that?

"I'm just trying to stretch it," he said in a recent phone interview.

So on his new recording Split Decision - his first studio album with his Delta Rhythm Kings trio in seven years - there's the instrumental "Your Sweet Embrace," with a flamenco section by Ottmar Liebert, and "Rite of Passage" has a warm, funky jazz groove before taking a guitar-solo detour into the blues. "Bitter Rain" deals with Hurricane Katrina and has what Rogers called "almost kind of a tempest riff," and closing instrumental "Walkin' the Levee" features sax and a guitar tone simultaneously fuzzy and razor sharp. "River of Tears" is an irresistibly upbeat pop number despite its theme of sadness.

18 Jun 2009

All Over the Place -- Radoslav Lorković: Thursday, 5 p.m., Tent Stage

By Jeff Ignatius

Radoslav LorkovićOn any number of subjects, pianist, accordionist, and organist Radoslav Lorković will preface his response with something along the lines of: "That's a funny story."

When asked about his appearance in the 2009 Naked Folk Calendar, for example, he said that the photo was taken at the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival in 100-degree heat. Lorković was playing the accordion and (of course) naked, and a man roughly 90 years old approached the group and said, "You know, I got some stories about Woody Guthrie," the musician recalled. "He looks at me completely ... unfazed, and keeps on telling this story about Woody Guthrie."

17 Jun 2009

The Lady James Brown -- Sugar Pie DeSanto: Friday, July 3, 9:30 p.m., Tent Stage

By Karen McFarland

Sugar Pie DeSantoJames Brown was known as the Godfather of Soul, but his other nickname was "the hardest-working man in show business." Sugar Pie DeSanto is known as the female James Brown because of the way she works a stage, even at 73.

"What an honor, you know, to be the lady James Brown," Sugar Pie said in a recent phone interview. "Because I was cuttin' up and I still cut up - if you know what I mean. I was getting down, all right? And with God's help I will still be getting down 'til I don't want to sing anymore. Wait 'til I'm 85 and they push me on-stage in a wheelchair - 'And here she is!' - and I bet I'll be mastering that wheelchair, having it spinning and everything!"

17 Jun 2009

The Free Spirit -- Dee Alexander: Friday, July 3, 7:30 p.m., Tent Stage

By Emily Heninger

Dee AlexanderIntroduced to jazz at an early age by her mother, singer/songwriter Dee Alexander grew up with "the classics." In a recent interview, Alexander said, "I used to ask [my mother], especially when she would play Billie Holiday, 'Wow, she sounds so sad... . What's wrong with her, and why is she whining about her man?'"

17 Jun 2009

Self-Taught and Sassy -- Fiona Boyes: Friday, July 3, 5:30 p.m., Tent Stage

By Emily Heninger

Fiona BoyesBlues guitarist, singer, and songwriter Fiona Boyes hasn't always been a blues musician. In our recent interview, Boyes laughed as she remembered her early musical experiences with a different instrument: the clarinet. "It was kind of ... a nerdy instrument," she said. "Maybe if I'd been given a bit of New Orleans jazz or something, I would've stuck with that instrument."

17 Jun 2009

Treating Herself Right -- Robin Rogers: Saturday, July 4, 4 p.m., Bandshell Stage

By Mike Schulz

Robin RogersBlues singer/songwriter Robin Rogers has been performing professionally for the better part of 30 years and remembers where it was that she first felt the excitement of a live audience: on her elementary-school stage, in the early 1960s, performing an a cappella rendition of "What Child Is This?" for the students' Christmas pageant.

"It really had an effect on me when I heard everyone applaud," says Rogers, with a laugh, during a recent phone interview. "I thought, 'This is kinda cool.'"

17 Jun 2009

Silence Is Golden: Tiny Vipers, June 19 at Huckleberry's

By Jeff Ignatius

Jesy FortinoWhen Jesy Fortino talks about her experiences with touring -- particularly opening for rock bands -- she sounds self-pitying and ungrateful. Most musicians would kill for her situation.

"The hype around here was pretty cool in Seattle," Fortino said in a phone interview last week. "I just went from starting to play to getting signed to Sub Pop. It was really quick. I hadn't gone through the trial and error of being an unsigned musician."

As Tiny Vipers, she released Hands Across the Void in 2007, and Pitchfork called it "as sobering as folk music gets: patient, resonant, and, perhaps most importantly, curious."

mp3 Tiny Vipers - "Dreamer"

But despite the buzz and early acclaim, touring was torturous. "Nobody [in the crowd] gave a shit," she said. "They're there to see the band that's after me." When she opened for Minus the Bear (again, most emerging artists would be more than envious), "the audiences would mostly just chant 'Minus the Bear' while I was playing. When it first happened, I was totally devastated. I really internalized it. ...

"I got really lame and kind of selfish in my own negativity," she continued.

16 Jun 2009

She Is Experienced: Joanne Shaw Taylor, June 18 at Creekside Bar & Grill

By Jeff Ignatius

Joanne Shaw TaylorThe striking thing initially about Joanne Shaw Taylor's debut record, White Sugar, is a voice that has the soul and wisdom that only experience can provide. Decades of experience.

With an introduction like that, it's not surprising that she's only 23, but even though she lacks the requisite years, she has a startling maturity. Despite the quadruple-novelty appeal of being a (1) young, (2) British, (3) white, and (4) female blues guitarist and singer, Taylor has taken her time getting to this point.

12 Jun 2009

Photos from the Kenny Chesney Concert, June 11 at the i wireless Center

By Chris Jones

Images by photographer Chris Jones from Thursday's Kenny Chesney show at the i wireless Center. Click on any photo for a larger version.

04 Jun 2009

Muscle and Meat: The Meat Puppets, June 24 at RIBCO

By Jeff Ignatius

Meat Puppets

The Meat Puppets have a name that all self-respecting rock fans recognize - even if many have only heard Kurt Cobain sing the band's songs - and a hell of a history.

But singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Curt Kirkwood didn't want a big comeback record or tour when he reunited with his bassist brother Cris.

"Let's just pretend like we're a brand-new band - just forget about it all," he said in a phone interview last week to promote the band's June 24 Daytrotter.com show at RIBCO. "I don't have to meet anybody's expectations. ...

"Can we just do this on a real level - make records and not be an anachronism or a re-formation, a tribute to the '80s or '90s or whatever?"

Kirkwood, who turned 50 this year, isn't dumb, though, and recognizes that the ideal is unattainable. The most important thing, he said, is to make progress, to not merely exploit the past: "There is the anachronism involved, there is a heritage, there is a history in all this stuff. And yet, you move it on. ... It's on you to not rest on your laurels."

You expect similar pronouncements from any long-running band, and you'd be smart to be skeptical. But the closer you look at the Meat Puppets' history, the more weight Kirkwood's words carry.

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