Marcia Ball and The Jimmys at the Redstone Room -- July 12.
Saturday, July 12, 8 p.m.
The Redstone Room, 129 Main Street, Davenport IA
Appearing together in a special concert event co-presented by the Mississippi Valley Blues Society, Marcia Ball and The Jimmys enjoys July 12 sets at Davenport's Redstone Room, the latter having toured the U.S., Canada, Europe, and the Caribbean since 2010, and the former an award-winning talent who made her professional debut more than 50 years ago.
A native of Orange, Texas, Ball began her recording career as a solo artist with Rounder Records in the 1980s and early 1990s. In 2001, she joined the Chicago-based Alligator Records, and her Rounder album Sing It!, which featured vocalists Irma Thomas and Tracy Nelson, released in January 1998 and was nominated for a Grammy Award and a Blues Music Award for Best Contemporary Blues Album. Ball also received the 1998 Blues Music Award for Contemporary Female Vocalist of the Year and Best Blues Instrumentalist - Keyboards.]
She was awarded Contemporary Blues Album of the Year for her albums Presumed Innocent (2002) and So Many Rivers (2004), also winning Contemporary Blues Artist of the Year - Female in 2004. Ball won Best Blues Instrumentalist - Keyboards again in 2005, 2006, 2007, and 2009. The BMA for Keyboards has since been renamed the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player Award and Ball received the prize in 2012 and 2015. Her Alligator release So Many Rivers was nominated for a Grammy, as were Live! Down The Road (2005) and Peace, Love & BBQ (2008), and the musician was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame in 2018. Among additional accolades, Ball won the Pinetop Perkins Piano Player award at the Blues Music Awards ceremony in both 2015 and 2019, while in October of 2018, the artist was inducted into the Austin City Limits Hall of Fame, where she first appeared during their inaugural season in 1976.
With the group's lineup including Chris Sandoval on drums, John Wartenweiler on bass, Perry Weber on guitar, Pete Ross on saxophone, Chad Wittinghill on trumpet, and Joe Goltz on trombone, The Jimmys are led by Hammond Organ Artist Jimmy Voegeli, who received MAMAs (Madison Area Music Award) for Keyboardist of the Year in 2010, 2012, and 2015, as well as WAMI (Wisconsin Area Music Industry) Awards for Keyboardist of the Year in 2011 and 2015. Prior to forming The Jimmys, Voegeli played with the Westside Andy and Mel Ford Band (voted Best Blues Band in Wisconsin and Best Band in Madison numerous times) for 18 years, the group receiving a Grammy Award nomination for Contemporary Blues Album in 2003. That same year, Voegeli traveled to Europe with The Crashers in support of their album Love School, touring alongside Dan Baird and Homemade Sin. Over the years, the keyboardist has also been on stage with such greats as Pinetop Perkins, Rusty Zinn, Guitar Shorty, Joe Bonamassa, Perry Weber, Rev Raven, Billy Flynn, Tab Benoit, James Solberg, Shirley King, EC Scott, Clyde Stubblefield, Ben Sidran, Ken Saydak, and Dave Specter.
Since The Jimmys' 2011 album debut with Gimme the Jimmys, the band has released a quartet of additional recordings – 2013's Hadaya Do That Thing Live, 2015's Hot Dish, 2016's Live from Transylvania at Sighisoara Blues Festival, and 2019's Gotta Have It – and have consistently been beneficiaries of rave notices. In a four-star review of Hot Dish, Downbeat magazine wrote, "Wisconsin’s seven-piece club band, helmed by deft singer/keyboardist Jimmy Voegeli, makes a good case for international notice behind the rousing entertainment of their third record since forming in 2008. They run the stylistic gamut – jump blues, shuffles, boogies, golden-era R&B, even New Orleans traditional jazz – using an honest, crisp expressionism that pegs them as eclectics of a particularly interesting sort." And recording artist Tinsley Ellis effused of the album, "The Jimmys have mined pure R&B gold with Hot Dish. From the opening hit of the Ray Charles influenced 'Lose That Woman' to the sultry swagger of 'Freight Train, Hot Dish is a winner from top to bottom. Try to not dance when listening to 'Funk Schway.' It simply can't be done!"
Marcia Ball and The Jimmys play their co-headlining engagement at Davenport's Redstone Room on July 12, admission to the 8 p.m. concert is $25-30, and more information and tickets are available by calling (563)326-1333 and visiting CommonChordQC.org.
