Music feature: Quizzing some of this year’s Sarasota Blues Festival performers
October 19th, 2009 by Tim Sukits in Arts, Music, News, Nightlife, Sarasota-Manatee
Sarasota Blues Festival artist Bruce Katz
19th Annual Sarasota Blues Festival
w/ Little Feat/Duke Robillard/Larry McCray/Bruce Katz with Special Guest Floyd Miles/Allstars/“Mojo” Myles Band/Fogt’s Jr. Allstars, 11 a.m. Sat., Oct. 24, Ed Smith Stadium, 2700 12th St., Sarasota, sarasotabluesfest.com, $20 in advance, $25 the day of.
The 19th Annual Sarasota Blues Festival is just around the corner and it’s lining up to be a mojo-workin’ good time. The headliner this year is Little Feat, with frontman Paul Barrere and the boys bringing their mix of Dixieland funk-boogie, California rock, blues, country and jazz. Bruce Katz will be shredding the keyboards with special guest Floyd Miles, the legendary Daytona vocalist who taught Gregg Allman how to sing the blues.
And this year’s promising up-and-comer is “Mojo” Myles Mancuso, who turned 14 last week and will be making his first visit to Florida for the show. I talked with these blues junkies about how they fell in love with the style and what it means to them:
When did you first realize that you loved the blues?
Paul Barrere, Little Feat: “I was 12 years old and listening to Jimmy Reed. His music was instrumental in my choice of playing the guitar. From his music I reached out into the blues genre.”
Bruce Katz: “When I was around 10 years old I heard a Bessie Smith record and that got me hooked. I started to play boogie-woogie and blues piano in addition to my classical lessons.”
Floyd Miles: “I was about 14 or 15 and I heard my mother playing the radio and she would play Guitar Slim. It was that song, ‘The Things That I Used to Do.’ That’s when I got introduced to the blues.”
“Mojo” Myles Mancuso: “My first experience was when I saw Eric Clapton play on The Last Waltz with The Band. Once I saw that I was in love.”
Which blues artists have the biggest influence on your music?
Barrere: “John Lee Hooker was the main one at first. Then I found Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf and finally B.B. King and Albert King.”
Katz: “Ray Charles, Otis Spann, B.B. King, those are good ones, and James Booker.”
Miles: “B.B. King is one of my favorites, Buddy Guy too.”
Mancuso: “I love Albert Collins and Freddie King and a lot of the Allman Brothers stuff. I think Albert Collins, because of the funkiness of his grooves, he has the most effect on my songs.”
What is the blues to you?
Barrere: “It’s the roots of rock and roll and the basis for my earliest playing style. It was when I joined Little Feat that I really expanded my playing style to encompass jazz, country and pop.”
Katz: “Complicated question! This is a cliché, but it is a stripped-down truth, musically and lyrically. It’s also a great way to feel good, by releasing demons, troubles, whatever is inside of you and needs to come out.”
Miles: “The blues to me is really feeling. It’s a way of life. It’s an emotional thing. It’s a stress reliever, something that I can release through my heart and mind.”
Mancuso: “I think the blues is not only a style of music, it’s been a way of life for a lot of people in the past. It’s a feeling. It comes out in the style of music that you play.”
Photo courtesy brucekatzband.com
October 19th, 2009 at 11:26 am
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