I had a great music weekend. Last Saturday night, I went to see Souled Out Show Band at Whipppersnappers in Londonderry.Souled Out had their usual batch of horn songs that went over well.
The owner of Whipps/leader of Souled Out, Mark Belanger was hosting his high school graduating class alumni party. He had musicians from his old high school joining him in a band callled Boys Of Salem Classic Rock Revival. This guest line-up performed songs by Thin Lizzy, Styx, and Rush, and they played them fairly well.
I left at 11:00 p.m. to check out Linda’s Sports Bar in Hudson and ran into a band called 24/7. The guitarist, Gerry Stafford, is actually a blues player who also works in a duo called Max Ex. The girl singer and the girl drummer of 24/7 were also the same singer and drummer from the all-girl hard rock band Jaded. 24/7 dashed off some Ozzy, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and The Who classic Pinball Wizard.
Sunday afternoon I headed over to the Village Trestle in Goffstown, NH to attend the Wantu Blues Jam and to support their latest of many benefits. There was a huge turn out at the Trestle as the cause was homeless veterans. The usual players, Mark St Laurent, Dave Guilmette, Wally Nichols, and Jerry Ray Basnar were in good form yesterday. Maybe the cause and the huge turnout inspired them. It was also Jerry Ray’s birthday, and everyone was buying him a drink. I hope his girlfriend drove them home after the jam.
Later, I went down into Boston to check out a blues jam at the Beehive on Boyalston Street. There was a spiffy R&B band and the band included trumpet player John “Blue Horn” Moriconi, and singer Diane Blue was a guest singer.
The house band performed Me And Mrs. Jones, Superstition, and September with the exuberance expected of such an elaborate horn band. Everything was great at The Beehive, just as many Bostonians told me it would be.
The band I saw at the Beehive is called “This Is Soul” – a project that is led by Brad Faucher on guitar, with some of the finest veterans in the biz. Many of them backed the Soul singers who rolled through Boston on their tours in the 60’s and 70s, Roscoe Hamer on drums, Lee Lundy on bass, Lewis West on guitar. Hakeem Law was filling in on keys. Each of these guys has a very interesting musical history. The horns, as you mentioned, Johnny Blue Horn Moriconi and Bruce “The Goose” McGrath. They have a “featured artist” singing each Sunday. Yesterday it was Kenny Williams from Providence.
That is all I have to report to you gentle readers for this week. Hopefully, I will have at least one new Feature article up this week.
