Scene and Heard

Lady Guitar Slingers Rock Louisville

Posted in Entertainment by sceneandheardblog on March 2, 2011

Kelly Richey Jams at Moms Music

Ana Popovic plays Stevie Rays Blues Bar

Two of the top female guitarists  of the top female guitarist in the business performed on back to back days in Louisville.

On Saturday,Mom’s Music hosted Kelly Richey for a workshop followed by a Jam session with Jimi V and Marvin Maxwell. Richey’s talent on guitar and vocals has made her a long time favorite in the Midwest. Often described as ” Stevie Ray Vaughn trapped in a woman’s body with Janis Joplin screaming to get out”, played an amazing guitar filled set back by the best band the city has to offer. She is scheduled to return to Stevie Rays Blues Bar, July 8 and 9 and several more times this year. You don’t want to miss these shows!

Sunday evening , Stevie Rays Blues Bar featured Serbian born,the 2006 WC Handy Award nominee, Ana Popovic. I was told Ana was ill  and I wondered how her performance would be affected.  All concerns ended when Ana took the stage and started into” My Man”. Her blistering guitar captured the audience and didn’t let them go until the first set was complete.She mentioned her illness stating,”My voice is a little rough tonight so I may have to play more guitar”. That didn’t seem to bother the audience who cheered at her comment.

On a night where Ana was clearly not feeling her best, you would never know it from her performance. I stayed till the end on a late Sunday evening, something I didn’t plan on doing. The show was just too good to leave.

The President of Kentuckiana Blues News, Gary Sampson said to me during the show’” This is the best show I have seen all year, if your a blues fan and you missed this show. You really screwed up!”

As I was saying goodbye to Ana, a fan walked up and said to her” I paid twelve dollars to see the show, I really feel I need to go back and pay them twelve dollars more!”

Ana Popovic, a Serbian born female is probably the farthest person who you would ever expect to play amazing blues. I left there thinking of what a love she must have for the blues to have made it this far. I am positive if she were a male she would already be recognized with the young greats like Bonamassa and Trucks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ana Popovic plays Stevie Rays Blues Bar

Ana Popovic plays Stevie Rays Blues Bar

Jimi V and Kelly Richey jam at Mom's Music

 

Kelly Richey at Moms Music

Jimi V at Moms Music

Marvin Maxwell at Moms Music

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Headliners Music Hall presents Robert Randolph & The Family Band

Posted in Entertainment by sceneandheardblog on March 2, 2011
Robert Randolph & The Family Band
robert randolph we walk this road.jpg
Thursday, May 12th at 9pm
Doors 8pm
$20
18 and over

Tickets available at www.headlinerslouisville.com,
ear X-tacy and www.etix.com
On sale 3/2 @ 10am

Robert Randolph ~ We Walk This Road Artist Notes
This record is a celebration of African-American music over the past one hundred years and its social messages from the last thirty. Although we cover a
whole timeline of different eras on We Walk This Road, what ties these songs together remain their message of hope, their ability to uplift.
After we finished our last record, Colorblind, we began searching for a great producer to help guide the follow up. We wanted someone who understood me
and the road I’ve walked this far, who understood our connections of my roots within rock and gospel and the church, who would help us put those things in their most compelling context.
T Bone Burnett shared the vision of how gospel, blues and rock could be put together in a way that could relate to my history and connect to my present. It
was important to us that we make the record we wanted to make, even if the end result was unclassifiable. We just focused on making great songs and great
music that spoke to me, and that reflected the way I try to speak to the world. We went into the studio with virtual libraries of songs, whole volumes worth of material to go
through. T Bone brought in old archival songs from the twenties and thirties and many of them were in the public domain. I had songs that I had written
with the band, or that other artists had sent me, and we sat down and starting sifting through history.
When we found something we liked, we would either cover it or re-work it using our own words or melodies. Through this creation came an education. T
Bone opened a lot of doors for me serving as a link between the past and the present. He knows how to take something from the past and bring it into the
present while still allowing the artist to make it his own, in the same way that Hendrix took Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” and made it belong to him.
T Bone listens to music that our grandmothers would listen to as children–not even music that our fathers listened to, but songs that go even further
back…some from Gospel and Christian blues, the music that people working in fields across the south likely sang nearly a century ago. Those are the real roots
of rock and roll, where everything else comes from.
We connected the last one hundred years of African-American music in the way people used to: You write your own songs, you cover other people’s
material, you re-work older songs. We had some amazing people come in to help. Leon Russell came by to hang out and wound up playing piano on the last
track, “Salvation.” Ben Harper plays guitar and sings on “If I Had My Way.” The base of that song came from Blind Willie Johnson, and it was really
difficult to get right. It was a country tune for a while. I had honestly given up on it. But Ben came down and said, “Let me get in there! I know just what to
do!” He went in there and smoked the choruses, and I thought, “Now we’ve got a tune.” It’s one of my favorite songs on the record.
.We Walk This Road was done in our belief in what we all need right now: young voices saying something positive without preaching in hopes of inspiring
people. When you stick to what you believe in, and with the roots of where you come from, things will always work out.

http://www.robertrandolph.net/

 

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LOVERBOY KEEPS “WORK ING FOR THE WEEKEND” 30 YEARS LATER

Posted in Entertainment by sceneandheardblog on March 2, 2011

 

LOS ANGELES, March 1, 2011—For 30 years, Loverboy has been “Working for the Weekend,” delighting audiences around the world since forming in Calgary, Alberta, when vocalist Mike Reno was introduced to local guitar hot shot Paul Dean, both veterans of several bands on the scene. And now they’re back, having reunited with their original engineer, legendary producer Bob Rock [Metallica, Aerosmith, The Cure, Bon Jovi], who worked under Bruce Fairbairn at the time. The band recorded two new songs with Rock, “Heartbreaker” and “No Tomorrow,” which could to be a prelude for a new album.

 

“He phoned Mike and me out of the blue and told us he had a song that might work for us that he’d love to produce,” says Dean. “He sent it over and we just flipped out. It’s a great, kick-ass Loverboy song.

 

“It was just fantastic to be on the same page with everybody else in the band again. We had been through several false starts recording-wise over the years. Mike was really inspired this time. It was a great experience. I think these tracks are some of the best work we’ve ever done.”

 

Not just Canada’s greatest rock export, Loverboy made its mark south of the border, with four multi-platinum albums including the four-million-selling Get Lucky, and a trio of double-platinum releases in their self-titled 1980 debut, 1983’s Keep It Up and 1985’s Lovin’ Every Minute of It. Their string of hits includes, in addition to the anthem “Working for the Weekend,” such arena rock staples as “Lovin’ Every Minute of It,” “This Could Be the Night,” “Hot Girls in Love,” “Heaven In Your Eyes,” “Turn Me Loose,” “When It’s Over,” “Heaven In Your Eyes” and “Queen of the Broken Hearts.”

Their pop culture credibility was cemented by a recent 30 Rock episode in which Scott Adsit’s amateur musician Pete Hornberger revealed he was actually Loverboy’s original bassist, showing him inserted into vintage ‘80s footage of the band wailing away on “Working for the Weekend,” which you can see at http://www.hulu.com/watch/217096/30-rock-its-never-too-late-for-now.

 

The group still includes original members Doug Johnson on keyboards and Matt Frenette on drums, with Ken “Spider” Sinnaeve (a former member of Dean and Frenette’s pre-Loverboy band Streetheart), who replaced the late Scott Smith on bass, and continues a healthy touring schedule around the world.

 

“I look at our concerts as a 100-minute experience,” says Dean, who still claims to be able to fit into the same pair of red leather pants he wore on the “Queen of the Broken Hearts” video in 1983. “I’m a normal guy up until 10 minutes before we hit the stage. Then the heart rate goes up and I consciously step into the bubble. And I don’t come out of it until 30 seconds after that last cymbal smash and I walk off-stage. It’s a great stress release, better than riding a Harley.”

 

Perhaps the band’s most famous song is “Working for the Weekend,” which has fueled a generation’s dreams of toiling every day for the chance to celebrate come Friday night. Dean realizes it has taken on a whole new meaning these days.

 

“You’re lucky if you can work for the weekend now,” he says. “We’re all fortunate to be doing that.”

 

With four decades under his belt, Dean sees no end in sight for Loverboy… or himself.

 

“My dream has always been to play guitar and entertain people,” he enthuses. “There’s no feeling like looking out in the audience and seeing them grinning ear to ear, everyone on the same wavelength. And once we start with the megahits, the place goes crazy. That’s why we do what we do and will continue.”

 

Still “Working for the Weekend” 30 years later, Loverboy’s catalog includes some of arena-rock’s most enduring anthems, and they are about to add to that legacy.

 

For a list of upcoming tour dates, please visit http://loverboyband.com/home.html

 

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