Tag: sister rosetta tharpe

BGS 5+5: Dharmasoul

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Dharmasoul (Jonah Tolchin & Kevin Clifford)
Hometown: Princeton, NJ
Latest Album: Lightning Kid 
Rejected Band Names: Dankasaurus

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Kevin: My favorite memory from being onstage is a tie between playing New Orleans Jazz Fest with the Loyola Jazz Band in 2012 and when an entire audience sang happy birthday to my mom at a show in New Orleans.

Jonah: One of my favorite memories of being on stage was on a tour with Chuck Prophet in Europe a few years ago. We were playing a small festival in Belgrade, Serbia. I was playing a song that’s on our new record solo acoustic (“Addiction”), and the audience was more enthusiastic than I had ever experienced in a room of strangers. It was moving to me to feel that kind of love in a foreign land.

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

Kevin: Since you can fail at what you don’t love to do, you might as well try doing what you love to. If I can’t dance to my own groove, no one is going to be dancing. Serve the music!

Jonah: I resonate with the concept of the Bodhisattva. It is my intention to bring this principle of serving my community and all people and life everywhere so that we — myself included — can wake up from forgetfulness and create a better world for all life forms generations to come. I think music has the power to do that.

If you could spend 10 minutes with John Lennon, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Joni Mitchell, Sister Rosetta, or Merle Haggard how would it go?

Kevin: I would try desperately to record a jam session with Sister Rosetta.

Jonah: Definitely John Lennon. I’d like to write a song with him … or maybe play a game. Like ping pong.

Since food and music go so well together, what would be your dream pairing of a meal and a musician?

Kevin: Fried oyster and shrimp po-boy with a hurricane and the Soul Rebels Brass Band

Jonah: I’m gonna go with something I’m looking forward to, which is being at Jazz Fest in NOLA next month eating gumbo and watching three of the most badass women known to music all on the same day — Aretha Franklin, Bonnie Raitt, and Lucinda Williams.

What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?

Kevin: It had to have been when I saw School of Rock and became obsessed with all the music from that movie. Also, when my Uncle Bill in Chicago gave me my first drum lesson and taught me some Joe Morello licks and a 4/4 Beatles rock beat.

Jonah: I’m honestly not quite sure. As soon as I started playing, at around 13, I don’t think there were any other options for me. Two years later, when I was 15, I met Ronnie Earl at a music store, and he invited me to play on stage with him at the Tupelo Music Hall in New Hampshire. That was a big, reinforcing moment. I didn’t take the SAT in high school because I knew this was my path … I’ve been doing it ever since.

BGS 5+5: The California Honeydrops

Posted on by Amy Reitnouer

Artist: Lech Wierzynski (of the California Honeydrops)
Hometown: Oakland, CA
Latest Album: Call It Home: Vol. 1 & 2
Personal Nickname: The Polish Honeydrop

If you had to write a mission statement for your career, what would it be?

My mission for my career is to spread joy, dancing, and healing through the power of live, non-programmed music, and to inspire more people to take that power into their own hands. We live in a society where people often rely on superstars, light shows, and drugs to feel something. I hope to show people that we don’t need a light show, DJ, or pre-programmed beats, or a God-like celebrity for an amazing musical experience. Real magic can happen with a few friends, with voices to sing, hands and feet to keep the beat, and willingness to take a chance.

How do other art forms — literature, film, dance, painting, etc — inform your music?

Reading lots of poetry has taught me to search for the smallest number of words to express an emotion or tell a story. Comedy has shown me life is easier and better when you can laugh about it. It’s especially important for me to laugh about things I want take too seriously. That’s the reason I like writing and singing silly songs about relationships and sex (our covers of “Stand Up In It” by Theodis Ealey and “Sit Down On It” by Marvin Sease are fan favorites). I also love watching all forms of dance, from old Nicholas Brothers tap dance videos to turfing or second lining. Sometimes I write songs by just dancing to an imaginary beat alone in my house.

Which elements of nature do you spend the most time with and how do those impact your work?

I get a lot of inspiration from oceans and mountains, as well as tiny things like mushrooms, mosses, lichens, and flowers. I love listening to the ocean and picking out all the sounds from the deep rumbles to the sound of the sand breathing, after a wave recedes. The scale of time and space you enter when you tune into the natural world can really give some good perspective on life. The entire history of humanity is a very small piece of a much bigger picture.

If you could spend 10 minutes with John Lennon, Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, Joni Mitchell, Sister Rosetta, or Merle Haggard how would it go?

Only 10 minutes with Sister Rosetta Tharpe? That’s it? Well, I’d have to thank her, first, for being such an awesome inspiration in my life. I started the Honeydrops right after two years of nightly Sister Rosetta YouTube binges. I’d have to bring her some presents — maybe some Polish dessert and a drink, like blueberry pierogi with whipped cream and some brandy. But I wouldn’t waste too much time talking or eating. I‘d get straight to playing music — “Up Above My Head,” “Journey to the Sky,” “This Train,” “Precious Lord.” I’d do my best singing the Marie Knight harmonies with her.

What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?

Last summer, at an electronic music festival, we were closing our set with the Rebirth Brass Band classic “Do Whatcha Wanna.” I was encouraging everyone to come out of their shells and try some new dance moves for the last song. Some crazy dude danced across the front of the stage and, while he was up there, I saw some young ladies in the front row looking at each other like, “Hey, we can dance way better than that fool. Let’s go!” Before I could blink, there were about 100 women onstage dancing with the band. We were on a small side stage, and there was no security, but we didn’t need any. Everybody was cool. Probably the best party at the fest.

LISTEN: Eagle Rock Gospel Singers, ‘No Apologies’

Posted on by Editor

Sure, gospel isn't the first genre that comes to mind when anyone thinks of Los Angeles, but the Eagle Rock Gospel Singers hope to shift that thinking … even just a little. On their upcoming album, Heavenly Fire, the group lets front woman Kim Garcia spread her wings and share their message. And it's a message being heard at festivals around the country, including Austin City Limits, High Sierra, and Pygmalion.

Will Wadsworth and Jeremy Horton started the Gospel Singers five years ago as a way to help Wadsworth through a tough time. Those who gathered worked through songs by Mahalia Jackson, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, and others. But one of the biggest influences came from the Staple Singers — Mavis Staples, in particular.

“Obviously, the Staple Singers are a huge influence,” Garcia says. “When I write something, I try to think about what Mavis would sing, and go from there."

Regarding her inspiration for “No Apologies,” she adds, "Violence is an ever-present evil that surrounds us on daily basis. The band may not even know this, but I wrote this song in response to what I was seeing in the news — Ferguson, Charleston — in my Facebook feed, in my Twitter feed, etc. Violence should not be a trending topic, and yet it is. This song is a reminder that we're all on the same side, and that we're all hurting and in need of some kind of help — whether we're asking for it or not.”

Heavenly Fire drops on August 4 via Ba Da Bing Records.

Photo by Emilie Elizabeth.