Blues Beat: Live music scene comes alive
Domenic Forcella
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Orb MellonOrb Mellon / Contributed photo
The live music scene continues to grow its return. Check the venues as the weather will determine some shows.
Friday, Orb Mellon Brings his Trio To Jerry s Pizza and Barroom. The Trio Performs Original boogie and blues. Orb Mellon, the master picker, is backed by blues drummer Mark Hennessy and Dave Robbins on harp.
Orb Mellon mines the raw energy of 20th Century American roots music, particularly whiskey fueled house party delta blues. Influenced by the likes of Bukka White, Junior Kimbrough, and John Fahey, Orb Mellon performs pure, sonically aggressive, and ever transforming original folk blues, free from any quaintness or historicism, prompting one early reviewer to identify Orb Mellon’s work simply as blues in all its primeval glory. Mark your calendars for a nice hot pizza with a dash of blues.
Blues Beat: Celebrate 2021 with the Beehive Queen
Domenic Forcella
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Friday, mark your calendar and rock into 2021 Beehive fashion.Domenic Forcella / Contributed photo
This week’s column covers an array of activities in the blues world. Blues Beat is looking forward to the day when this column will be filled with blues entertainment from around the state.
Friday, mark your calendar and rock into 2021 Beehive fashion. Join Christine Ohlman & Rebel Montez (Cliff Goodwin, Lorne Entress, Michael Colbath) as they perform live and online from the Narrows Center for the Arts, Fall River, Mass., on YouTube. The show goes live at 8 p.m. at https://rb.gy/e6atrt More information at: https://rb.gy/yg58ji
Right after graduating high school, Robillard and his piano-playing buddy Al Copley founded Roomful of Blues, which turned their love of rhythm and blues into an internationally acclaimed “little big band” that toured the world. Robillard left Roomful in 1979, embarking on a solo career, which also included stints with The Legendary Blues Band, and the Fabulous Thunderbirds. Robillard’s solo work, with his trio the Pleasure Kings, tended more toward primal rock, but he also loves jazz, and has recorded and performed with such jazz stars as Scott Hamilton, Gerry Beaudoin, Herb Ellis and Jay Geils.
The album reflects all of Robillard’s musical strengths, from the rollicking, Roomful-like jaunt through Ike Turner’s “Do You Mean It?” to Dave Batholomew’s rompin’, stompin’ swinger “Ain’t Gonna Do It,” to the easy rolling ballad from Al King, “Everybody Ain’t Your Friend.”