Concert Review: Matt Schofield

Background

I’ve heard a few clips of Matt Schofield on Youtube, and I’ve enjoyed the bits I’ve heard. He came to Judson’s Live last year but I wasn’t able to make it. When I saw he was coming back, I jumped on it. Judson’s is fantastic for this type of intimate show. Comfortable seats, great sound and the 7:00pm start time got me home at a decent hour… which is important these days. Judson’s Live is a small room attached to the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center. It holds maybe 200 people, in tables of four with comfortable seats and a nice menu. Tickets were in the $50 range. This is the same place I saw Sue Foley, and this was a similar setup – two separately ticketed shows: 7pm and 9pm.

The Sound and the Set

Matt and his trio ripped through an hour and fifteen minutes of some of the best guitar-driven electric blues you’ll hear. I wasn’t familiar with his catalog, but with a this type of band you generally know what you’re going to get.

First and foremost, his playing was incredible. If you’re going to sustain a touring career as a blues guitar player, you’d better be the best of the best. There’s just too much history and too much competition to not be great. Matt Schofield certainly is. Tone, touch, dynamics… it’s all there. You can hear the SRV influence, but also funk, fusion and rock and roll. He played two strats through a Two-Rock amp the entire night and only sparingly used pedals. His tone was a beautiful joy to listen to. Learn more about his gear here. The bass was fat and room-filling, with heavy low-end, but got funky when needed. The band sounded great overall, alhtough I would liked to have heard a bit more of the vocals in the mix. Since I was unfamiliar with the songs, being able to hear the lyrics more clearly would have helped.

The set was a nice mix of up and down, fast and slow, and the set went by quickly leaving us all wanting more. This isn’t always the case with guitar solo-heavy groups. Part of the appeal was the absolutely locked in rhythm section. They were feeling it. About halfway through the set, a man at the table next to me mentioned how tight they were. Really outstanding. D-Go on bass in particular hit hard. Great feel, impeccable timing, and dynamic.

He played a lot of songs from his latest album “Many Moons, Vol. 1” and the standout songs for me were the slow blues “Measure of a Man” and the New Orleans groove-based “Shoe On The Other Foot.”

Matt had Christine Tambakis come out and sing two songs near the end of the night, and she was fantastic. Another highlight of the entire evening was her version of Aretha Franklin’s “Dr. Feelgood.” The band delivered the song with taste, feel and power and wow, could she sing! That was another highlight of the night.

Conclusion

I want to keep this concert review fairly short in order to get it out there in a timely manner. If you enjoy guitar-driven, electric blues, go see Matt Schofield. He’s an outstanding player supported by an incredible rhythm section. Christine Tambakis was a nice surprise and added a lot.

Album Revisited: Voodoo Lounge

I picked this album up at the local library store for $1. Even though this one wasn’t on my radar when it came out in ’94, I figured every Stones album has to have at least a couple good tracks so for a buck, why not? It was worth it, and a nice surprise!

The standout tracks for me are the rockers Love Is Strong,” “Sparks Will Fly,” “I Go Wild” and “Moon Is Up” as well as the ballads “Sweethearts Together,” “Blinded By Rainbows” and “The Worst.” The bass-driven “Suck on the Jugular” has a triple-thick groove and that magic where the Stones are able to do something totally different, but still sound like themselves. “Mean Disposition” showcases Stones-style country, with its rolling piano and walking bass. Overall it’s a nice mix of up and down, and a lot of variety. They add some sonic embellishments like accordion, horns and violin in just the right places to make it a bit more interesting.

On the down side, one of the bigger singles from the album “You Got Me Rocking” sounds a bit too much like “Start Me Up Part 2.” It’s not a bad song, maybe just a bit too familiar. The only real clunker is “Brand New Car,” with it’s silly lyrics “I got a brand new car, gonna drive it real hard.” Otherwise the material is solid.

Produced by Don Was and the Glitter Twins, and primarily mixed by Don Smith (with legendary Bob Clearmountain mixing the song “Moon Is Up.’ The record sounds great, and the drums in particular sound fantastic. There’s color to this record, but it still sounds like the Stones rocking and rolling. It’s not raw the way Blue and Lonesome is, but it has a very polished sound. The rock songs don’t have that “edge of your seat” quality of a song like Street Fighting Man or Tumbling Dice. To be fair, the Stones were in or approaching their 50s by this point so you can’t expect them (and I wouldn’t want them) to do the exact same things they were doing in their 20s and 30s. The clear production does let the quality of the performances and songs come through clearly.

In short, I’m glad I picked this up. It’s a really strong album with a few great songs and a lot of good ones. I’ve listened a few times through and it’s getting better with each listen. It’s amazing to me that a band can put out this quality of album 30 years after their start, and is still putting out great albums 30 years after that (check out Hackney Diamonds and Foreign Tongues). If you overlooked this one, too, give it a shot!

Concert Review: Danielle Nicole

Background

It will be evidence of real justice in the world when Danielle Nicole (and artists like her) get rich and famous. She’s an award-winning singer and bassist, formerly of the brother/brother/sister blues band Trampled Under Foot, but now leading a killer blues/soul trio. Danielle and her band were absolutely cooking The Alley in Sanford, FL last night. The place was near-packed, and the crowd was into it. The Orange Blossom Blues Society showed up in full force, along with a lot of couples getting their groove on.

The Concert

As they progressed through a night of blues, funk and soul, the grooves were deep and tight and her voice commanded attention. Imagine Aretha Franklin playing bass like James Jamerson. Danielle’s voice is pure soul, wielded with power and showering emotion on the audience. Her bass playing was super tight, and propelled each song with triple-thick grooves. Guitarist Brandon Miller added shades of Lynyrd Skynyrd and The Allman Brothers and played both perfect-for-the-song rhythm parts and soaring, bluesy lead. It’s a great pairing with the soulful foundation of Danielle and drummer Go-Go Ray. He added a little edge and rock energy.

One of highlights of the night for me was at the end of her song Pusher Man. She did an incredible soul vocal solo that compelled an entire room full of partying people to stop dead in their tracks and just listen. It was that powerful. Even though I’m not familiar enough with her catalog to do a song-by-song run down, I did have the thought at one point midway through the night that “each song is better than the last.” It didn’t matter what the names of the songs were, the riffs were cool, the vocals incredible, and the groove was a force of nature.

Near the end of the set the opening act, one man band extraordinaire, Brody Buster, joined in for menacing harp on Zeppelin’s version of “When The Levee Breaks.” Go-Go Ray began the iconic beat, and Brandon Miller’s added the thick slide. Brody wailed and Danielle delivered a powerful vocal performance. It’s not easy to pull off such an iconic song, but they brought it.

Conclusion

If you like Motown, soul and blues you need to check out the Danielle Nicole Band live. I’ve watched a few clips on youtube and they just don’t do it justice. The energy live is incredible. She and her band absolutely brought it, and it was one of the best shows I’ve seen in a while.

Album Review: Chasing the Hydra

Crimson Glory isn’t a band I listened to in their heyday. I stumbled onto them last year while watching an episode of Headbanger’s Ball on Youtube. Their one hit “Lonely” came on and I thought “what a cool band, I like this.” I checked out more of their catalog and really liked what I heard! When I noticed they had a new album coming out, I had to jump on that. I preordered… and promptly forgot, until Amazon delivered a surprise CD on my doorstep.

The album kicks off with Redden the Sun, an aggressive and galloping slab of metal that explores the fate of humanity in the face of cosmic destruction. The intricate arrangement and harmonized guitar parts are trademark Crimson Glory, but the vocal delivery and overall tone of the record has a decidedly modern type of menace. Title track Chasing the Hydra features hyper-speed guitars and soaring vocals by singer Travis Willis. Broken Together starts quietly but builds to a climbing, dual guitar attack. Atmospheric wind and Arabic melodies introduce Indelible Ashes, one of my favorite songs on the album. The lyrics are strong and the riffs are relentless. Angel in my Nightmare offers a brief acoustic respite to the sonic onslaught, but it quickly builds to an almost djent-like crushing rhythm. The album wraps up with bass-heavy Triskaideka that explores fears of all kinds with great lyrics and precise and intricate guitars. The production and mix are modern and clear, so every instrument sounds great. On the other hand, I did find it a bit fatiguing to listen to for extended periods – that’s partially the modern production, but partially the sheer density of the material. It’s an aggressive and unrelenting record, with each song having more to discover with repeated listening. If you’re looking for metal with a bit more going on musically, while retaining a classic approach to the songs and performance, chase this hydra. B-

From BraveWords Records:

BraveWords Records is excited to announce the new Crimson Glory album “Chasing The Hydra”, the first new album from Crimson Glory in 26 years. The album will be released worldwide on all digital services, CD and vinyl on April 17th. Alongside mainstay founding members Ben, Jeff and Dana, the band announced in 2023 the addition of amazing new vocalist Travis Wills and guitarist Mark Borgmeyer. The band have been touring heavily over the past year… making this album one of the most anticipated releases of 2026 within the Heavy Metal Scene!

Book Review: Heartbreaker (Mike Campbell Memoir)

While I do like Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, I can’t say I’m a super fan. They’re the kind of band I don’t go and seek out, but don’t turn off when I hear them. Neither did I know much about Mike Campbell, other than the occasional guitar magazine review. Reviews of his memoir have been outstanding though, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I thought it would be an interesting story, and it sure was. The book is engaging and well-written.

Early On

The first the first third of the book goes into his early childhood, which is an interesting look into growing up in Jacksonville at that time. It’s always fun to learn how these kinds of players got their first guitars, and gave a lot of insight into Mike Campbell’s personality and how those threads come through the entire book. Once he goes to the University of Florida in Gainesville and has experience playing in local bands there the book really takes off, and I love hearing about the story of Mudcrutch and how they ground it out on the on the bar circuit was a lot of fun to read. It was really interesting to hear how much Mike attached himself to Tom Petty’s success, and how much he believed in and supported Tom in achieving those dreams. The respect he has for this brother in arms comes through page after page. This theme of respect and effusive praise is a constant. Mike loved the people he played with, and does not hesitate to call them out for their impact on him and contributions to the music.

Early Heartbreakers

The book is so full of humor. I loved the story he told about how, when they were on an early tour in Europe, someone told him that it’s a rock and roll band, and he needed to be more rock and roll and not just stand there and play. He lifted his guitar up and over his head, poked a hole in the ceiling, and a rat fell down on the floor of the stage! Truly a real-life Spinal Tap moment.

The stories of their studio time making Damn the Torpedoes was incredible. I’m surprised the band made it though that period, especially Stan the drummer, who was fired and rehired repeatedly during the process.

I didn’t realize the Heartbreakers were Bob Dylan’s band for a period in the 80s, and the book gave me a whole new level of respect for Dylan. Mike Campbell goes into detail, but it’s inspired me to dig deeper into the Bob Dylan catalog.

Hitting the Big Time

I didn’t realize how much writing Mike Campbell did. He was always writing. Mostly for Tom Petty of course, but there’s a great story about how just as he and his wife were in danger of losing their house, he was connected with Don Henley and brought the song that became “Boys of Summer.” That song saved him financially. Then other circumstances led the Heartbreakers to be Bob Dylan’s band for the Empire Burlesque album and 1986 tours. Mike goes into detail about Dylan, and I found a new level of respect for him as an artist and guitarist. Obviously one of the great lyricists and songwriters of all time, I don’t know that I appreciated how versatile Bob Dylan actually was. It’s a great part of the bookk. There another awesome story about Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever album, put together with Jeff Lyne. When they submitted it complete to the record company, they didn’t release it because they “didn’t hear a single.” This is the album with “Runnin’ Down A Dream” and “Free Fallin’.” No singles, huh?

Mike Campbell

What this book really reveals is what a cool guy Mike Campbell is. His praise and appreciation for everyone – drummer Stan Lynch, Benmont Tench, his Mudcrutch bandmates, of course Tom Petty. “Famous or not,” he goes out of his way to talk about other musicians’ strengths. One of my favorite quotes in the book, talking about the Mudcrutch reunion, “…what happened with Mudcrutch was never about their talent as musicians.” He’s highlighting how fleeting and difficult success is in the music industry. Being a good musician isn’t enough.

Summary

This is a deep look into an iconic American band and their journey, through the eyes of a kind, thoughtful and interesting guitar player. It’s well-written, engaging, and a fantastic page-turner. One of the best musical memoirs I’ve ever read. A

(Musical) Deep Thoughts

Here is a place to share thoughts and musings about music – little insights that come to me while I’m out running. These are all my thoughts, my words. I will continually update, so check back often!

The title jokingly inspired by the 90s Saturday Night Live “Deep Thoughts” segments.

Music appeals to us all and can touch us deeply because fundamentally music is organized vibrations of air. We are vibration. All matter is vibration, so in a very literal sense, music resonates with the very core of who and what we are.

Pop songs are songs that can be enjoyed on first listen, while doing something else.

The note you’re playing is the present. It adds meaning to the notes you played earlier – that past; and your free will determines the next note you will choose – the future. But all you have is the present, so make it count, make it good.

I think people that like jazz fusion tend to also like sci-fi. They stimulate the same aesthetics.

Don’t play notes trying to fit them into a rhythm, like pouring water into a bowl; play them from the rhythm, like water springing forth from a fountain. https://www.instagram.com/guitarvince73/reel/DXjlzh1kQEV/

I don’t want to just record myself doing it. I want to actually be able to do it. I want to learn it. Know it. I used to just record bits and pieces until i could stitch together something that sounded good. I’d try to get that one take that was solid. That’s not good enough for me anymore. I want to be able to consistently play whatever it is well, and then record, so what I have on tape is great, not good enough… and then be able to do it live.

I think that a lot of times when white bands perform black music (blues, soul, etc), as good as the music is, they don’t sweat enough when they perform it.

When artists complain about streaming royalties, their real concern is that it completely rewrote the economic landscape of being a professional musician. It’s not that streams are equivalent to radio plays, or how many streams per how many CDs sold… it’s that the entire financial picture of the industry was upended, and the artists are the ones left holding an empty bag.

AI-created art is art… but it’s not the human that is the artist. The computer created the art, the human simply commissioned a work.

A lot of getting better at music is developing a sensitivity to smaller and smaller tolerances. It’s building a finer distinction of pitch, time, rhythm, etc. which leads to more control over smaller and smaller differences. https://www.instagram.com/guitarvince73/reel/DX95vV8R2zW/

Improvisation is like a road trip – as long as you get to your destination (the climax, the resolution), you can either say on the main roads (playing inside) or take some back roads and explore (playing outside). https://www.instagram.com/guitarvince73/reel/DYZpksPxC_d/

Don’t be afraid to hit the same note several times in a row . So many time when improvising we’re playing chromatic runs, or arpeggios… but it can be really powerful to repeat the same note. https://www.instagram.com/guitarvince73/reel/DY9tBbYxKh-/

Eddie Van Halen’s solos are like spaghetti – slippery, twisted, tangled groups of notes and phrases… man, I love a good bowl of spaghetti. https://www.instagram.com/guitarvince73/reel/DZSRbzgRsBm/

One of the keys to playing faster is to relax. When you’re trying to learn something, you put your focus on it. You”try hard” to play it. Your body naturally tends to tighten up with this focus. The more you can consciously control that, and learn to play in a relaxed manner, the better. You can’t play fast if you’re tight (pressing down hard on the frets of the guitar, for example). This adds tiny delays between notes, which you can’t afford at faster tempos. Consciously learning to use a lighter touch on the fretboard, and retraining my brain to not grab so tightly while focusing, has made a big difference for me. https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ4s2QxxGXL/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link&igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==

I think one of the keys to being a good lyricist is realizing words have multiple meanings, depending on the context of the line, and using that to introduce depth, variety and double entendres. It facilitates the listener interpreting the song THEIR way.

The Metronome sets the tempo, it does not set the beat … or other words the placement of the beak so the band collectively reset that obviously driven by the drummer and basis, but it’s really the whole band is behind the click. Is it out of the click? That’s really the beat so you can say you have the plane behind the beat for one instrument like drums when everyone else is holding it together.

Album Review: The Archaeoptimist

Spock’s Beard

Released last November, a review is overdue! I’ve liked Spock’s Beard for a while, owning Day for Night and their first album, but I can’t say I’m a super fan. That said, when I saw they were releasing their first album in 7 years, and heard the first track (Invisible), I had to get it. This was the first album I’ve actually preordered in ages. It was pretty fun to swing by Park Avenue CDs and get the disc, then give it that first, loud listen on the drive home. That’s a feeling you can’t get when streaming everything.

The Songs

If you dig incredible keyboard solos, you won’t be disappointed by the album’s opener, Invisibile, featuring dazzling playing by keyboardist Ryo Okumoto. Strong harmonized vocals, thick bass and powerful drumming kick off the 14th studio album by the American progressive rock band. Next the band brings a bit of crunch in Electric Monk, mixing abrupt rhythms and more soaring keys. Like many of their songs, it’s also a lesson in dynamics and arranging, with a quiet reflective bridge highlighting piano and acoustic guitar, only to build up to a guitar-driven climax. Next up is Afourthoughts, my favorite track on the album. The lyrics struck a chord with me, and are featured in an overlapping, call-and-response bridge.

Time before time, it will change your mind
All the thoughts that you thought you thought
It will all amount to nought
It might seem harmless but there’s danger in this enterprise
It will all amount to nought
We tried to tell you but you can’t be taught
We can’t be bought, it will all amount to nought

The bass groove-driven verse serves as a platform for futuristic keyboard and guirar solos, building up energy before dropping down to a quite, acoustic-driven verse. A jazzy piano solo rounds out the bridge and segues to a set of variations on the chorus. The song is a showcase of harmony vocals and interesting arrangemetns.

St. Jerome in the Wilderness is a bit more guitar-driven than the other tracks on the album, although it does feature a beautiful piano, bass, drums & vocal middle section… before launching into a wild guitar solo.

The Archaeoptimist is a 20 minute futuristic tale of a girl and her father trying to find hope in a post-apocalyptic world. Read along in the liner notes, it would make a great short film or TV show.

Next Step concludes the album with more beautiful keys, softer vocals, acoustic guitar and even a bit of flute halfway through. A modern synthesizer solo climaxes to the outtro chorus

Summary

Overall, this is a fantastic modern progressive rock album. The songs are diverse, interesting and incredibly well-executed. It’s inspiring and fun. If you’re a fan of modern progressive rock, do not miss it. A-

Other Notes

The production on the album is modern, and the mix is fantastic. The bass and drums sound wonderful, and the piano and keyboard parts are crisp and clear. The art and packaging is excellent, and thankfully includes the lyrics – which are worth reading through as you listen, particularly for the title track’s complex and interesting story.

All of the music was composed by Ryo Okumoto (keyboards) and Michael Whiteman (acoustic guitar).

Check out the wikipedia page for the album for more information.

Listening To: Eloy

How I Stumbled Upon Them

This is one of those cases where I opened up Youtube and in my feed was album artwork too good to ignore (from the album “Time To Turn.” The name “Eloy” vaguely jogged a memory, so aside from the artwork I had a suspicion they were a progressive band in the vein of Camel or Colliseum. Indeed! And they’re fantastic. Sometimes the Youtube algorithm gets it right, and it’s also a great highlight for how important album artwork is. I would never have gone and searched them out, and if it was just a tiny postage stamp image it would never have caught my eye. I’m glad it caught my eye, because then it caught my ears.

About the Music

Their music is the soundtrack to a movie i totally want to see. It evokes fantasy and science fiction, as the album artwork implies. I love the mix of rock guitar and heavy use of keyboards. They tend to use traditional guitar/bass/drums/keys arrangements in complex, unique and creative ways to bring out the stories they’re telling. Guitars are featured prominently and drive a lot of parts, but this isn’t a “shreddy” band. There are solos, but not overly long ones. It’s really a perfect balance of elements. You won’t hear much of the bagpipes or flute as some prog bands did, but to me it works better. It’s what my ears want to hear (most of the time), and the records sound so full. In a way, perhaps vocally more than anything, they remind me a bit of Jethro Tull.

Their songs are very soundtrack-esque. Listening to Time to Turn the other morning, I could picture an amazing fantasy movie in my head. All of their albums tell a story and take you on a journey. To me, it’s what the best of progressive rock is about.

I dug into the catalog a bit over the last few days, and I absolutely love this band. If you like progressive rock that has the feel of an exotic soundtrack, definitely check them out. They have several greatest hits albums, but you might want to just pick and album and get the full experience.

About the Band

Eloy is a German progressive rock band, founded in 1969 by guitarist Frank Bornemann. They never made it big in the states, but they had a long career all the way up to 2023’s Echoes from the Past.

From the wikipedia article about the band: “The name Eloy is based on the futurist race of humans from the book The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (there spelled “Eloi”). Bornemann described the origin of the name of the band thus: “Wells describes in his book the situation of mankind about 800,000 years later, and ‘Eloy’ is a human race in his story.”

Other Recommendations

I listened to the album Ocean all the way through, and highly recommend it

I also listened to Greatest Hits: Vol 1 in order to get a broader view of the band, and I liked everything I heard.

Their second album, “Dawn,” is also excellent:

Album Artwork

As mentioned, the album artwork initially caught my eye. Interestingly, I tend to prefer the UK-exclusive album covers, which are more of a fantasy style. Here are a few highlights:

Album Artwork by Walter Seyffer (artistic concept) and Ulli Dinger (photography)

Conclusion

If you want a break from typical 4 minute rock songs, but still want to rock – check out Eloy. They’re a guitar-driven band, but not overly guitar-heavy. These aren’t 10 minute guitar solo songs. They’re tightly composed, and they take you on a journey. The guitar playing is fantastic but all the musicians shine.

The next time I go to the Orlando Record Show or Atlantic Sounds you can bet I’ll be digging around for Eloy records.

Listening To: Harry Belafonte

Deep Memories

When I was a young kid, my family would take a lot of camping trips. I remember listening to four distinct 8 tracks and/or cassettes: Kenny Rogers “The Gambler,” John Denver, the Star Wars sound track… and Harry Belafonte. I don’t know how my parents got into him, maybe just the popularity of Calypso in the 60s, but it was in frequent rotation on those trips. When I was about seven years old, maybe a bit younger or older, I remember going somewhere with my mother when we got a flat tire. Some family friends lived not too far way, so we decided to walk to their house to get help. I refused to leave the Harry Belafonte tape in the car, because I didn’t want to lose it or didn’t want someone to steal it. That’s how much it meant to me! I haven’t listened to him much at all since then – almost 50 years.

Recently I was driving home with my son from a father-son trip, and I was looking for something mellow. I remembered listening to Harry Belafonte and put him on. Every hit came right back as if I heard it yesterday. I’ts amazing how deep in my memory those songs go.

Perhaps it was in my had as I recently watched The Greatest Night In Pop – a documentary about the making of We Are The World. I didn’t realize Harry Belafonte was the driver of the whole event.

Two Of My Favorites

No surprises here, the songs I love the most are ones I heard over and over in our Jeep Cherokee in the 70s. My favorite song, the one that got me back to listening to Harry Belafonte, is perhaps his biggest hit: Jamaican Farewell. It’s sad, but hopeful at the same time. Such a beautifully simple melody. It’s also one of those songs that can be done so many different ways, and if you watch a few live versions you can see an incredible spectrum of instrumentation and arrangement.

I always like “Matilda” as well, although I had no idea what the lyrics were about when I was 8 years old. Check out the live version below, it’s a great example of how much you can do with a simple song.

This live version has an incredible vocal choir ending

Live

His live performances are often so much more elaborate than what’s recorded, I wanted to share a couple highlights. As noted above, a song like Jamaican Farewell that’s recorded as a guitar piece can be done with a full band, lots of percussion, harmonized vocals… it’s a whole different experience live.

What an incredible performance – and band!

Fun live version of “Jamaican Farewell”

I recently picked up his Live at Carnegie Hall album ($5 from Bossa N’ Roll Records in Orlando). It’s a great concert – 1959. Two album release, with excellent liner notes that give a bit of background about each song.

Harry Belafonte and the Blues

Did you know he did two blues albums? This one I haven’t explored, but learned about it as I looked up more for this post. It’s fantastic! 1947 from RCA: Belafonte Sings the Blues. Listen to his incredible, smooth vibrato on “A Fool For You.”

Another great album with a more contemporary, “60s” style of blues came out in 64: Ballads, Blues and Boasters. Check out this cover of the delta blues classic John the Revelator:

Learn More

Learn more about Harry Belafonte from his wikipedia page, but here’s a brief summary of his career:

Born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr. March 1, 1927 – April 25, 2023), Harry Belafonte was an American singer, actor, and civil rights activist who popularized calypso music with international audiences in the 1950s and 1960s. Belafonte’s career breakthrough album Calypso (1956) was the first million-selling LP by a single artist.^[1]

Belafonte was best known for his recordings of “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)“, “Jump in the Line (Shake, Senora)“, “Jamaica Farewell“, and “Mary’s Boy Child“. He recorded and performed in many genres, including blues, folk, gospel, show tunes, and American standards.^[2] He also starred in films such as Carmen Jones (1954), Island in the Sun (1957), Odds Against Tomorrow (1959), Buck and the Preacher (1972), and Uptown Saturday Night (1974). He made his final feature film appearance in Spike Lee‘s BlacKkKlansman (2018).

Harry Belafonte considered the actor, singer, and activist Paul Robeson to be a mentor. Belafonte was also a close confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. during the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s and acted as the American Civil Liberties Union celebrity ambassador for juvenile justice issues.^[3] He was also a vocal critic of the policies of the George W. Bush and first Donald Trump administrations.

Belafonte won three Grammy Awards, including a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, a Primetime Emmy Award,^[4] and a Tony Award. In 1989, he received the Kennedy Center Honors. He was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 1994. In 2014, he received the Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award at the academy’s 6th Annual Governors Awards^[5] and in 2022 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the Early Influence category.^[6] He is one of the few performers to have received an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony (EGOT), although he won the Oscar in a non-competitive category.

Concert Review: Lari Basilio

The Venue

I bought a ticket to this last minute. It had been on my radar for a while, but I’ve been out to a lot of shows lately and wanted to see if it would work out with the family. I’m not very familiar with her catalog, but I have seen a few Youtube clips and read some interviews. With the okay from the family, and the night clear, I headed out.

She played at a club called The Conduit in Winter Park (Orlando, FL). It was actually a pretty cool metal bar in a strip mall. The back wall was covered in metal tour posters, and there were big banners for bands like Cynic behind the mixing booth. Doors opened at 7pm, and Lari and her band went on at 8pm. She played for about an hour, and then did a 15 minute encore. The sound was decent overall, but a bit loud for the size of the room. I had my medium ear plugs in for most of the night.

I enjoyed this tour poster in particular. Vomiting Rectum is quite the name for a band.

The crowd was pretty good – maybe 50-100 people. Nice mix of age and gender, too. Quite a few couples. A few older guitar-heads like myself. A few young-ish women. Once again I’m encouraged that this type of artist can do successful tour stops in Orlando. The crowd was into it, and she has a pretty vocal fan base here.

The Band and Overall Impressions

For this kind of show, I wasn’t sure if it would be just her playing with tracks, or a full band. Thankfully it was the latter. Her band was great and featured a second guitarist, bassist, and drummer. Everyone got a solo during the set, and made the most of it.

My biggest takeway was that wow, she has one of the most gorgeous guitar tones I’ve ever heard. Clear, sweet, articulate… just incredibly beautiful. She played a couple of her Ibanez signature models through a Laney amp. The second guitarist played a mix of strats and teles, and an Abasi for one song.

Her music reminded me of a mix of Andy Timmons and Steve Vai. Not quite as out there and quirky as Vai, but in that vein. It felt very modern, though. There are certain rhythmic elements common in modern shred that her music consistently featured. In that sense, it reminded me of Plini or Animals as Leaders.

Using the heavy, distorted 7-string Tosin Abasi guitar added some variety. By the end though, as good as it was, the songs did feel very same-y by the end of the night. If you like this kind of melodic shred, you’ll like Lari Basilio. She’s an incredible player, but it’s not the kind of show people who aren’t into this style of music will likely get drawn into. I might have been a bit burned out and tired, to be fair, so that might be a factor in why I wasn’t as into it as some of the other shows I’ve seen recently. Still, she’s an incredible player and it was worth going. I definitely enjoyed it.