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| I Call It Workingman's Blues |
| band: The Atlanta Café Band Voodoo Brotherhood |
| Album: Eponymous |
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The Atlanta Café Band VooDoo Brotherhood
I Call It Workingman's Blues
“Go ahead and play the blues if it'll make you happy.”
~ Dan Louis Castellaneta
“Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.”
~ Dale Carnegie
“The blues ain't nothing but a good man feelin' bad”
~ Leon Redbone
"Music is too important to be left to professionals."
~ Michelle Shocked
FORWARD
After posting this review, I got a phone call from Charlie. The more I listened to this band on headphones the more I heard how magically tight all the players were, and how they had that feeling of a BAND. I asked Charlie how long they had been playing together, and the answer is a shock. This band has been playing together off and on for 35 years. They are responsible adults playing the blues all that time, raising their families with their priorities where they should be. The sound they produce can't be duplicated by four well-trained young prodigies out to take over the world. In 35 years they have produced just one CD. These men didn't sacrifice their families to play music. Maybe if we celebrated bands like this more often, we'd get to hear music from responsible adults more often. Bands that sleep until 2:00 p.m. and call their children on their birthdays from the road write something different. This band plays the workingman's blues with authenticity and veracity. You just can't beat that with anything less.
THE REVIEW
There's this band in New Jersey called "The Atlanta Café Band Voodoo Brotherhood" that has the spirit. They have a six song CD with no cover art at all. They've been playing around town up there and have the word "Atlanta" in their name out of respect for southern rock and music from The Delta. There's a picture of them with Anthony Gomes, who may be the best new blues guitarist there is. They are workingmen who love to play music, write good songs, and play that blues because it makes them happy and audiences like them. They have no contract, no label, no manager and no cover art. I love this band.
My main contact with this band has been with Charlie Ohlweiler, who sent me an email some months ago about the band and asking if maybe I would do a review. He told me all the songs were written by the band. There's no grandstanding songwriter in the bunch, though I'd have to guess one guy generally writes the words. I don't know who that is for any of these songs, and that's the way Charlie likes it. This music reminds me of The Jefferson Airplane playing blues before they learned something and got plastic cards, plastic fantastic pillows, changed their name, built a city on rock 'n' roll, and wound up sounding plastic. This Voodoo band I'm writing about are workingmen, fathers and citizens playing the blues regardless of the chord progression. They may not have time to go to that Berklee College of Music, but they know how to sing a song people can relate to at a pace they can hear in a concert. What this band gets right is what many of the top performers have long forgotten: The shear, unadulterated love of the music and the meaning of the song. This is the kind of band you can hear in a local bar and walk away singing. I've been to a whole bunch of big deal concerts and walked away nothing more than impressed with the sound. I don't use the word impressed as a compliment. As W.H. Auden said in a poem, "Only your notes are pure contraption / Only your song is an absolute gift."
These men of the Voodoo Brotherhood love the songs they sing, and they present a song as an absolute gift. I remember big bands like that way back when the San Francisco Sound was new and I was living as a boy across the Bay from all that good music. The Grateful Dead, Blue Cheer, and even Country Joe played more blues than anything else and clearly listened to music from The Delta whenever they got a chance. Credence Clearwater used to play high schools, and some people laughed at them for being from New Orleans only in their minds. Back in the beginning, those bands were fun to watch because they were having fun. That's long before the contract battles and all that mess. Go back and listen to those guys, or the bands that came from your own neighborhood, and you will hear joy in their playing a lot like The Atlanta Café Band Voodoo Brotherhood. That spirit seems to have gotten lost, but it is alive and living in New Jersey. Don't take my word for it, click the image at the top of this review and go listen for yourself.
For my money, the song "Nancy" is a shining example of a band doing something important with music. Charlie's sister passed away. The band came together and made a song out of it. It's a quiet song starting with a closely mic'd acoustic guitar. Dave Emmons added a part on mandolin that mirrors the bass line in "Bird Song" by The Grateful Dead. The drumkit is replaced with drummer Bob Vnencak playing congas or some other hand played percussion. That song is like something off Workingman's Dead. The idea of Charlie's sister flying off the earth is right there in the music even without the words. The band came together to mourn with Charlie in a song. That moves me. That's the spirit of music, and the power of a BAND. How many bands have I really heard? When a group of musicians can come together like that, it makes a family out of a crowd. That's some kind of holy Voodoo, in my opinion. The Atlanta Café Band Voodoo Brotherhood is music I can believe in.
THE SONGS
1. Bluesman
Starts with a bass line right out of "Happy Trails To You" with a simple figure on a Hammond and Leslie and a smooth jazzy strum on that guitar like Basie's Freddie Green sifted through Jefferson Airplane's Jorma Kaukonen. The sum of those parts is spacey and sweet with enough space in the performance to let the audience breathe in the song. "Talk about the man in New Orleans who used to sing to us all night / Late in the evening I was fast asleep I used to dream someday I might / Play the guitar and sing out those words of the feelings that well / Feeling good, feeling sad -- the bluesman knew so well / As he played, Mr. Bluesman, I wanna play / I said play! Mr. Bluesman, come on play!" This is like respect in a memory a whole lot like a dream. "Working real hard, playing your tunes, the blues will come on through." This young man grows up to play the blues, but that mythic Bluesman stays with him in spirit and as a spirit. Nervous backstage, the Bluesman whispers in his ear, "You're the Bluesman! Come on and play!"
2. Boogie In Your Pocket has a strummed banjo playing almost like a Ukulele. You might expect them to be wearing straw hats, and the harmony is close to barbershop. Wallace Wrede's bass has a string drive to it that keeps things from getting corny. This song is fun to hear, and fun to sing, but it has a beat to it enough to make it strong.
3. Mewie is a song about property or possession in it's way. "Who's that fishin' down by the fishin' hole?" Seems there somebody there should be. This is a blues song, and the words are sung and shouted like something Eddie Cochran would do. Seems there's a poacher on the property. Bob Vnencak plays that rhythm I remember from all the early Beatles albums, but it comes from the Deep South. (Ringo stole it fair and square.) The harp on this song is a good deal more expressive and musical than anything I ever heard Dylan blow. "One of these that boy's going to put it down / Put down that pole in a straight ass job downtown / That's Mewie, down by the fishin' hole." The song closes with crickets rising up as the music dies down.
4. Nancy
This one is straight from the heart. The feel of the song is sweet and acoustic like the Workingman's Dead. Bob Vnencak takes to a set of congas. "My best friend was Nancy / Stand forever by my side" . . . "Now she's gone to heaven / But that just makes me stronger." That's where Dave Emmons plays a mandolin figure taken as a cameo from the bass line of "Bird Song" by the Grateful Dead as though she were flying like a bird. As described above, the band came together to help Charlie mourn the loss of his sister when they wrote this song. It's a celebration and a statement of loss. It's beautiful.
5. School for the Blues
This is a statement song for this band. There might be one or two like it if you look through iTunes hard and long, but this one has a sweet sincerity. The guitar sound on this one is pure rock 'n' roll, but the spirit is the truth of the blues. "Ever since I was a school boy / You know I was always told / You better keep your grades up boy / Or the Devil will get you soul." Well this song is a dream of the school where saying what you feel in a blues song is rewarded. I call that a meritocracy. "A place where music gets it's way / Oh, everybody out of my way!" The guitar gives Johnny B. Goode a run for his money, with a little bit of Allman Bros. thrown in.
6. Talk To You
The bass line starts this one out and as brilliantly simple as it is unexpected. The harmony in the singing belies the story. The blues harp takes the lyric one step further without a word. The singer shouts, "Tell it brother!" and that harp takes the stage with as clear as any poetry. "I get very upset when I find / My friends are sleeping in your bed / Oh Honey, you know what I'm talking about / I'm leaving you and there is no doubt / I don't care what the Good Book says." If I'm hearing that last line correctly, it's brilliant and concise: "Oh when I sit down and talk to you I find I die!" That's more meaning in fewer words than I've heard in a while.
Charles Ohlweiler ~ Voc, Guitar
Wallace Wrede ~ Voc, Bass
Dave Emmons Voc, Guitar (& Mandolin?)
Bob Vnencak ~ Drums, Perc
Special guest Karl Wrede ~ Guitar
SIDESHOW:
This description of the spirit of the band is from the Voodoo myspace page. It's describes the spirit of the band as well as anything I could write about them:
ABOUT VOODOO BROTHERHOOD:
Welcome To Voodoo Alley! Relax, have a seat and let us tell you about us! The Voodoo Brotherhood is an eclectic mix of musicians from diverse backgrounds and musical tastes. Many times a Solo acoustic act . Our varied roots are reflected in the music that we play. The Voodoo Brotherhood plays distinctive interpretations of everything from rock to country to jazz inspired jams with plenty of blues thrown in. Our original music is a spicy jambalaya of Delta and Chicago blues mixed with country rock and some incredible jamming! Our inspirational ballads reflect a love of family and tradition. With our Swamp style traditional music as an added flavor,we can reflect with family members about Great musicians and Family members that have passed on,or those who we believe hold certain Mojo for us individually..... Its a plain and simple Philosophy....Family and Friends Matter . . . The musical community that we are all involved in, from the tiniest of garage bands,to the biggest headliners . . . This is a community where all should be welcome!!!
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