ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT/The Charlotte Post
Thursday, January 30, 1997
Band aims beat at feet
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WESTERLY, R.I. -The sound
is from a different era and so
are the band members, but
Roomful of Blues plays on, still
looking to “aim the beat at
their feet.”
The nine-member band of 40-
and 50-something musicians
includes four horn players, a
rarity now that has made its
sound a favorite of music leg
ends, including the late Count
Bassie, who attended many
shows.
Trombonist Porky Cohen, 72,
played with Roomful for sever
al years after spending his
youth on the road in bands
with Tommy Dorsey, Artie
Shaw and others from the
Swing Era.
“The people from my genera
tion like the big bands, the
Glenn Millers, the Dorseys.
Roomful gives people that Big
Band feeling, but still they can
dance to it,” Cohen says. “It’s a
small big band, a high-energy
band. There’s nothing around
like it. When I say it’s the best
rhythm-and-blues band in the
world - I could say in the
country — but what else is
there?”
Depending on who’s talking.
Roomful plays “jump blues,”
“jazzed-up jump blues” or “Big
Band blues.”
“It’s a real powerful, loud,
aggressive horn section,” says
Phil Green, the sound engi
neer who recorded the band’s
11th album, “Under One Roof”
“These guys are probably the
best white blues band in the
world.”
Green, president of
Normandy Sound in Warren,
has worked with pop acts such
as New Kids on the Block and
Paula Abdul, “but it’s not
something I want to tell my
friends about.” Recording with
Roomful is different, he says.
“It’s an engineer’s dream
because there’s nothing you
have to sweep imder the rug,”
Green says.
Roomful, celebrating its 30th
anniversary, draws its inspira
tion from old-time barnstorm
ing blues and swing bands, but
at a price.
“To be a touring band of our
size is quite an accomplish
ment, but we have to work all
the time. That’s not out of
wanting to be on the road so
much, it’s out necessity,” says
“Sugar” Ray Norcia, the band’s
lead singer and harmonica
player.
“To me, success would be not
having to spend so much time
touring,” says Norcia, who
longs for more time on his
Hopkinton farm with his vrife,
goats and chickens.
Despite that desire. Roomful
expects to play up to 250 dates
this year. And, after years of
piling up accolades but rela
tively httle money, the band
hopes 1997 brings some finan
cial rewards.
In addition to recently
releasing “Under One Roof,”
the band is in the studio
recording holiday classics to be
released next Christmas.
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Ovens Auditorium
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from the hit play
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