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Do IT this week: Layering
Ball and Foster to serve some New Orleans funk, gospel-infused music on stage Saturday night
Published on Thursday, Aug 06, 2009
It's been a pretty good summer for Lock 3 Live Park in Akron.
Yeah, tribute bands apparently grow on trees (or perhaps they crawl out of some secretly located pool of primordial ooze festering behind a classic rock radio station), but the park has played host to some good national acts, too, including David Sanborn, Najee and the old-school soul of Midnight Starr and Zapp.
On Saturday night, it will be the Ladies of Blues featuring singer/songwriter/pianist Marcia Ball and singer/songwriter/guitarist Ruthie Foster.
Both women have released albums recently with Ball's Peace, Love & BBQ released last spring being her first album in five years and Foster's latest, The Truth According to Ruthie Foster, released in February.
Ball has been mixing the East Texas blues of her birth place with New Orleans swamp funk, second-line grooves and zydeco for 30 years and if you are familiar with any of those styles or her label, Alligator Records, then you know you should be ready to boogie when she and her band take the stage.
Peace, Love & BBQ is a groovy collection of Ball applying her soulful husky voice to her originals and some choice covers including Bobby Charles' aptly titled and rollicking ode to New Orleans, Party Time, and New Orleans ambassador Dr. John offers his distinct vocals for the blues chestnut I'll Never Be Free .
The album gets serious with the gospel-inspired post-Katrina lament Where Do You Go and the haunting Miracle in Knoxville about a circuit preacher who during a service pleads the Lord to save him from (female) temptation or let him die. The Lord chooses the latter option.
Ball's opener is fellow Texan Foster, whose sixth album, The Truth According to Ruthie Foster, features her strong bluesy voice that has drawn comparison to legends such as Aretha Franklin and Ella Fitzgerald, though I don't hear the latter as down-home blues and wasn't really Miss Ella's milieu. The album and her music is a familiar mix of folk and electric blues with a healthy dollop of gospel fervor.
The Lock 3 show should be a soulful night of good estrogen-fueled music.
Hip Hop Showcase
As far as I could tell, everyone who attended the first Hip Hop Showcase at Lock 3 Park last year had a darn good time partying with headliners Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick.
The 2009 edition of the Hip Hop Showcase will take place on Sept. 5 and will feature three more emcees from the ''true-school'' era with KRS-One and Big Daddy Kane. Also on the bill will be Buckshot.
''Blastmaster'' KRS-One, aka the Teacher, gained fame as half of Boogie Down Productions with the late Scott LaRock. He has been one of the more stridently ''conscious'' voices in hip-hop, always trying to keep the culture on the path of positivity, and produced at least two of the genre's classic albums in Criminal Minded and By All Means Necessary.
The B-I-G D-A-Double D-Y K-A-N-E was once considered one of hip-hop's top wordsmiths and, just as KRS-One, was a big influence on young rappers. His debut album, Long Live the Kane, went gold, which was still a pretty rare feat for hip-hop in 1989 and featured several classic joints such as Raw and the Heatwave sampling Ain't No Half Steppin'.
Buckshot was the rapper for the group Black Moon, which had hits with How Many Emcees and Who Got the Props. As a solo artist, he never found the same commercial success but is still producing. His most recent single is with KRS-One and is called Robot, a raging indictment of the dominance of autotune (released shortly before Jay-Z's Death of Autotune in case you're keeping score) in commercial hip-hop.
Also on the bill will be Cleveland's world traveling DJ Mick Boogie; Columbus rap trio Fly.Union; Cleveland-bred, Brooklyn-based hip-hop band Poetic Republic and local poet/rapper Ace Boogie.
Malcolm X Abram can be reached at mabram@thebeaconjournal.com or 330-996-3758.
It's been a pretty good summer for Lock 3 Live Park in Akron.
Get the full article here.
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