Tag Archives: Pawling

INTERVIEW: Little Feat’s Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett join Orleans & Friends at Tarrytown Music Hall Friday night

Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett (Photo by Emily Spires

Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett (Photo by Emily Spires

Throwback Thursday’s got nothing on Friday night’s lineup at Tarrytown Music Hall.

The acoustic duo of Paul Barrere and Fred Tackett of Little Feat, the legendary rootsy band that’s been going strong since 1969, opens the evening for New York’s own Orleans, which formed in Ithaca in 1972.

That’s four decades of rock ‘n roll!

These artists will be doing a string of shows together in the coming weeks.

The Music Hall gig is “the first show we’ve ever done with them,” Barrere tells Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone? by phone from his Los Angeles-area home. “This’ll be an interesting soiree.”

“John Hall [Orleans’ frontman] and I have been swapping mp3s of different songs and stuff, and I think they’ll probably play a couple with us,” Barrere says. “Fred and I will do our usual acoustic opening set and we’ll get a little help on a couple of songs. And then they’ll do their set and we’ll probably jump in at the end of theirs. So it’ll be kinda cool.”

While the two acts haven’t played live together before, Barrere notes that he and Tackett share some history with Hall, who was a Democrat who represented the Hudson Valley’s 19th Congressional District from 2007 to 2011.

“John played on the original recording of [Little Feat’s] ‘All That You Dream,'” way back in 1910 or something like that,” Barrere says with a laugh.

Barrere and Tackett share a lot more history than that, though.

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Blues legend Joe Lewis Walker plays Daryl’s House in Pawling on Saturday

"Hornet's Nest," the latest album from blues legend Joe Louis Walker  packs a sting.

“Hornet’s Nest,” the latest album from blues legend Joe Louis Walker packs a sting.

If you’re looking for a way to heat up the coldest winter weekend in decades, Daryl Hall and the crew at Daryl’s House in Pawling, N.Y., have just the thing for you on Saturday night: Joe Louis Walker.

The 65-year-old Walker has an explosive, urgent style of playing and singing that makes him one of the most exciting blues players working today. And it’s no surprise, give he’s been at it since first picking up a guitar at age 8 — or so the story goes.

Walker isn’t one of the originators of the style, but he learned by working with some of the very best in blues, jazz, and rock — Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Thelonius Monk. and Jimi Hendrix, to name a few — and makes the most of his lessons.

Walker’s at his best when he’s playing pedal-to-the-metal electric blues, as on “Hornet’s Nest,” the title track of his latest album — his 24th release — which drops on Alligator Records on Feb. 25. His voice and guitar snarl in the best possible way on that outstanding track. “All I Wanted to Do,” on the other hand, is a loping, horn-filled showcase that sounds original and classic all at once. In “Don’t Let Go,” he mines a vein tradition that inspired artists like Elvis Presley so many years ago.

Like the hard-working bluesman that he is, he’s superb when he sounds like he’s sweating his way through numbers that bring his gritty, dangerous voice to the front. When he dials the vocals back a bit, as on “Ride On, Baby,” his strongest qualities begin to disappear, making him sound less distinctive. But even then, Walker’s energy and enthusiasm shine through

Walker, a 2013 inductee into the Blues Hall of Fame, is a real musical treasure. Daryl’s House (the former site of the Towne Crier) is a comfortable, homey place that should be a perfect showcase for Walker’s prodigious gifts. Catch him there if you can.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Joe Louis Walker in concert

WHEN: 9:30 p.m., Saturday, Feb. 21

WHERE: Daryl’s House, 130 Route 22, Pawling, N.Y.; 845-289-0185

TICKETS: $20, www.darylshouseclub.com

Daryl Hall invites you into his house

Daryl Hall (Handout photo)

Daryl Hall (Handout photo)

And he might even be there to greet you

Daryl Hall and John Oates (the band, that is — the longtime bandmates really prefer that to Hall & Oates, which is pretty much what everybody calls the Philadelphia rock ‘n soul band), has been a going concern for four decades and shows no sign of stopping.

The men, who met at Temple University in 1967, have had their greatest success and achieved worldwide fame through their collaboration. But they’ve also carved out artistic niches separately. Oates tours regularly as a singer-songwriter with a strong repertoire of Americana-esque sounds.

Hall has done solo work, and plan more, but in the last 6 or 7 years he’s branched out in a different direction. He’s been restoring old houses and hosting parties for his musical friends. Both of them are the subject of TV shows. There’s the new “Daryl’s Restoration Over-Hall” on the DIY Network, which brings viewers inside his old-house obsession. And then there’s the long-running “Live From Daryl’s House,” started as a web-only show that’s now carried on the Palladia Network, that brings fans into the parties that Hall throws for his musical friends.

Hall’s interests got more complicated when he finished work on an old house in Millerton, New York, and moved on to a new project in Sherman, Connecticut a year or so ago. Somewhere along the way, Hall decided “LFDH” needed a permanent home. So he took over the former Towne Crier Cafe space in Pawling, New York, and remodeled it to look a lot like his Millerton place — if it were a restaurant and club.

Daryl's House club in Pawling, New York.

Daryl’s House club in Pawling, New York.

That’s how Daryl’s House club was born.

I talked to the other day for The Journal News/lohud.com.

He was pretty excited about the intimate space, which he inaugurated on Halloween with a Daryl Hall  & John Oates full-band show — dubbed Hall-oween & Oates, natch. At 68, Hall is going as strong as everl’

“I’ll be surprised” if fans ever get tired of  listening, he tells me. “I keep evolving and making things interesting, so I don’t think people are gonna get bored with me.”

Check out my conversation with Hall by going here now.

New collection skims the cream of Caffè Lena’s rich musical history

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Live At Caffè Lena: Music From America’s Legendary Coffeehouse, 1967-2013 is slated for release on Sept. 24.

A review of Live At Caffè Lena: Music From America’s Legendary Coffeehouse, 1967-2013, with buying and streaming links after the jump

I’ve always meant to visit the legendary Caffè Lena, the tiny coffeehouse at 47 Phila Street in Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

Devonsquare, the sweet-harmonizing folk-rock trio, first piqued my curiosity about Lena and Bill Spencer’s cafe (or caffè, as they dubbed it, using two f’s) with their song “Caffè Lena” on the  1987 album Walking on Ice.

Caffè Lena was a place of mythical proportions to me then. For one reason or another, I never found myself in Saratoga Springs.

After all, I live close to The Turning Point in Piermont, N.Y., a music cafe that is, while 16 years younger than Caffè Lena, has a similar mission and musical profile.

And then there was the Towne Crier in Pawling, N.Y.,  from 1972 until closing in June with plans to reopen soon in Beacon. That gave me a backup option just a bit farther afield than The Turning Point.

So  I never got myself motivated sufficiently to make the trek to Saratoga Springs.

I should have known I was missing out. And now the Tompkins Square record label has  shoved into my face some very real evidence of exactly how much I’ve missed. Continue reading