Erica Brown Band
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Erica Brown Band

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"BluesWax Sittin in With Erica Brown"

By Bob Margolin

This guy walks into a bar...OK, I’m the guy, and the bar is in the Boulder Outlook Hotel which has become a significant “home of the Blues” in Colorado. I walked in to do my gig, with Al Chesis and the Deltasonics, but another musician, one of the bartenders, and Dan King the clubowner all told me: “Erica Brown is here – if you invite her to sit in, you’ll be glad you did...”

With those endorsements, it seemed we’d at least do OK, but remember, I’m that “guy who walks into a bar,” and this joke’s on me because Erica Brown kicks major booty on the bandstand. I, the band, and the audience were thoroughly knocked out by her singing, her commanding stage presence, and the spirit of spontaneous good times that she brings to the stage. While she was sitting in, we all got caught up in her music, nothing hurt, and I knew I’d made a new friend.

I’ve written a few stories about the thriving Blues scene in Colorado. Here’s another one, as I promised after raving to you about Erica Brown last November. Since then, I’ve been back to Colorado again and spent more time getting to know Erica and came to find that her ability to sit in with musicians she didn’t know and make a nightclub her own is a gateway to the original music she makes with the Erica Brown Band –her musical partners, not sidemen – and the intelligent and soulful musician that she is.

Bob: I’m sure that your power to lead a band and move an audience didn’t begin when I met you last October! Tell us how your music and career have grown.

Erica: It’s been quite a ride, Bob. From the time I really started getting in up to the elbows in this art form, it’s been a learning experience. I’m in bondage to the blues, but it’s a labor of love, believe me! The EBB’s music and career has grown by leaps and bounds. For this band, the sky’s the limit! In five years I want to see myself onstage holding my arms out to an arena full of people, and just feeling the love coming back.

My personal career has grown because not only have my fellas stepped out on faith and invested everything in me, I’ve been welcomed by many top-notch blues players such as yourself, who have brought me onto their stages so I could be seen by a larger audience. It’s always a gamble when a musician does that, because they’re inviting an unknown quantity, but I try every time to justify that trust, and just leave it all on the stage and leave the audience wanting more. I learn something from every person I play with. It’s like being in Blues Graduate School…so I guess I’m working on my Ph.B!

For me, I just go up and do what I do, but the thing is, that the minute I hit the stage, something else takes over that I cannot define. But whatever that something is, it takes me on a ride of its own. I get compared by fans to Tina Turner a LOT in my band’s stage show, but I know it’s because I’m just “recycling” the energy I get from my fellas and the audience. For example, I change clothes every set of my show. I’ve changed clothes in more bathrooms than I care to count! When I started doing it, it was because I thought it was cool, and nobody else in our area was doing it, and I’m probably a ridiculously vain woman anyway (grin). Many of our fans come to see us because they want to see “what all I’m wearing tonight” in addition to gettin’ their groove on. But it’s all about the entertainment too.

My career continues to grow because I believe that the audience is coming to get something they can’t get anywhere else, and it’s up to me to deliver. People want to be visually excited as well as aurally excited. It’s my responsibility to give them a show worthy of the hard-earned money they shelled out at the door-and in this economy, that’s saying a lot! Speaking of which, if I could get back all the money I’ve spent on dry-cleaning my outfits over the years, I probably wouldn’t have to work! Ha! But seriously, there are so many ways folks can spend their entertainment dollars, and I truly feel honored that they choose to spend it on us.

Bob: Listening to your CD’s, it’s obvious to me that you work closely with your band as part of it, rather than in a situation where they just back you up. Tell us about your band, what the players bring, and how you all work together.

Erica: I think things have happened the way they have because myself, Scotty (Rivera, Drums, Lead and background vocals), Rich (Sallee, Bass and Background Vocals) and Jim (Ayers, keys, Hammond and Background Vocals) have all committed to staying together to stick this thing out and see how far we can take it, and we’ve been together eight years now, with no signs of slowing down. We are all artists that believe in trying to give the fans who love blues the best we can EVERY time, and folks see and hear that and continue to support us to the national level we’re trying to achieve.

However, I must say that even though I had been on the front line of some successful outfits before the EBB, I h - VisionNation


"Bang und Strum-A different shade of Blues"

American idols beware: Erica Brown will administer a vocal beat-down.
Even jaded, achingly cool hipsters have to concede that the Erica Brown Band rocks. Lacking a Scandinavian dance-punk pedigree can be a pitfall these days to the affectedly disheveled, iPodded masses, but EBB kicks out music to inspire nearly anyone: gloriously hooky and stirring blues-rock that, as Brown says, "surprises the hell out of people."

The Denver-based quintet has been cranking out well-crafted blues since 1998. Behind the laser-guided, honeyed dynamite of Erica Brown's voice, Rich Sallee (bass), Jim Ayers (keyboard and Hammond organ), Scotty Rivera (drums) and newcomer Tony Luke (guitar) share vocal duties while throwing down explosive and genuinely inventive arrangements. A favorite in Denver for years, the group is enjoying a growth of popularity in the Springs as well. Its opening slot for B.B. King at the Pikes Peak Center in 2004 has become the stuff of local legend, and a headlining appearance at last September's Hillside Gardens Blues Festival helped bolster its local reputation.

EBB's latest album, Rough Cut Stone, is a sparkling, muscular vehicle of the group's creativity. Forgoing simple 1-4-5 riffs and ego-stroking harmonica filler to avoid reworking the same old blues song, the band instead channels tight, provocative blues-rock and R&B with enough élan to make you think you've been missing out on something. Kicked off by the searing "I Spent a Month There One Night," the album showcases the band's obvious strengths, from former guitarist Bob Yeazel's effortless and startling guitar work to the somber "Bring Back the Quarters," a lesson in soulful, heartbreaking vibrato control from which American Idol wanna-bes clearly could learn.

"It's got to keep your interest," Brown says. "If you've got to play the songs every night, they better be good ones."

But EBB is known as much for its incendiary and engaging live show as for its well-earned chops.

"If someone's going to pay good money to come see you, give 'em a hell of a show," Brown says. "If you do it and do it with sincerity, people will respond. What it is our job to do is to take anybody out of their existence for a minute -- forget about the grocery list and that the dog peed on the carpet, or that you're getting a divorce -- and take you to a completely different place, a better place, and send you home with a little bit of that.

"'Puff [the Magic Dragon]' is the first song that made me cry," she says. "It's a great example of the power of a song to move you. It doesn't have to be complicated. It's just got to get you where you live. 'Amazing Grace' is the same way. The person singing is ecstatic about their salvation. That's how we try to write."

On Friday, June 3, EBB will be waxing ecstatic with the Springs' own That Band as part of the Pikes Peak Blues Community's summer schedule.

"They've constantly got it going out there, doing creative things," Brown says of the PPBC. "The community in Colorado Springs at large has really gotten us. It's a beautiful thing."

-- Aaron Retka
- Colorado Springs Independent


"BluesWax Online-No Rough Edges Here"

Erica Brown Band has been around a while, garnering a regional following in the Rockies, and that shouldn't be a surprise. The current lineup backing Erica Brown is Bob Yeazel on guitars, Jim Ayers on keys, Rich Sallee on bass, and Scott Rivera on drums.

I like this disc because the band has a definite "sound," without relying on the same tricks to get from the opening track to the end. There's a range from clean electric Blues to ballads, fast and slow, with several of the band sharing the lead vocals with Brown.

There are few surprises, as most of the disc is typical, but top-notch, Blues-Rock and Soul with rich layers of keys, guitar, bass, and drums. There's a lot of Yeazel's guitar, with a well-timed lead on almost every track, but the band is at its best when they're showcasing their vocal prowess. They all contribute vocals throughout the set, either in backing harmonies or trading off leads.

While Erica can belt it out, it's on the low-key numbers that the restrained soulfulness of her voice stands out. This is what comes through when Erica and company dip into a couple of covers and traditional tunes.

Highlights: The acoustic slide on "Bring Back the Quarters" balances the stately vocals in a way that's unique for this disc. The best mix of the band as a whole is probably the wonderful cover of The Band's "Shape I'm In."

One low point: I wish the lyrics of "Everyman Hears Different Music" were strong enough to match the performance.

Rough Cut Stone is a bit misleading for an album this polished. The band's tight arrangements form a backdrop to Brown's understated but energetic vocals - there's barely a rough edge to smooth out.

- VisionNation


Discography

The band’s releases “Body Work” (2000), and Rough Cut Stone (2003) have received airplay and been the subject of favorable reviews in Europe, South America, and Australia as well as BluesWax, the largest online blues publication in the world. Special guest artist blues great Kenny Neal contributed his special second-line feel to the tracks “Crying and Trying” and the title track of “Body Work”.

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Bio

“A little way into our last set, our host, Dan, tipped me that singer Erica Brown from down the road in Denver was in the house and I should call her up to sit in. Maybe because I was already having such a good weekend, I wasn't expecting it to go even farther. I did not know Erica Brown, but certainly trusted Dan and immediately invited her up to the bandstand. She proceeded to tear the house down, leading the band expertly and improvising a show with us that the audience loved. It was so much fun it must have been illegal, and it showed. We all need to get to know Erica Brown better." -Blues legend, Bob Margolin

The Erica Brown Band has been around a while, garnering a regional following in the Rockies, and that shouldn't be a surprise. Forgoing simple 1-4-5 riffs and ego-stroking harmonica filler to avoid reworking the same old blues song, the band instead channels tight, provocative blues-rock and R&B with enough élan to make you think you've been missing out on something. But the EBB is known as much for its incendiary and engaging live show as for its well-earned chops. The band has a definite "sound," without relying on the same tricks to get from the opening track to the end. There's a range from clean electric Blues to ballads, fast and slow, with several of the band sharing the lead vocals with Brown. Erica Brown the performer lets it all hang out. With a flirtatious little gleam in her eyes, she taunts, she teases and she lets loose with a fun-loving, high energy rhythm and blues show that will knock your socks off!

The delicious Ms. Brown makes it easy by tearing the house down with a voice that would turn the most jaded atheist into a true believer. From where else could that voice have come? The marvelous contradiction presented by this astoundingly first-rate, high-energy blues band is that when they perform, they chase away any and all blues from anyone within audible range. When Brown takes the mic–clearly her “on” button–she could coax joy out of Dick Cheney. It is oft said that comparisons are odious. Be that as it may, they are frequently necessary to reveal a comprehensible depiction to the uninformed. So, picture the moves of Tina Turner, the vocal range of Francine Reed, and the quick-witted, ad lib comedy of Robin Williams. Brown was born to perform. She’s like a cordless appliance and the stage is her charger!