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Robert Randolph and the Family Band to Perform October 15, 2004 on Beale StreetSeptember 2004 – Memphis welcomes Robert Randolph and the Family Band to W. C. Handy Park on historic Beale Street for one exciting performance on Friday October 15th. Presented by Heartpine Productions and produced by Resource Entertainment Group, this outdoor concert marks Robert’s third performance in Memphis. Raised in a firestorm of faith and danger, dividing his time between battles in the streets and safety in the arms of his music, Robert Randolph found his way up from the darkness of urban decay with help from a most unusual source: the pedal steel guitar. Now, Robert Randolph and the Family Band are ready to change people’s lives, just as music changed that of this group's dynamic leader. In Randolph's world, which centers on the unique "sacred steel" tradition within the House of God Church, the pedal steel is a different animal than those slippery strings that weep and whine behind cowboy crooners and hula dancers. In Randolph’s unique hands, the pedal steel becomes a source of ferocious, passionate sound - a weapon, used to slash at darkness and rip away the shades that hide sunlight from our lives. There's an energy his music that's unlike anything on the charts today -- positive and inclusive, in the fashion of Stevie Wonder, Al Green or Sly and the Family Stone. It's about celebration, not about preaching; the handclap grooves, the words that welcome everyone, the whirl of dance and sweat and song and, always, the steel guitar, riding above it all, improbable yet the perfect voice to bring this message home. What Randolph has done isn't just about taking the spirit of the church into the wider world, though that's part of the picture. It's more than a story of beating heavy odds, of watching friends die or disappear while trying to find your own way out. Certainly it's more than an odd twist of fate how an urban New Jersey artist finding his voice through an instrument seldom seen outside of Nashville studios or Southern honky-tonks. The buzz has actually been on for a while. Randolph began winning attention some three years ago, after being invited to join in on sessions for The Word, an adventurous marriage of gospel and "downtown" traditions with John Medeski and the North Mississippi Allstars. Interest picked up as he released on his own Dare label Live At The Wetlands, perhaps the most incendiary concert album of 2002, recorded on the fabled venue's closing night with the Family Band that includes two of his cousins. All of this has set the stage for Unclassified, Randolph’s aptly titled, genre-defying Warner Bros. debut, co-produced by Robert Randolph and the Family Band and Jim Scott. Now, in the great tradition of Handy Park as a gathering place for musicians of all types, Randolph will present his own mixture of Blues, Gospel, Jam, Jazz, Rock, and more. W. C. Handy himself would approve.
Event Info:
Doors open at 8pm, with opening act Citizen Cope www.citizencope.com Produced by Resource Entertainment Group Tickets available at Tater Red’s on Beale and select Cat’s Records locations, and through www.ticketweb.com SOURCE Resource Entertainment Group []Similar |
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