Harmonica Virtuoso Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers Rocks The House
Singer and harmonica player Rod Piazza will be performing in San Luis Obispo with The Mighty Flyers. The Cinders will be the opening act.
Rod Piazza is a blues veteran with legendary credentials. He fronted The Dirty Blues Band in the 1960s. He’s performed with many legendary blues figures. Now he fronts his award-winning current band The Mighty Flyers. Rod Piazza has set a standard for harmonica virtuosity, making him one of the most influential living blues harp players. He has consistently surrounded himself with players who bring out the best he has to offer. The core of his band has been together for over three decades, and developed the kind of musical telepathy that cannot exist without years of experience together.
Born in the 1940s, Piazza’s infatuation with blues began at a time when many of his mentors (George “Harmonica” Smith, Sony Boy Williamson, and Little Walter) were still in their prime years. By the 1970s, he had already released five albums, and was one of the leading players on the West Coast Blues scene. In the early ‘70s, he joined forces with Otis Spann disciple Honey Alexander (now his wife) on piano, and when they formed the Mighty Flyers his career really hit its stride. Since then Rod and the Mighty Flyers have won just about every award that can be bestowed upon a blues band, played literally thousands of gigs around the world, recorded over a dozen highly acclaimed releases, and virtually created a new style of blues - a combination of low-down Chicago grit, suave West Coast swing, and the rhythmic drive of the best early R&B and rock & roll.
Besides Rod and Honey, the Mighty Flyers includes Henry Carvajal on guitar and David Kida on drums. Their most recent CD is Almighty Dollar (Delta Groove, 2011), which continues the Mighty Flyers’ tradition of playing jump blues styles from the 1940s & 50s, with songs like Jesse Belvin’s “Baby Don’t Go” and Little Walter’s “Confessin’ the Blues.”
The Cinders are Brett Hoover, Dean Giles, Ken Hustad and Dorian Michael. They are a real blues band - a blues band of experienced musicians whose experience is the real essence of the music they play. If we take Chicago 1960 as a starting place and play that musical aesthetic with all the jazz, country, and rock & roll that each player has ingested and played in varying degrees in their musical lives, and allow all those influences to expand the original premise of the music in an organic way, then the resulting music is truly characteristic to this band. That’s the real meaning of “authentic”. The Cinders is an authentic blues band. And you can dance to them.
Rod Piazza & the Mighty Flyers and The Cinders will be performing on Saturday, March 2 at 8:00pm at the SLO Vets Hall (801 Grand Avenue). Tickets are $17 for Blues Society members and $20 for the general public. All tickets are sold at the door. SLO Dance offers free dance lessons at 7:30pm. 21 and over, please. For more information, call 805-541-7930 or visit our website at www.sloblues.org.
After 10 years Kaye Bohler returns to the San Luis Obispo Blues Society stage on Saturday, May 11. The show at the SLO Vets Hall (801 Grand Ave) opens at 8:00 pm with Code Blues. Tickets are sold at the door; 21 and over, please. Blues Society member tickets $17; general public $20. Free dance lessons by SLO Dance are available at 7:30pm.