The Reprobates, a passionate blues-rock band from Winchendon, has received accolades from blues greats such as Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, John Lee Hooker and Robert Lockwood.
The band has re-formed with renewed conviction to funk and blues, according to show organizer Steve Gaetz of Leominster. Roadside Prophet comprises seasoned veterans from the New England music scene, including Barry Fitzpatrick on guitar, but minus the late founding member Charlie Downs. She says she is still too sad to perform a song she wrote and dedicated to her mother, called “Someday You Will Come Home,” so on Friday, the band will focus on New Orleans, Chicago and Delta blues. Fujii has since joined a metal band, “Knight Storm,” which performs mostly in New Hampshire. Besides taking an emotional toll, she said, it created six months of uncertainty for the band in scheduling shows and making the new CD. Blues and gospel artists also seek success. While significantly influenced by such sources, R&B also differs in that those songs are written with the deliberate goal of crafting a hit. The recent death of Fujii's mother meant several trips back and forth to Japan during the illness. Rhythm & blues also known as R&B is an African-American commercial music genre with distinct roots in traditional blues and gospel music. The Tramps have four CDs under their belts, and are set to start recording a fifth this fall. Two years ago - on the road again - they represented a blues society from Ohio at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, driving from Ohio to Memphis and taking in the Mississippi Delta while they were at it. They have played all around New England and have twice been semi-finalists in annual Boston Blues Challenges. His ambition is to make it big in the U.S.įujii and Nakagawa met in Boston, with Fukuyama joining them in 2007. Strongly influenced by jazz and classical music, he took up piano at age 5 and percussion at 12. Their drummer, Kosei Fukuyama,, from Sapporo, Japan, studied music at Berklee in Boston, after his father encouraged him to go out and see the world. She quit her day job, and much to her parents' dismay, moved to the U.S.
A four-week vacation in New York City sealed the deal. The Tramps, along with the Reprobates, a pop-rock band and Roadside Prophet, a recently reunited group that plays soul, New Orleans-style funk, and rhythm and blues, will perform in a triple-bill split show Friday at the Bull Run.įujii, who left Tokyo in the 1990s after studying law and advancing in a lucrative career at an advertising firm, said while she has been singing and playing piano and bass since she was young (at parties and weddings), she could not hack the gender-inequality in her homeland, both at her job and in the music world. Care for a little sushi with your barbecue? A Japanese blues band is a novelty, but the Tokyo Tramps, led by the husband-and-wife team of Satoru Nakagawa and Yukiko Fujii on guitar, bass and vocals, manage to combine American blues and roots music with an Asian twist.įor example, the Tramps use the polite lyric: “I am concerned” in place of something like, say, “Damn right I got the blues!”
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