Before today’s radio stations began to sound homogenous and sterile, and before “modern†songs and albums began failing to generate any soulful passion, there was a time when blues and soul met rock and roll and unleashed a Golden Age of music.
The roots of rock and roll grew from the seeds planted by the blues and other seminal styles. And the field where those seeds grew is where the band Sweet Blackberry Jam has sown its sound – a twin guitar-driven engine pushing soulful, soaring vocals and kept humming by a rock-solid rhythm section. These horses hit the stage running and do not know the meaning of “stop.â€
Sweet Blackberry Jam is much more than a cover band. An SBJ concert is the equivalent of listening to classic rock’s family tree. At every show the audience gets an aural lesson in where the music they love came from and more importantly, how a listener’s favorite bands were influenced by the very songs that SBJ is performing.
To that end, one shouldn’t come to an SBJ concert expecting to hear the Top Ten Billboard songs of the last 40 years, and requests for such songs will politely go unheeded. SBJ plays the kind of music that was born in Mississippi, came of age in south Chicago, rode the rails in Texas, spent time in jail in Alabama, and is now getting its second wind. If your interest is in the real roots of rock music – if you’re the kind of music aficionado who would buy a seminal album and listen to all the cuts, not just the radio hits – then Sweet Blackberry Jam is the band to spend some time with.
Otis Redding's "You Don't Miss Your Water"
