The joint was packed and jumping. It was shoulder to shoulder on a hot Rochester night when McKinley James took the Harro East Ballroom stage. The crowd came on like a groundswell. There was nothing standing between James and the nearly 1,000 voracious spectators except for his red guitar. He had missed freshman orientation at […]
JD McPherson
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I Scene It: Mickey James Duo at Harro East Ballroom
The death of Mickey Smay. Now don’t flip out, the kid’s not dead, but you gotta die in order to get reborn. And from my perch on the shores of a sea of about 600 people, I watched first hand this 15-year-old musician got reborn in rock ‘n’ roll, sanctified in the blues and soul. […]
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I Scene It: JD McPherson at Downstairs Cabaret
Is they is or is they ain’t? Well, it’s gotta be JD McPherson’s songs: tough little retro-fitted rock ‘n’ roll gems that come from the music’s red, white, black and blue early days of Chess or Sun. The days when Ike Turner still had some say in what was cool. If not, it’s definitely the […]
Posted inMusic
JD McPherson
For 29 of the 35 years that drummer Jason Smay has spent on the globe, his snappy beats have gotten asses out of seats and started them shaking. An amazingly solid, in-the-pocket performer, he’s kept time with an array of classic rock ‘n’ rollers. Smay has done time — and kept it — in groups […]
