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Event
Mulebone
Mulebone is a musical partnership comprised of multi-instrumentalist, John Ragusa and roots music specialist, Hugh Pool. The grist for their mill is traditional blues. Together, Mulebone has recorded four critically lauded albums and achieved American Music Awards Top 100 with all but one. Their latest offering Keep on Movin earned the distinction of being the only independent release in the A.M.A. Top 40 for 5 weeks in 2015. Along with playing live and TV appearances, they won Blues artist of the year recognitions at radio stations from Seattle, Washington, to Red Bank, New Jersey, and Hugh Pool was inducted into the New York Blues Hall of Fame in 2016. Any given week may find them playing clubs in NYC or entertaining at private parties thrown by David Rockefeller, Bruce Wasserstein and list of other East Coast residents who are enthusiastic about bringing these boys in for a party by road, sea or air.
Together in Mulebone, Hugh and John play slide guitar boogies, one-chord trance riffs a la Howlin Wolf, the uptempo rags of Reverend Gary Davis, and country blues of all shapes and colors. Sometimes they play close to the source, almost as if tracing the image, and at other moments, they re-examine the source, float above it, take a new look as one understanding their home from a distant land.
Unlike most blues ensembles, Mulebone dispatches with the essence of that which defines the genre as known by the masses a rhythm section of bass and drums. Imagine a blues collective minus a bass line cobbled from Willie Dixon, coupled with a pounding back beat. Proclaims Pool: A duo is very sympathetic to an audience! People tell me God damn, thats a lot of music coming out of just the two of you. Our sound is backwoods and fairly primitive. But its deep, and its fresh. Theres a lot of athleticism in what we do. Tom Semioli, No Depression
John Ragusa can play anything he can put his lips onwait a minute.did I say that out loud? In Mulebone, John plays conch shell, Jews harp, cornet, all manner of flutes, tin whistle, and chimes in on the harmony vocals. He is member of Beth Nielsen Chapmans group as well as his own John Ragusa outfit, and plays regularly in conjunction with Deepak Chopras speaking engagements. Amongst dozens of studio credits are contemporary jazz greats Joe Taylor, Jeremy Wall, and world music icon Tom Zé.
Hugh says, One time we were in Lexington, Kentucky sitting at an outdoor cafe and John played me a bunch of melodies sliding a straw up and down in a cup of ice wateryou get the drift.
Hugh Pool plays guitars, harmonica, boot board and sings, all with a mouth full of whiskey and a giant heart. He has played his brand of blues in clubs and at festivals from Jakarta, Indonesia to North Cape, Norway; From Vienna, Austria to Ottawa, Ontario, and has been critically lauded by the New York Times, New York Press, the Village Voice, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Blues Revue Magazinethe list goes on.
He is also a noted recordist and producer who has worked on hundreds of records at his Williamsburg, Brooklyn studio, Excello Recording including sessions with Taj Mahal, Debbie Harry, Marshall Crenshaw, and even Molly Ringwald.
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LocationChenango Craftsman Houseconcert (View)
Address emailed after reservation
Binghamton, NY 13901
United States
Categories
| Kid Friendly: Yes! |
| Dog Friendly: No |
| Non-Smoking: Yes! |
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