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Steve Katz
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1757 Mt. Hope Ave (next to Rowe) 473-3724 • freewheelersbikes.com Bar & Lounge
inge! r F e h t nge of i r F e On Th Fri Sept 27: R-549 CHUCK MEAD
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& HIS GRASSY-KNOLL BOYS
Sat Sept 28:
MIKE BROWN & JOANNA BARBERA then GRAND CANYON RESCUE EPISODE
Tues Oct 1:
THE BARNYARD STOMPERS Wed Oct 2:
“THE ABILENE RAMBLE” with the
MIGHTY HIGH & DRY
Thurs Oct 3:
VICTOR & PENNY Fri Oct 4:
SELWYN BIRCHWOOD the WOMACK
with
FAMILY BAND Sun Oct 20: LEO & ANTHONY of the SAW DOCTORS 153 LIBERTY POLE WAY•232-3230
Rumi’s
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M E DITE R RAN EAN G R I LL
Spero che l’amore sia per sempre
JOIN US! Friday September 27th to have your fortune revealed to you by
Marina Melikhova
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2735 Monroe Ave. | Rochester, NY
585.242.7864 Mon-Thu: 11-9pm • Fri: 11-10pm Sat: 10-10pm • Sun: 10-9pm
RUMISGRILLCAFE.COM 14 CITY SEPTEMBER 25 - OCTOBER 1, 2013
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 28 LOVIN’ CUP, 300 PARK POINT DRIVE 9 P.M. | $10-$12 | LOVINCUP.COM, 2929940 [ PROFILE ] BY RON NETSKY
Some of us remember the time as if it were yesterday. Sitting in the bedroom of a friend’s home in the mid-1960’s, taking the brand new record from the album cover with the five hip-looking guys on it, and playing “Projections” by The Blues Project. A few years later we were putting the needle down on the hot new album by the first great rock Steve Katz played with influential bands The Blues Project, Blood, Sweat & Tears, and American Flyer. band with horns: Blood, Sweat & Tears. Now he’s touring solo — and loving it. PHOTO PROVIDED A common denominator in both bands was guitarist-singer Steve Katz. He’ll be playing some of both groups’ tunes and Being at the epicenter of hip in the 1960’s, couldn’t have heard a note but I got the job.” reminiscing about his experiences over five Katz witnessed the counter-cultural changes Kalb’s band was The Blues Project. decades in music at Lovin’ Cup on Saturday. first hand. “When I first went down there Katz spent most of his youth in New York Eventually, keyboardist Al Kooper and Katz left I was going to beatnik coffee houses,” says City. At 15 one record — “Robert Johnson: the band. Kooper planned to move to England Katz. “There were still people wearing berets, King of the Delta Blues Singers” — and one and decided he would raise money for the move playing bongos, and reading poetry. It was really book — Sam Charters’ “The Country Blues” by gathering his musical pals for a gig at the Café fantastic. I loved the poetry and the smells of — changed his life. “I was totally immersed in Au Go Go. But the audience didn’t show up, so empanadas and falafels on the street. Then the country blues,” says Katz. Kooper stayed. smells became marijuana, patchouli oil, and By his late teens, his family had moved to The consolation prize: that group of incense; the hippies came in.” Queens, but Katz found the gravitational pull musicians put together a band called Blood, It wasn’t long before he hooked up of Greenwich Village irresistible. Folk legend Sweat & Tears. Katz remembers the magic of musically with friends he met in Washington Dave Van Ronk was conducting hootenannies Fred Lipsius’ horn arrangements. at the Gaslight Café and Katz had to be there. Square, friends like Maria Muldaur, John “It was the first rehearsal at the Café Au Go Sebastian, David Grisman, Stefan Grossman, He began studying guitar with Van Ronk and Go,” says Katz. “When I sang ‘Morning Glory’ and Joshua Rifkin. another folk legend, Reverend Gary Davis. and the horns came in on the chorus… I’m “Some of us were into country blues “One of the first things I learned from standing there, the horns are behind me and the and some were into bluegrass and old-timey Van Ronk was ‘Candyman,’” says Katz. whole thing lifts from the verse to the chorus. music,” says Katz, “so we thought, is there “Dave taught it to me back-picking style. It was like, oh my God… It was the most some way we can play music together? We Then I went to see Rev. Davis and he incredible feeling I ever had.” ended up jamming on jug-band music.” They said, I’m going to show you this song, There’s a lot more for Katz to cover at formed the Even Dozen Jug Band and made ‘Candyman,’ but he taught me a style Lovin’ Cup. After he left BS&T, his next group, an album on Electra Records. where the thumb was not going in reverse. American Flyer, was produced by The Beatles’ Katz’s next chapter came when another I became a ‘Candyman’ expert.” producer George Martin. And Katz himself Katz will be playing “Candyman” at Lovin’ Van Ronk student, Danny Kalb, walked into produced two excellent albums for Lou Reed: Fretted Instruments, the store where he was Cup along with newer tunes like “Kettle Of “Rock n Roll Animal” and “Sally Can’t Dance.” teaching. Kalb said rhythm guitarist Artie Fish,” a song about those halcyon days in He recently spent three years touring with Traum was on vacation; would Katz like to Greenwich Village. a new incarnation of BS&T, but Katz spends audition for his band? “It was amazing,” says Katz. “I used to most of his time at his Connecticut home “This was after Dylan went electric, so go to Van Ronk’s apartment and Bob Dylan working with his wife on their pottery business. everybody started picking up an electric guitar,” would be sleeping on the couch while I was When he goes on the road these days, it’s just says Katz. “I said I don’t play electric. He said taking my lesson. One time I went up there him, his guitar and his stories. that’s OK, we’ll get a pickup for your guitar. But and Dylan wasn’t on the couch. He came in “It’s so much fun not to work with other when I plugged it in it was so loud, it sounded toward the end of my lesson with his new musicians for the first time in my life. It has a awful, so I turned it down to zero. When we album on Columbia. He said, ‘Look at this, freedom to it. I don’t have to worry if I add an were done he said, ‘I really like the way you the strings are backwards.’ You know, on his extra bar to a song. The drummer’s not going to played; you played some tasty things.’ He first album they reversed the photograph.” look at me like I’m crazy,” he says.