Moses Oakland

Greatest blues band ever. I've seen them at Famous Dave's (the one in uptown) a couple times. They completely blow me away. Let's start with the lead guitarist/vocalist. He does NOT look like a blues musician. The guy wears overalls and a denim shirt, looks about 70 (or older) and has a massive gray beard, as well as a big pair of thick glasses. That, and he's white. But he has a blues voice, plain and simple. Deep, throaty, raspy, and perfectly in pitch and time are not usually all attributed to the same voice, but he has them all. Then his guitar solos were simply amazing. I've NEVER heard a better guitar player than he. The guy knows how to improvise, and his band knows how to back him up. This lets him play the most soulful, emotional sounds I've heard from an instrument. You can tell he's into it, because he sort of slinks to the ground while playing, completely lost in himself and the music. By the time he's done, he's laying completely prostrate on the stage, banging away on his axe. There are also times when he'll walk off the stage, and travel all about the restaurant (he has a wireless pickup), playing his solo while stopping at people's tables. Now, I don't know how much you know about this type of thing, but playing an improvised, complicated solo 150 feet away from your amp and band is TOUGH. The sound takes extra time to get to your ear, so you have to almost anticipate the noises coming from your amp, which is hard to do while playing fast.
The rest of the band is just as impressive. There are 4 others: another guitar, bass, keyboards, and drums. The other guitarist plays mostly rhythm, but has a few solos, which are almost as astounding as Farmer Joe's. The bass player is, for lack of any better words, funky. He knows his instrument, and he shows it. The keyboardist plays on a classic Hammond B3 most of the time. God, I love that rotary speaker sound. All these amazing instrumentalists come together to give a tight performance. You can tell they've been together for a long time. As a band, it would be simply impossible for them to be any better.
Go see them sometime at Famous Dave's on Sunday nights, 8 o'clock.
I give them 546 blues guitars out of 546 blues guitars.




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