Waterfront Blues Festival 2011: Honey Island Swamp Band
by Marc Nieman-Ross, Oregon Music News
** Tuesday July 5, 2011 **
In 1978, a friend introduced me to a band named “Little Feat”. I don’t remember the exact cassette he popped into the tape player in my Subaru Coupe as we traveled from St. Paul to Ely, Minnesota. But we played it over and over during the six hour trip, and by the time I had reached the North Woods, I was completely hooked on what we decided was “Barnyard Funk”.
Thirty-three years later, I’m watching Honey Island Swamp Band lay down the same difficult-to-describe but completely addicting funk that forces you to head-bob in a pseudo-reggae 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and… To an extent, they even look like what I remember…