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Flamin' Groovies in New Orleans (review)
SF Gate ^ | May 1st 2009 | Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Correspondent

Posted on 05/03/2009 7:58:03 PM PDT by a fool in paradise

...The San Francisco natives, who barely rate a second glance on the streets of their hometown, can't walk down the sidewalks of Paris without being stopped. At the House of Blues after midnight Wednesday, the band was greeted by an audience that cheered with recognition at the start of every song, sang along on the choruses and clearly knew the whole Groovies story.

But the Ponderosa Stomp is a special stage, a two-night festival-within-a-festival that has become something of a growing tradition between the two weekends of the annual New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fair, which closes its 40th annual edition this weekend.

These unsung heroes of rock 'n' roll sing at the Ponderosa Stomp, and special events like the Groovies reunion are part of the program. On Tuesday at the Stomp, Louisiana rockabilly wild man Dale Hawkins ("Suzie Q") and his original guitarist, James Burton...

Formed in 1965, the Groovies were largely ignored in San Francisco during the scene's heyday, although the band played as a last-minute substitute with Cream at the Fillmore and hung out with Led Zeppelin in Los Angeles. The Groovies' Carnaby Street fashion sensibilities and retro rock 'n' roll sound ran against the grain of the scene's blue jeans mentality.

Albums such as "Teenage Head," "Flamingo," "Super-snazz" and the band's own 10-inch collector's item album, "Sneakers," may not have sold much, but they gave the Groovies an enthusiastic following in England and Europe - "We're the most famous nonentities in the business," says Loney - partly because the band was the polar opposite of the Airplane/Dead axis of the San Francisco sound and stayed true to their rock 'n' roll code. Loney left the band in 1971 to pursue acting ambitions and express himself more fully as a creative person.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: History; Music/Entertainment
KEYWORDS: music; ponderosastomp; reunionconcerts; rockmusic
I truncated the article's claim that it was the first pairing of Mr. Hawkins and Mr. Burton in 52 years, they had performed a show together at the Stomp a few years earlier. And with excerpting, brevity was necessary...

This excerpt mostly deals with the background, interesting accounts of the show are in the article. I wish coulda been there...

1 posted on 05/03/2009 7:58:04 PM PDT by a fool in paradise
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To: a fool in paradise

2 posted on 05/03/2009 11:45:56 PM PDT by JoeProBono (A closed mouth gathers no feet)
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