Melvin Seals at the Boom Boom Room

[Dave Pierce]

Last night I went to see Melvin Seals' Rhythm Factory at John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Room in San Francisco. Melvin was the B3 player with Jerry Garcia's solo project, the Jerry Garcia Band.

 

Good show. The house B3 at the Boom Boom always sounds sweet. The band was kind of a groove-oriented jam band, or some such. They did mostly R&B and/or jazz influenced tunes, with very little vocals, and lots of solos. It was a 5-piece band, organ, drums, bass, guitar and sax. The sax player was very hot. The guitar player was moderately annoying, both because he was too loud in the mix, and because his hairstyle made him look like Shaggy from Scooby-Do.

 

Melvin smoked that B3. He's a hell of a player. He also had a Roland RD-700 on top of the B3 which he used for EP sounds.

 

I was with a friend of mine who has a day job, so we left at 1 am, the band was still playing.

 

Anybody else a fan of Melvin's work?

 

--Dave

[Dave Pierce]

Dang, no Melvin Seals fans? You guys should check him out, he's an awesome B3 player.

 

Jerry Garcia Band, "How Sweet It Is" album is a great starting point. His solo on "Like A Road" brings tears to my eyes.

 

Plus I steal his licks for my solos.

 

--Dave

[daBowsa]

Dave, I have the "How Sweet" album and agree with you 100%. He's everything you could ever want from a Blues/R&B B3 player - sweet, gigantic sweeping chords, thoughtful changes and ripping solos. Plus he looks the part - when he takes his seat behind the organ, no one ever doubts who's in control!