Erica Brown Band ready to go national in Memphis

By Kat Valentine
Special to The Denver Post

Article Last Updated: 12/06/2007

Denver's Erica Brown Band is heading to Memphis. Last month, the local blues band won the final round of a statewide competition organized by the Colorado Blues Society, and now the group is gearing up to represent Colorado at the International Blues Challenge held in Memphis in January.

"This is like the 'American Idol' of blues," vocalist Erica Brown explained. "The IBCs are extremely important to us. It's a showcase for musicians who are on the verge of hitting the national stage, and it's one of those visibility things. If you've got it, you'd better bring it."

Brown and her band went through three rounds of competition with 20 other Colorado blues bands in the past few months to win the opportunity. Several rounds in October led up to last month's finals, and now the band is busy working on preparing for the national competitions, which begin Jan. 31 in Memphis.

Last year's International Blues Challenge drew more than 100 bands, which were whittled down over three days of eliminations to determine winners in three different categories, including best band, best solo/duo act, and best self-produced CD.

"For me, winning would mean the recognition of what we've been working toward for the last 10 years," Brown said. "We've wanted to take this national all along. And we'd love to get with a good label and great booking agency. We're ready to go, and we want and need that credibility."

The next step for Brown and the band is to whip up some new original material for the competition.

"The guys have been woodshedding on a bunch of new stuff," she said. "We want to have a bunch of really good originals. You can get to the competition by playing cover tunes, but they really want to see originals at the national level."

Want to check out the latest songs from the Erica Brown Band? Catch one of their next two gigs before they retreat into hard-core rehearsals in January. They'll play Herb's Hideout (2057 Larimer St.) on Dec. 21 at 9:30 p.m. ($5) before headlining New Year's Eve at Jazz @ Jack's (500 16th St.) on Dec. 31 ($50).

 

 

BluesWaxSittin' In With Erica Brown

Meeting Erica Brown
by Bob Margolin

This guy walks into a bar...OK, I’m the guy, and the bar is in the Boulder Outlook Hotel which has become a significant “home of the Blues” in Colorado. I walked in to do my gig, with Al Chesis and the Deltasonics, but another musician, one of the bartenders, and Dan King the clubowner all told me: “Erica Brown is here – if you invite her to sit in, you’ll be glad you did...”

With those endorsements, it seemed we’d at least do OK, but remember, I’m that “guy who walks into a bar,” and this joke’s on me because Erica Brown kicks major booty on the bandstand. I, the band, and the audience were thoroughly knocked out by her singing, her commanding stage presence, and the spirit of spontaneous good times that she brings to the stage. While she was sitting in, we all got caught up in her music, nothing hurt, and I knew I’d made a new friend.

I’ve written a few stories about the thriving Blues scene in Colorado. Here’s another one, as I promised after raving to you about Erica Brown last November. Since then, I’ve been back to Colorado again and spent more time getting to know Erica and came to find that her ability to sit in with musicians she didn’t know and make a nightclub her own is a gateway to the original music she makes with the Erica Brown Band –her musical partners, not sidemen – and the intelligent and soulful musician that she is.

Bob: I’m sure that your power to lead a band and move an audience didn’t begin when I met you last October! Tell us how your music and career have grown.

Erica: It’s been quite a ride, Bob. From the time I really started getting in up to the elbows in this art form, it’s been a learning experience. I’m in bondage to the blues, but it’s a labor of love, believe me! The EBB’s music and career has grown by leaps and bounds. For this band, the sky’s the limit! In five years I want to see myself onstage holding my arms out to an arena full of people, and just feeling the love coming back.

My personal career has grown because not only have my fellas stepped out on faith and invested everything in me, I’ve been welcomed by many top-notch blues players such as yourself, who have brought me onto their stages so I could be seen by a larger audience. It’s always a gamble when a musician does that, because they’re inviting an unknown quantity, but I try every time to justify that trust, and just leave it all on the stage and leave the audience wanting more. I learn something from every person I play with. It’s like being in Blues Graduate School…so I guess I’m working on my Ph.B!

For me, I just go up and do what I do, but the thing is, that the minute I hit the stage, something else takes over that I cannot define. But whatever that something is, it takes me on a ride of its own. I get compared by fans to Tina Turner a LOT in my band’s stage show, but I know it’s because I’m just “recycling” the energy I get from my fellas and the audience. For example, I change clothes every set of my show. I’ve changed clothes in more bathrooms than I care to count! When I started doing it, it was because I thought it was cool, and nobody else in our area was doing it, and I’m probably a ridiculously vain woman anyway (grin). Many of our fans come to see us because they want to see “what all I’m wearing tonight” in addition to gettin’ their groove on. But it’s all about the entertainment too.

My career continues to grow because I believe that the audience is coming to get something they can’t get anywhere else, and it’s up to me to deliver. People want to be visually excited as well as aurally excited. It’s my responsibility to give them a show worthy of the hard-earned money they shelled out at the door-and in this economy, that’s saying a lot! Speaking of which, if I could get back all the money I’ve spent on dry-cleaning my outfits over the years, I probably wouldn’t have to work! Ha! But seriously, there are so many ways folks can spend their entertainment dollars, and I truly feel honored that they choose to spend it on us.

Bob: Listening to your CD’s, it’s obvious to me that you work closely with your band as part of it, rather than in a situation where they just back you up. Tell us about your band, what the players bring, and how you all work together.

Erica: I think things have happened the way they have because myself, Scotty (Rivera, Drums, Lead and background vocals), Rich (Sallee, Bass and Background Vocals) and Jim (Ayers, keys, Hammond and Background Vocals) have all committed to staying together to stick this thing out and see how far we can take it, and we’ve been together eight years now, with no signs of slowing down. We are all artists that believe in trying to give the fans who love blues the best we can EVERY time, and folks see and hear that and continue to support us to the national level we’re trying to achieve.

However, I must say that even though I had been on the front line of some successful outfits before the EBB, I had never LED a band before, and I credit Scotty, Rich and Jim with teaching me how to best do that. Fortunately I had the good sense to listen! But they are also all truly dedicated to the blues and saw the raw talent I had and knew that with a little work, we’d have a unit that could stand up with the best. So they threw themselves into making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear! (which reminds me yet AGAIN that this girl still gots’ ta’ lose that extra ten pounds from the holidays!)

The reason we all work so well together is the synergy we create as a unit. We’ve been described as “telepathic” and it frequently feels that way. An important disclaimer here, though. Even though I’m the front person for this group, I don’t make unilateral decisions about what happens with us. We are truly a democratic body that makes no decisions that the others have not passed on. We’re brothers and sisters in the best sense of the words, which to me means we laugh, cry, fight, and everything else families do. There are times when I see the guys more than their spouses do (although the ladies may take that as a blessing when you’re working with guys as strong-willed as mine!) but I truly, truly cannot and would not want to imagine my life without them. All of my fellas have worked with some of the best in the business, and have learned their craft inside and out. They are musicians without peer, in my book, and can handle anything thrown at them For instance, In summer 2004, they traveled to the Trinidaddio and backed up Big Jack Johnson, Toni Lynn Washington, AND Junior Watson all in the same day!! And again just last year, (summer 2006) the three of them backed up Ms. Heaven Davis for her performance at the Trinidaddio Blues Festival AFTER we did our own set. I believe Scotty and Rich had had only one rehearsal with her, and Jim had none at all! That is a true testament to the ability they all possess. I was so proud of them I could have just exploded!

Bob: You seem to be known and loved in Colorado, and ready to expand beyond being a “regional” band. What would you like to see happen?

Erica: Scotty and I talked about this one, and he says he’d like to see more venues in other states open their arms to us and get us in their rooms, and on their festivals, and figuring out how to possibly partner with a respected booking agency, and label or other organization that will help us with the “upward cred” we need to get on the shows we need to be seen on to continue to move forward. We want to take this thing on the road as quickly as can become financially feasible for us, and we are constantly trying to figure out the logistics of doing it without having to eat ramen noodles and peanut butter sandwiches every day (smile). We realize we may be one of those bands that you truly don’t “get” until you’ve seen us live. But once again, it has to do with the energy we create, and the ability we have to put it out there and get it back. We want to take this thing all over the USA!

Bob: You told me about the challenge of beating vocal cord cancer, one of the most threatening and challenging diseases for a person, especially a singer. Thank God you prevailed. Do you want to share your success story with us?

Erica: You know, God gives gifts to certain of his children, and I truly believe I have been given one of those. My gift was a second shot at being a vocalist, and I fully intend to try to live up to the faith God has in ME, as well as everyone out there who has supported me. But, it underscores something I read in a book one time. If you don’t know you can’t do something, isn’t it entirely possible you’ll do it in absolute defiance of physical law? That was really brought home to me when I watched a DVD called “Lightning In A Bottle” and saw the performance of Hubert Sumlin. The man had just had a LUNG removed and was up onstage playing like a 20 year old!! He said “God ain’t done with me yet” and that’s the way I feel. I’m five years down the road now, with no signs of recurrence and have been “officially” declared “cured”. God continued to bless me and put some of the best physicians and voice care specialists in the country in my path on my way back to wellness, and I’m better now than I was 20 years ago! It’s like being a whole new me! However, I also committed to better health overall, because I want to have a long, long career. With the very vigorous stage show that I have, I better be healthy!

I was recently at a favorite music hangout of mine that books lots of eclectic bands, and the band that took the stage for that evening was a VERY loud metal band. Now there was a time when I’d have just sucked it up, dealt with the noise, and stayed to support the band. However nowadays, I have to put my own health first. I could tell from the volume going on that my ears would be ringing the next day if I stayed, so I went home. Stuff like that.


Bob: While you could just stick with Blues music and do well, your interests seem to range farther. How did your interests develop, and where are they going now?

Erica: Gee…I’ve been exposed to so many different styles and had a chance to try quite a few. It’s that thing again…nobody told me I couldn’t or shouldn’t do styles like country, so I tried it and loved it! Ditto for the electronica band I was in. We were signed to a label that later folded, but it was a wild and profitable ride while it lasted! However, blues is where my heart and head have always been, but I had to get out there and dabble my foot in a few other waters before I got back there.

Where I’m going now? Well, the EBB as a unit is going to go as far as we can and we hope we can continue to share stages with our friends and peers and bring our brand of blues to larger and larger audiences! We’re just ready to go! We’re getting back in the studio shortly to get the new CD out, and we hope everyone will receive it as graciously as they have the other ones. I’m going to the Blues Music Awards this May, and am really looking forward to seeing and meeting so many folks I’ve read about in BluesWax and Blues Revue, and soaking up what they have to offer. It’s a glorious feeling when you’re in a roomful of people who share the love for blues that you do! I’d also really like to guest on more CDs of people I respect, and would love to extend the invitation to more of them!

Bob: I always ask the women artists that I interview: For you, what have been the advantages and disadvantages of being a woman leading a band and finding her way through the music business?

Erica: I know this may sound simplistic, but I have to say that there have as yet been no disadvantages. It’s a process where when you have made the thing the best it can be, if it’s done in sincerity and with genuine respect for your audience, then you will prevail in what you’re trying to do. I’ve been blessed with that intangible “thing” in my voice that makes people want to listen to it. HUGE advantage. Now, what I will say is that convincing certain sectors in the business that what you’re doing is worthy of being shared with a larger audience is a challenge, but not a disadvantage because we have full faith in what we’re doing. We’re just one “no” closer to that “yes!”

Finding my way through the business of the business has been easier for me than for some because my guys have a great deal of knowledge in that arena, and have been teaching me as we go along. I have learned that I can be an agreeable person without being a pushover, although it’s a fine line to walk sometimes. However, we have and will always present ourselves as a professional unit, and have been respected as such. Then when folks such as yourself come along that are veritable sinkholes of knowledge, and you are so willing to share that knowledge, it increases me an hundredfold! How can I miss?

Bob: Thanks, Erica, I don’t get called a sinkhole every day, but if it fits...Uh...In closing, is there anything you’d like to tell BluesWax’ large audience of music lovers?

Erica: I’d like to first thank everyone out there for your support of magazines and online pubs such as BluesWax and Blues Revue. They are invaluable to bands like us that want and need to keep taking the pulse of what’s going on out there, and we appreciate your support! And all our love to the fans who are the backbone of any effort like ours. We love you!

Bob, turning to you: So, you’ve been warned. The warm, confident, and passionate spirit of Erica Brown that you find here is reflected in her live and recorded performances. I think we all have a lot to look forward to from The Erica Brown Band.

You can hear clips of their songs at http://www.ericabrownband.com/music.html as well as full songs on http://www.myspace.com/ericabrownband.

 

 

Excerpt from article “Blues Thrives on Higher Ground” by Bob Margolin
BluesWax Online Magazine
December 14, 2006

(http://blueswax.com)

“A little way into our last set, our host, Dan, tipped me that singer Erica Brown from down the road in Denver was in the house and I should call her up to sit in. Maybe because I was already having such a good weekend, I wasn't expecting it to go even farther. I did not know Erica Brown, but certainly trusted Dan and immediately invited her up to the bandstand. She proceeded to tear the house down, leading the band expertly and improvising a show with us that the audience loved. It was so much fun it must have been illegal, and it showed. We all need to get to know Erica Brown better - I'll be interviewing her for BluesWax soon.” Bob Margolin is a senior contributing editor at BluesWax. You may contact Bob at blueswax@visnat.com.

BluesWax is the largest Blues publication in the world. It is delivered via email to nearly 100,000 subscribers around the world each week. It is only sent to subscribers and maintains a strict privacy policy and never shares its subscribers' information; just the Blues in your box each week. Visionation. Ltd. is the publisher of Blues Revue, BluesWax, FolkWax, and Comix View.

 

Rocky Mountain News

“Top of the Rocky” Special Edition

September 08, 2006

TOP BLUES MUSICIAN

Erica Brown
www.ericabrownband.com

Why it's tops: It’s one thing to sing the blues, it’s another to sing them with the energy of Brown. Catch the Erica Brown Band and hear for yourself. The vocalist and her hard-working quartet don’t take any gig off — we saw them at a mid-day show over Memorial Day weekend and they were burning like midnight in the afternoon heat.

 

ten days to live
Round two with the blues
Hillside Gardens host second annual blues fest
The Colorado Springs Independent, Sept 16, 2004
by Matthew Schniper

The Erica Brown Band headlines Hillside Gardens’ blues fest on Sunday.
Are you a blues enthusiast? Did you make the pilgrimage to Trinindaddio last month? Is there a little room left in your soul for more? You won't have to drive far this weekend; the party's in our back yard this time.

The second annual Pikes Peak Blues Summit joins Hillside Gardens this Sunday in presenting nine aching hours of blues music to hungry ears and thirsty eyes.

The Erica Brown Band will headline the summit, joining us from Denver's underground blues scene. Brown is rumored to still be trying to wipe the smile from her face after receiving a standing ovation at the Pikes Peak Center last February when she opened for B.B. King. Her repute in the land is growing, and she's developing a significant fan base here in southern Colorado from which to springboard into national fame.

Ahead of Brown's band, the original Bijou Street Blues Band will reunite on their old stomping grounds. Members are flying in from around the country just days prior to the blues fest for a few practice sessions before their set. These cats have played together long enough to tighten up quickly and still put on a memorable show -- they aim to welcome themselves home in style.

Another special offering will be Easy Bill and the Big Beats, heading down from the Mile High City, where they tend to a loyal flock of swing dancers and roots rockers. Their sound has been roughly categorized as a mix of classic jump blues and R & B spiced with contemporary hints.

The Triple Threat Blues Review, featuring Smokin' Joe, Magic Dave and Joanne Taylor, take the stage prior to the Bijou reunion. These names are far but new to locals; they play all over town and have become synonymous with solid local blues.

Other players and participants include The Voodoo Hawks, Blue Suburban, The Jukes, and Mike Nelson and the Motel Kings. In between these main performances, expect some acoustic duos and smaller 'tweener acts to entertain during set changes -- silence on the main stage will be a rarity.

All of this year's Blues Summit acts hail from Colorado.

"I wanted to keep it local because we already have so much talent here," said Walter Chase, organizer of the event and member of the Bijou Street Blues Band. "Last year there was an incredible turnout and great support for the music; this year should be no different. We're expecting a tremendous day with good blues in a beautiful place."

-- Matthew Schniper

 

Brown-Eyed Soul
Backed by a talented cast of characters, Erica Brown is happy about the shape she's in.
Westword, January 22, 2004
By Dave Hererra

I've had men that weren't this good," declares Erica Brown, rubbing her hands together and raising an eyebrow. She's two forkfuls into a heaping slab of cherry cheesecake.

Adorned in reading glasses and a simple T-shirt and jeans, the singer, who is so elegant on stage, looks more like a librarian than a showstopping diva. But a few minutes later, when Brown starts humming along with Sam Cooke's "You Send Me," her vocal prowess is unmistakable.
click here to read the rest

 

Boulder Daily Camera

“Locals Only” by Matt Sebastian
December 19, 2003

Denver's Erica Brown is so giddily effusive that it's hard to believe she's got the blues. Yet listen to Brown fronting her eponymous band — a high-energy blues-rock act — and it's easy to see there's a real fire behind her roaring vocals.
click here to read the rest

 

Westword Hit Pick
Erica Brown
BY CATALINA SOLTERO
Catalina.Soltero@westword.com

It's no surprise that Erica Brown once won a Tina Turner impersonation contest; her larger-than-life personality sets ablaze each stage she steps on. Click here to read the rest

 

Article Published: Sunday, July 20, 2003
Best of the Underground 2003

The top 10

For the third year, The Denver Post polled 50 local-music insiders to determine which underground bands most deserve more mainstream attention.

Best of the rest by genre

Blues:Erica Brown Band

Click here to read the whole articlee on the Denver Post website

 

WESTWORD MAGAZINE
BACKWASH BY LAURA BOND
JUNE 12, 2003
Over the past four years, I've written more than 200 installments of Backwash and seen more local shows than I can begin to remember.
Click here to read the rest

 

Denver Post Nightlife Section
May 16, 2003:

Blues at Bluebird
Blues fans might want to head to the Bluebird Theater for the Tinsley Ellis show tonight, featuring charismatic local blues singer Erica Brown as the opening act. The Erica Brown Band is celebrating the recent release of its "Rough Cut Stone" CD, an upbeat blues collection that showcases Brown's perfectly throaty, rough-but-soulful vocals.