Moving to New Orleans 20 years ago has been a boon for former Bostonian Joe Krown, but the popular keyboardist is returning to Beantown Friday night with one of his favorite projects, the trio he fronts with legendary guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington, and Meters drummer Russell Batiste, at Johnny D’s in Somerville’s Davis Square.
But this month also marks the release of Krown’s new album, “Exposed,” on which he plays five New Orleans classics along with seven of his own original tunes. The new album is Krown’s 11th since moving to ‘The Big Easy,’ but only his third solo outing. His incredible technique, swinging and funky, shines on covers by James Booker, Allen Toussaint, and Professor Longhair, among others. And it should be no surprise that Krown’s own compostions are equally lively, danceable and relentlessly fun.
As we’ve noted before, when Krown was living in Boston he was part of the rock band Sally the SophistiCats, with then-wife Sally Krown. After that band and marriage ended, Krown kept busy with a variety of gigs, until he joined Gatemouth Brown’s band around 1990, and soon moved to New Orleans. When not on the road with Gatemouth’s band, Krown discovered there were plenty of gigs for an ambitious young pianist who loved exploring the Crescent City’s vast musical heritage. He established regular weekly gigs, like the one he still as at the vaunted Maple Leaf club, as well as places like Le Bon Temps Roulet, Irvin Mayfield’s Playhouse, and the old Rock ‘n’ Bowl, and happily immersed himself in the New Orleans keyboard tradition.
Krown, 53, has become such a New Orleans fixture that he was hired to portray himself in a 2010 episode of the cable drama “Treme,” and had more of his music used for the series’ soundtrack. But for the past few years one of his best known gigs has been as leader of the trio with Washington, the engaging frontman and singer who leads his own blues band, and Baptiste, whose drumming has powered one of the city’s most enduring rb acts, The Meters.
“The big news is that Russell is going to be at Johnny D’s,” said Krown with a laugh from his New Orleans home, earlier this week. “This is our third time playing Johnny D’s, and our third swing through New England, but he had other commitments the previous two trips, so we had to use subs. We get tremendous drummers to fill in when that happens, but Russell is Russell, and there’s nothing quite like having the guy we play with all the time at home. The Meters still play quite a bit, so we are used to having Russell miss gigs. Of course, Wolfman has his own band too, so we have to work our schedule around that, because without Walter, who is the singer, we have no trio.”
“New Orleans still has a very healthy music scene,” Krown noted, “and we all get the chance for steady work here at home. I’m also pretty well hooked up in corporate and convention-type work. I don’t have to work 250 nights a year on the road. I’m good friends with the guys in the Honey Island Swamp Band (which played the Marshfield Fair’s Green Harbor Roots Blues Fest two years ago), and those guys live that life, doing more than 250 one-night gigs all over the country. But, they’re all single guys in their thirties. I’ve already done that, and I try more to have a good balance now, between time spent at home with my family and working locally, and a few tour dates–generally 50-100 a year now.”
The trio released its second album, “Triple Play,” last year and has proven to be a big hit in clubs all over the nation. But Krown devoted a lot of his spare time to pursuing his love of Crescent City piano styles, hence the solo album, which came out last week.
“This is my third solo record, and they all represent different things, at different times for me,” said Krown. “My first solo record (“Just the Piano, Just the Blues”) in 1997 was mainly blues and boogie woogie. In 2003 my second solo CD, “New Orleans Piano Rolls,” tried to give a variety of piano styles, from boogie woogie, stride, ragtime, and Professor Longhair. This latest one is sort of my own Professor Longhair style, with everything pointed right at a New Orleans feel.”
“Even when I lived in Boston I loved Dr. John and Professor Longhair,” Krown added. “When I came down here with Gatemouth, he was funny, since he was not a big fan of Dr. John. Gatemouth was an old friend of Professor Longhair’s, and he hated any musician who sounded like someone else. He thought Dr. John was just too influenced by Longhair, which of course he was. Gatemouth’s great claim to fame, like Longhair’s, was his own unique, distinctive style. So he always criticized people who sounded like anyone else. But a lot of people were influenced by, and copied, Professor Longhair.”
“For me, the New Orleans piano style is the key to a lot of the music down here,” Krown pointed out. “The roots are in barrelhouse, and of course boogie woogie, music that came from honky tonks, saloons, cathouses. The pivotal point is Professor Longhair, who knew that style but also loved ragtime, and studied classical. Professor Longhair had such a feeling for New Orleans, reflected in his music, which is boogie woogie with new things injected. It removes a lot of boundaries, and can go in any direction you want, funk, boogie woogie, stride, rumbas, and that syncopated left hand rhythm.”
“Now James Booker was another story,” Krown added, noting another Crescent City giant. “Booker just turned everything backwards. His music was wild, amazing to study. Like Fats Domino might do a double-up stride figure, Booker would do it with a new rhythmic twist, and you might study it and find that he’d just reversed it. Allen Tousaaint took Professor Longhair’s style and made it into popular music. When you look back at so many of these stars from this city that were also piano-based, like Irma Thomas, or Lee Dorsey’s music, you find it all came from Professor Longhair–who actually played on a lot of their sessions too.”
So the new solo disc is a personal tribute to the Longhair influence, and Krown’s originals are virtually indistinguishable in tone and creative spunk from the venerable Longhair, Booker, and Toussaint covers. Krown, who has also released albums where he fronts an organ trio, is convinced his fascination with the music of his adopted city can be delivered to music fans around the world. There’s a certain energy and openness in this music that makes you believe he’s probably correct, because it is above all, infectious and intoxicating.
“I like boogie woogie, obviously,” Krown said. “But since I don’t sing myself, I wanted to expand on it, and I felt I had a pretty good handle on the New Orleans groove. Take Henry Butler, for example, who really has a total New Orleans feel, and no boundaries. I recently heard Henry do a cover of the Beatles’ “Come Together,” and it was all so completely different than the original, yet also recognizable as their hit, with that special New Orleans feel to it.”
“The trio with Walter and Russell is where I play my most high-profile stuff,” krown noted. “That project has taken on a natural course of its own, and we’ve been building some momentum now after two albums with them. But I also wanted to re-establish my solo thing, and get that going too. I try to conjure up the guys I’m covering on this record, what they did and what they were trying to do. The first cut, for instance, (the title cut, “Exposed”) has a heavy Booker influence, but with some straight boogie woogie too. I’m just trying to honor the tradition, and put my own spin on it too.”
“I haven’t toured much as a solo in the United States since Hurricane Katrina,” Krown added. “But I have toured through Europe as a solo. I did a 2007 tour as a solo, with the Columbia Artists All Stars, where I’d open all alone with a set, then the North Mississippi All Stars would play, then I’d play with Mavis Staples’ band, and then also play with Charlie Musselwhite’s band. So I was playing the first set by myself, and then basically joining in with almost everyone else, so that was fun.”
But lest we digress too much more, Friday night’s late show (10 p.m.) at Johnny D’s finds Krown with his trio, with the other two Crescent City heavyweights. (Johnny D’s early (7:30 pm) show features Vineyard rockers Johnny Hoy the Bluefish.)
“I’d say ninety percent of my touring these days is with this trio,” said Krown. “This is the group that has the most appeal nationally–no doubt because Walter “Wolfman”Washington is a blues legend known to every music fan, and people know Russell Batiste because they’ve been dancing to the Funky Meters for decades. But my own career is going very strong, especially here in New Orleans, and I’m so fortunate to have all these outlets for my music.”
The cover charge for the 10 p.m. Krown show is $15, and more information can be found at www.johnnyds.com
COUNTRY SOIREE: Don’t forget the annual Massachusetts Country Music Awards Association awards show, this Sunday afternoon, 2-6 pm at All Seasons in Halifax.
COSTNER IN CRANSTON: Movie star Kevin Costner has a twenty-year love affair with music, and in that vein he and his band Modern West, which includes people he’s played with for those two decades, headlines the Park Theater in Cranston on April 7. In an interview on WPRI last week, Costner noted that one of his daughters went to Brown, and is still in Providence, playing in a trio called Keg Beans. Whether the daughter will want to sing a song or two with Costner and his quartet is not certain, with the actor joking that she might be too embarassed by dad’s country-rock. Costner’s upcoming project is a three-part mini-series on the History Channel, “Hatfields and McCoys,” due later this spring.