Some voices are made for the blues among them is Alexis P. Suter leader of the aptly titled Alexis P Suter Band! Alexis who calls Brooklyn NY has IT when it comes to the blues and it on display in full force in the band’s sixth release Love the Way You Roll The Blues Music Association agrees, in 2012 she was a nominee for the Soul Blues Female Artist of the Year. I don’t think that the nomination will be her last and it won’t be too long before she wins the award!! The first time she shared the stage with B.B. King he said this about Alexis…
“It’s a rare thing to share the stage with great talent like that young lady.”
Levon Helm said the following about Alexis,
“She is one of those wonderful spirits, she’s got her arms around you; you can feel that,”
Over 90 times The Alexis P Suter Band has opened the show at The Midnight Ramble in Woodstock, NY. They have been special guest openers for The Levon Helm Band, and played to sold-out audiences at the Beacon Theater, Bethel Woods Center For The Arts, The Paramount Theatre in Asbury Park, NJ and Central Park’s Summerstage. They have also traveled throughout the US playing at…….
The 50th Annual Philadelphia Folk Festival, Bluestock, Musikfest, Beale Street Music Festival, Mont Tremblant Music Festival, Cincinnati Blues Festival, FloydFest, Kitchener Blues Festival, Briggs Farm Blues Festival, Pocono Blues Festival, Vermont Blues Festival, Salmon Arm Roots and Blues Festival, Columbia Blues Festival, Tampa Bay Blues Fest and many, many more.
While I really enjoyed Alexis’ truly phenomenal bass/baritone vocals, as I listened to the album, what really made the album special for me was the searing lead guitar of Jimmy Bennett. I even thought I heard some organ on a couple of the tracks! The rest of the band consisting of drummer Ray Grappone, bassist Peter Bennett and backing vocalist Vicki Bell are pretty damn good too! By the way, Ray Grappone and Vicki Bell are also the principal owners and sound engineers at Hipbone Records, the label that has released Alexis’ last several albums.
On the album Love the Way You Roll, Alexis wrote or co-wrote 8 of the 12 tracks. Having never had the opportunity to see the band live, I can only take others words of others that the collection of songs featured on the album capture the live feel of Alexis and her band. I love the opening track “Nuthin’ in the World”and well all the rest until the album closes with Slim Harpo’s “Shake Your Hips” which makes you want to do just that!!
Alexis has related in an interview that
“I think singing has been a type of therapy for me,”….., “because I’ve been through so much in my life and the one thing I could always turn to was music. It’s like religion, I guess, because in music as well, I could always find something that seemed to be custom-made for my situation in life.”
And I think that the Alexis P Suter Band is musical therapy for the listeners, too So here’s Alexis and the Band serving up some musical medicine as the perform one of my favorite songs “Killing Floor” at The Falcon. Capture’s the spirit of the band doesn’t it?? There’s even some keyboards from Benny Harrison. So Check Out the Alexis P Suter Band!!
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