Monthly Archives: October 2012

Authoritative swamp-pop groove

Rick Massimo, The Providence Journal

American roots outfit The Mystix play Chan’s in Woonsocket Saturday night.

The Mystix have been together for three years, but the members have been getting around for the past few decades at least…

…And they do it with the relaxed, no-nonsense groove and grace of seasoned pros who know their way around the music; you can hear it in the authoritative swamp-pop groove of “Good Deal Lucille,” the sweet slide guitar on the original “Roll of the Dice,” the minor-key foreboding of “Gamblin’ Man” and more.

The Mystix have been together for three years, but the members have been getting around for the past few decades at least.

Keyboardist Tom West has played with Susan Tedeschi and Peter Wolf; bassist Marty Ballou has been with John Hammond, Edgar Winter and Duke Robillard; drummer Marty Richards has played with Robillard, Gary Burton and The J. Geils Band; guitarist Bobby Keyes has had a long session career, including records with such seemingly unlikely names as Robin Thicke, Mary J. Blige, Lil’ Wayne and Jerry Lee Lewis; and singer and guitarist Jo Lily was with the Boston-area R&B legends Duke and the Drivers.

And on their third disc, Down to the Shore, which comes out April 1, the band revives some of the better known and lesser known names in the American roots firmament, such as Pops Staples, Porter Waggoner and Georgie Riddle, along with some traditionals (“We Are Almost Down to the Shore”) and some originals by Lily and Keyes.

And they do it with the relaxed, no-nonsense groove and grace of seasoned pros who know their way around the music; you can hear it in the authoritative swamp-pop groove of “Good Deal Lucille,” the sweet slide guitar on the original “Roll of the Dice,” the minor-key foreboding of “Gamblin’ Man” and more.

Ballou says it’s a mixture of “every damn thing,” and if by that he means electric roots music he’s right. “It’s just American. Roots American is where it comes from. … We just put everything in we can think of.”

So where in this day and age does Lily find this stuff? A variety of places. “I’m really into that,” he explains, “like a stamp collector.” He lives in Newburyport, Mass., and plugs the local record store, Dyno Records, “where the guy really knows his [stuff]. And I’ve always got my ears up.”

As well as old-fashioned record-store trolling, the Internet is a source of material, Lily says. Once he discovered the Dust to Digital series, for example, “I got the box set, and I was gone for two months on that stuff.”

While the commercial sphere for this kind of music may be shrinking, in some ways it’s healthier than ever, Lily says. “The catalogs are out there, amazingly enough. Even though people in the music business only seem to be interested in who’s going to win American Idol, there are ears that are still there.”

Lily says that he and Keyes had known each other and played together for years before Keyes moved to Los Angeles. When Keyes returned, Lily took songwriting lessons from him and began sitting in with Keyes’ band.

Lily, referring to the rest of the band, says he “knew of them, but I didn’t know them,” and calls them “a pretty top crew of the local talent,” though he adds that it’s a fully integrated band now: “It isn’t just a sideman jam thing anymore; we don’t just hand people charts.”

The future of the band is a combination of local shows and international record sales. “We sell as well internationally as nationally,” Lily says. “I haven’t been to Europe, but I want to hear the radio shows!”

As for live playing, Ballou says they’re heading for “listening rooms” in the region. Lily adds that they’ll take the occasional festival if it looks like a good time, but “To go across the country and do the bars? I did it already in Duke and the Drivers 40 years ago. It’s over!”