North Shore Sunday
August 17, 2007
Hold Onto Your Horns
By JC Lockwood
The Boston Horns, featuring Henley Douglas Jr. on sax, Garret Savluk on trumpet and guitarist Jeff Buckridge, have been burning
up stages with high-energy, hard-grooving funk since 1999. Whitfield is a rock and soul legend. Together, they should be an
unstoppable force.
The Horns have been tearing it up in one form or another — as a full band, as a hire-out section, as the Heavy Metal Horns and as
the Boston Horns — for the better part of two decades. They’ve had highs and lows, playing everywhere from divey Route 1 rat
holes to Wembley Stadium.
But the past year or so has been extraordinarily productive for the Salem-based funk band: The Horns have released not one but
three albums and done a mini-tour of Japan, where they’re treated, well, like rock stars.
And they’re fresh out of the studio with yet another album, a CD that ramps up the party by teaming up the six-piece, kick-brass
band with R&B brawler Barrence Whitfield. And they’ll be giving everybody a taste of what that is all about this Saturday, when the
Horns headline the first-ever Salem Jazz and Soul Festival with Whitfield as a special guest.
The daylong concert will recreate and renew the vibrant jazz scene that began at the Salem Willows in the ’20s, when Duke
Ellington and other big band heavyweights played the Charleshurst Ballroom — a time recalled in “Music Is My Mistress,” Ellington’
s autobiography. The free festival will feature local aces like Fats Hammond and Headshaft, as well as Bobby Keyes, a guy who
has worked with everybody from Jerry Lee Lewis and Sleepy LaBeef to Ben E. King and Martha Reeves.
No one knows exactly how it’s gonna play out, but one thing is certain, says Boston Horns saxman and longtime Witch City
resident Henley Douglas Jr.: “People are going to have their minds blown.”
The mind-blowing has been a long time coming. Douglas, one of the early advocates for the festival, had been talking about it for
about five years. This year, the people came out and jump-started the process. A committee of 12 started working in January, really
pushing the event.
“The word got out and people stepped up and said they would like to help — and really meant it,” Douglas says. And the city
stepped up to the plate, expediting the permit process. “It was amazing how receptive the city was to it.”
No one really knows what the weekend will bring. Douglas expects between 1,500 to 2,000 people to show up, “but there could be
way more than that,” he says. “You just don’t know.”
He’s been seriously underestimating the juice the festival has since the April fundraiser, featuring Whitfield, The Boston Horns,
Los Sugar Kings, Eric Reardon and Catfish Lucy. They hoped to draw maybe 200 people. “We got double that,” says Douglas, who
also fronts his own soul-funk group, Soul Force, and has also worked extensively with Vox Pop, an award-winning spoken word-
music ensemble. “We had to turn people away. It was cool. This was when I started thinking, ‘This might work.’” Same thing
happened with the Boston Horns Big Band, a 17-piece ensemble that played at the Peabody Essex Museum, and this week’s
reunion of the Heavy Metal Horns, the last in a series of events leading up to Saturday’s festival.
“This,” says Whitfield, “could be the start of something big.”
Savage buzz
The Horns-Whitfield collaboration was one of those “obvious” projects that nobody ever got around to doing: After all, both were
doing roots, both were based on the North Shore. It was a natural. “Finally it dawned on me,” says Douglas, “Duh, we should do
something together.”
“We wanted to play together for years; finding the time was always the problem,” says Whitfield. One night they got together and
jammed and “there was some electricity, some buzz-buzz going on,” says Whitfield.
The “buzz-buzz” spilled over to the recording sessions for the new Horns album, scheduled to be released in September.
“He tore it up completely,” says Horns trumpeter Garret Savluk.
Whitfield plays on four tunes on the disc. He does a James Brown medley of “Make It Funky” and “Giving Up Food for Funk,” which
also features a guest performance by Sam Kinninger of Soullive, who may make a guest appearance at the festival. He also sings
Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “A Real Mother for You” by Johnny “Guitar” Watson. All these tunes are likely on
the set list for the festival.
“It’s gonna be fun,” says the singer. “A huge audience gets to see Barrence Whitfield get funky again.”
It’s not exactly “back to the roots” for the Beverly-based singer, best known for his work with his rock band Barrence Whitfield and
the Savages. “I never left the roots,” he says. “It’s more like getting back to the funk” — and back to his youth in New Jersey. “It’s
bringing back some cool memories and lots of things to work with. Little Richard, Funkadelic, James Brown: It’s all from the same
vein. For me, it’s like going back home.”
For the Horns, the collaboration “gives us a whole different dimension,” says Savluk. “It lets us kick up the party a little bit.”
“I think people are going to be blown away because they haven’t heard Barrence sing soul in a long time,” says Douglas.
Over the years, organizers believe, the festival will become a self-sustaining entity. For now, though, they’re just hoping for good
weather and a good time.
“It’s a serious, good-time party thing,” says Douglas. “I always want the people at the shows to have fun, and feel good. I like to see
smiling faces out there.”
E-mail J.C. Lockwood at jlockwoo@cnc.com.
August 17, 2007
Hold Onto Your Horns
By JC Lockwood
The Boston Horns, featuring Henley Douglas Jr. on sax, Garret Savluk on trumpet and guitarist Jeff Buckridge, have been burning
up stages with high-energy, hard-grooving funk since 1999. Whitfield is a rock and soul legend. Together, they should be an
unstoppable force.
The Horns have been tearing it up in one form or another — as a full band, as a hire-out section, as the Heavy Metal Horns and as
the Boston Horns — for the better part of two decades. They’ve had highs and lows, playing everywhere from divey Route 1 rat
holes to Wembley Stadium.
But the past year or so has been extraordinarily productive for the Salem-based funk band: The Horns have released not one but
three albums and done a mini-tour of Japan, where they’re treated, well, like rock stars.
And they’re fresh out of the studio with yet another album, a CD that ramps up the party by teaming up the six-piece, kick-brass
band with R&B brawler Barrence Whitfield. And they’ll be giving everybody a taste of what that is all about this Saturday, when the
Horns headline the first-ever Salem Jazz and Soul Festival with Whitfield as a special guest.
The daylong concert will recreate and renew the vibrant jazz scene that began at the Salem Willows in the ’20s, when Duke
Ellington and other big band heavyweights played the Charleshurst Ballroom — a time recalled in “Music Is My Mistress,” Ellington’
s autobiography. The free festival will feature local aces like Fats Hammond and Headshaft, as well as Bobby Keyes, a guy who
has worked with everybody from Jerry Lee Lewis and Sleepy LaBeef to Ben E. King and Martha Reeves.
No one knows exactly how it’s gonna play out, but one thing is certain, says Boston Horns saxman and longtime Witch City
resident Henley Douglas Jr.: “People are going to have their minds blown.”
The mind-blowing has been a long time coming. Douglas, one of the early advocates for the festival, had been talking about it for
about five years. This year, the people came out and jump-started the process. A committee of 12 started working in January, really
pushing the event.
“The word got out and people stepped up and said they would like to help — and really meant it,” Douglas says. And the city
stepped up to the plate, expediting the permit process. “It was amazing how receptive the city was to it.”
No one really knows what the weekend will bring. Douglas expects between 1,500 to 2,000 people to show up, “but there could be
way more than that,” he says. “You just don’t know.”
He’s been seriously underestimating the juice the festival has since the April fundraiser, featuring Whitfield, The Boston Horns,
Los Sugar Kings, Eric Reardon and Catfish Lucy. They hoped to draw maybe 200 people. “We got double that,” says Douglas, who
also fronts his own soul-funk group, Soul Force, and has also worked extensively with Vox Pop, an award-winning spoken word-
music ensemble. “We had to turn people away. It was cool. This was when I started thinking, ‘This might work.’” Same thing
happened with the Boston Horns Big Band, a 17-piece ensemble that played at the Peabody Essex Museum, and this week’s
reunion of the Heavy Metal Horns, the last in a series of events leading up to Saturday’s festival.
“This,” says Whitfield, “could be the start of something big.”
Savage buzz
The Horns-Whitfield collaboration was one of those “obvious” projects that nobody ever got around to doing: After all, both were
doing roots, both were based on the North Shore. It was a natural. “Finally it dawned on me,” says Douglas, “Duh, we should do
something together.”
“We wanted to play together for years; finding the time was always the problem,” says Whitfield. One night they got together and
jammed and “there was some electricity, some buzz-buzz going on,” says Whitfield.
The “buzz-buzz” spilled over to the recording sessions for the new Horns album, scheduled to be released in September.
“He tore it up completely,” says Horns trumpeter Garret Savluk.
Whitfield plays on four tunes on the disc. He does a James Brown medley of “Make It Funky” and “Giving Up Food for Funk,” which
also features a guest performance by Sam Kinninger of Soullive, who may make a guest appearance at the festival. He also sings
Willie Dixon’s “I Just Want to Make Love to You” and “A Real Mother for You” by Johnny “Guitar” Watson. All these tunes are likely on
the set list for the festival.
“It’s gonna be fun,” says the singer. “A huge audience gets to see Barrence Whitfield get funky again.”
It’s not exactly “back to the roots” for the Beverly-based singer, best known for his work with his rock band Barrence Whitfield and
the Savages. “I never left the roots,” he says. “It’s more like getting back to the funk” — and back to his youth in New Jersey. “It’s
bringing back some cool memories and lots of things to work with. Little Richard, Funkadelic, James Brown: It’s all from the same
vein. For me, it’s like going back home.”
For the Horns, the collaboration “gives us a whole different dimension,” says Savluk. “It lets us kick up the party a little bit.”
“I think people are going to be blown away because they haven’t heard Barrence sing soul in a long time,” says Douglas.
Over the years, organizers believe, the festival will become a self-sustaining entity. For now, though, they’re just hoping for good
weather and a good time.
“It’s a serious, good-time party thing,” says Douglas. “I always want the people at the shows to have fun, and feel good. I like to see
smiling faces out there.”
E-mail J.C. Lockwood at jlockwoo@cnc.com.
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