Wagatail Presents: Hot Buttered Rum, Mike Mangan's Big Organ Trio and Lee Boy Simpson

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Hot Buttered Rum: Initially formed as an acoustic string band, seven years of constant touring has transformed Hot Buttered Rum into a plugged-in, percussive powerhouse that wows critics and fans alike. Their left-coast rock reveals an access to jazz, country, and world music that few groups can match. While the band's music belies simple categorization, its songwriting and stage chemistry delights listeners at every turn. Hot Buttered Rum’s story is one of evolution. The “high altitude bluegrass” era captured on their first studio album, In These Parts, found the band enjoying success at such diverse stages as the Newport Folk Festival, Bonnaroo, Grey Fox, High Sierra, Wakarusa, and the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Along the way, the group shared the stage with some of today's most accomplished artists, including Phil Lesh, Bela Fleck, Ben Harper, and Nickel Creek’s Chris Thile. In 2006, acoustic pioneer Mike Marshall produced Hot Buttered Rum’s second studio album, Well-Oiled Machine, and captured the sound of a hard-touring band charting its course along the highways and byways of American music. The continued expansion of Hot Buttered Rum’s sound and writing found a home in Live in the Northeast. More electric pickups made their way to the stage, along with an increased focus on songwriting. As the band developed a heavier sound, fans and press began to describe them as a rock band with acoustic instruments. It therefore came as no surprise when, following the departure of mandolinist Zac Matthews, the other founding members Aaron Redner (fiddle and mandolin), Bryan Horne (upright bass), Nat Keefe (guitar), and Erik Yates (banjo, guitar, woodwinds, and resophonic guitar) joined forces with Everyone Orchestra conductor and drummer Matt Butler. The new lineup has recently emerged from San Francisco’s Mission Bells Studios, where they recorded Limbs Akimbo under the watchful eye of producer Tim Bluhm (The Mother Hips). Featuring guest appearances by Jackie Greene (Skinny Singers, Phil Lesh and Friends) and Zach Gill (ALO, Jack Johnson), the album marks the beginning of a new creative phase. Limbs Akimbo now signals the arrival of a highly matured, impressively listenable, stirringly rocking, and pleasantly poppy sound. Proving himself a forceful producer, Bluhm has struck an impressive balance between highlighting the multi-instrumental, cross-genre elements of the band’s sound while avoiding the contemporary trappings of music that is complex and different merely for the sake of complexity and difference. The result is beautifully paradoxical: a tremendous, minimalist pop album full of hints, teases, and cameos of the band’s complex musical personality. In “Something New,” Keefe recites the familiar wedding adage “something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue.” And right there, in a nutshell, is Limbs Akimbo: an album that is both an elegy and reincarnation of Hot Buttered Rum’s past sound, that borrows heavily from the rock pantheon while sprinkling in just a little of everything else. Limbs Akimbo is an album that evidences the acoustic string band of yesteryear while unapologetically propelling into the scene a mature left-coast, drum-driven, pop-rock band.

Lee Boy Simpson: From the sun and sand of Orange County to the Sierra foothills of Chico to the art and culture of San Francisco, comes an artist who truly embodies the spirit of California. Simpson's songs traverse the rock and roll, folk, country, bluegrass, and jazz easily and gracefully. Guitar stylings call to mind the best of Knopfler, Frisell, Atkins, Gilmore, and Morse while holding tightly on to a unique signature. It is a rare treat to hear work so firmly rooted in tradition and so unapologetically breaking new artistic ground. Like an Italian cab-driver, Simpson has torn of the rear view mirror forging confidently ahead without looking back. Guitarist/Songwriter Lee Simpson is originally a Northern Californian from the Chico area but was raised down on the beaches of Southern California. Years of touring and making records with his and Jason Fletcher's original act Blue Dye Fire honed a life long love of the craft of songwriting, resulting in several recordings and a record single Thank You For Being Alive and Roadburger produced from 1993 to 1995. The release of these two records led to heavy touring of the West Coast culminating in a San Diego to Seattle circuit and several overseas tours of the European continent. After much change Blue Dye Fire's songwriting members settled in the San Francisco area and through several incarnations including local SF favorites Mobius later to become King Harvest. As a player Lee is strongly rooted in the bluegrass style and tradition with strong disciplines in jazz improvisation and the classical. This is fused together in an original American Roots songwriting technique that offers a tip of the hat to those who have come before as well as a uniquely wooden sound all it's own. Lee has since headed out on his own with the release of his self titled CD on Vina Loam Records © 2004. The “LS” record showcases the very best of his songwriting and live performance abilities. His newest record, "Way Out in the Dark" will be out fall 2010. It was recorded in the summer of this year by Jono Manson (Spin Doctors, Blues Traveler) and features the likes of Mark Clark, Sharon Gilchrist and his own beautiful wife Suzanne Simpson.

Mike Mangan's BIG ORGAN TRIO: Mike Mangan is a Hammond B3 Organist and Composer who leads his own band, "Mike Mangan's Big Organ Trio". Mangan is an extremely unconventional organist and has become renown for his pioneering approach to the Hammond B3 Organ. Mike has drawn the attention of many of the instrument's great luminaries, including Keith Emerson (Emerson, Lake, and Palmer), Gregg Rollie (Santana), Brian Auger (Oblivion Express), Melvin Seals (Jerry Garcia Band), and Tony Monaco (Tony Monaco Trio). Mangan is influenced just as much by electric guitar players as he is by other keyboardists, and this has shaped his unique approach to the Hammond Organ. Through a unique method of tonal manipulation, Mangan often simulates the power and tonality of an electric guitar through the Hammond, often leading to comparisons with rock power trios instead of jazz organ trios In fact, jambands.com remarked, "This isn't your standard jazz organ trio", and since its inception in, Mike Mangan's Big Organ Trio has emerged as a band with a truly unique voice. Mangan's trio's acclaimed debut CD was released in 2006 and has led to thousands of music and merchandise sales in addition to concerts across the U.S. and internationally.. Mangan's debut album landed his trio a feature in Keyboard Magazine, a record deal with P-Vine Records, and a subsequent tour of Japan. Mangan has also led his trio on national tours of the states.