This gallery contains 53 photos.
The Original Blues Brothers CD release concert at The Cutting Room with special guest Eddie Floyd, Paul Shaffer, Continue reading
release date May 11th
on Dala Records/BQE Records
Dala Records, in partnership with BQE Records, is proud to present the debut album from Bobby Harden & The Soulful Saints, Bridge of Love. The album’s ten original compositions are presented in sparklingly-clear stereo sound and run the soul gamut, from grits-n-bricks R&B, to throw-back psychedelia, svelte seventies pop, and some seriously sophisticated ballads. Together they document Bobby’s life journey in song.
Throughout the album, Harden’s voice is tailored to perfection by the almost impossibly dexterous Soulful Saints, and further dressed to the nines by an accoutrement of Latin percussion, full-on horns, high-flying backing singers and even a string quartet. This comes as no surprise as The Soulful Saints have performed live and recorded together with acts such as Sharon Jones & The Dap-Kings, Charles Bradley & His Extraordinaires, Lee Fields, The Budos Band, Mark Ronson, Antibalas, & The Impressions.
The album is produced by Dala Records founder Billy Aukstik and recorded at Hive Mind Recording in Brooklyn, New York. Kurtis Powers of BQE Records Co-Executive Produced the album along with Aukstik.
Pre-Order your copy today! Hazy Black Swirl & Standard Black vinyl with Gatefold Jacket available. Orange vinyl available soon via the BQE Records Webstore.
PRE-ORDER LINK: https://linktr.ee/dalarecords
Today, my career made history. Bobby Harden and the Soulful Saints new 45 vinyl, “Feels So Good” A side, and “Wounded Hearts” B side, released on Dala Records/BQE Records, is in record stores worldwide today! Yes, a first for me, in my entire career.
You can purchase records in-person through your local record store! Record stores are a lifeblood for indie bands and labels so this is a great way to support the community. Secretly Distribution will be stocking the stores, so if your store doesn’t have a title in stock, please ask them to order it through Secretly. (It may take the stores a minute to ingest a re-stock of a record so please be patient with that).
Online orders for North American customers, click on DALA WEBSTORE PURCHASE LINK: https://tinyurl.com/DalaRecordsstore
For all international online orders, you can purchase through our friends at the Daptone Records Webstore (In the “Daptone Recommends” section).
DAPTONE WEBSTORE PURCHASE LINK: https://tinyurl.com/Dapstore
Bobby Harden & The Soulful Saints release new 45 vinyl “Feels So Good” written by Bobby Harden & Billy Aukstik and “Wounded Hearts” written by Billy Aukstik..
Bobby Harden & The Soulful Saints are back with a new 45 , “Feels So Good” A side/ Wounded Hearts B side to order online in North America click on
DALA WEBSTORE PURCHASE LINK: https://tinyurl.com/DalaRecordsstore
To International orders clickDAPTONE WEBSTORE PURCHASE LINK: https://tinyurl.com/Dapstore
Both sides are produced by Billy “The Kid” Aukstik at Hive Mind Recording in Brooklyn, NY, and co-executive produced by Kurtis Powers/BQE Records. Stay tuned because there is lots more on the way from Bobby and The Saints including 2 more singles and a full-length album in 2022!
Dan Klug just released his new single “New York Song” and guess who he asked to do the lead vocal? That’s right! Me. Check it out. Great song!
to view video click: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=erKw_ijSiCQ
To buy “I Love NY” single click on link below: https://thecenturyband.bandcamp.com/track/new-york-song
Written by Dan Klug
Bobby Harden – Vocals
Dan Klug – Piano, Executive Producer
Ray Cetta – Bass, Guitars, Producer
Tom Wilson – Organ
Kevin Raczka – Drums
Togetherness Orchestra – Strings
Recorded at Studio G in Brooklyn, NY
Engineered and Mixed by Hayden Tycehurst
Mastering by Dan Millice
Video by Mario Riquelme
This gallery contains 53 photos.
The Original Blues Brothers CD release concert at The Cutting Room with special guest Eddie Floyd, Paul Shaffer, Continue reading
This gallery contains 77 photos.
Bobby Harden and Soul Purpose live in concert at Edgewater July 4th concert Continue reading
This gallery contains 1 photo.
(click on photo to see all photos at this event)
It was a real honor and joy to be part of this incredible group of artist and musicians House Band
The Kennedys
Rich Pagano, Music Director, drums Jack Petruzzelli, guitars
Scott Sharrard, guitars
Kevin Bents, keyboards
John Conte, bass Continue reading
The City Winery “The Loft”
155 Varick Street, New York, NY, 10013
(212) 608-0555
6:30pm Doors / 8:30pm Start
Purchase tickets early to pick where you want to sit
https://citywinery.com/theloft/bobby-harden-at-the-loft-6-28.html
In April 1978, John Belushi and Dan Ackroyd debuted the Blues Brothers Band on Saturday Night Live. The band looked and sounded like a cohesive unit, composed of a stellar group of musicians whose members had backed soul greats including Otis Redding, Sam & Dave, Wilson Pickett and Eddie Floyd, But when some members of the first Blues Brothers band first heard Belushi’s alleged singing, they were reluctant to be part of the project. Belushi won them over with his persistence and loyalty to the band and the project, and the band became a real working and recording unit. The original cast was led by keyboardist Paul Shaffer, with guitarists Steve Cropper and Matt “Guitar” Murphy, bassist Donald “Duck” Dunn, drummer Steve Jordan, and Alan Rubin, Lou Marini, Tom Malone, and Tom Scott on horns.
The band put out their debut, Briefcase Full Of Blues, that same year, recorded in September at the Los Angeles Universal Amphitheater, when the band opened for Steve Martin. Ackroyd and Belushi mugged their way through soul and R&B classics like King Floyd’s “Groove Me,” David Porter and Isaac Hayes’ composition for Sam & Dave’s soul smash “Soul Man,” and the tongue twisting novelty “Rubber Biscuit,” recorded by the Chips, as well as Otis Redding’s “I Can’t Turn You Loose.”
In the 1980 movie The Blues Brothers, the band covered an eccentric mix of material ranging from Dimitri Tiomkin’s “Rawhide” to “Tammy Wynette’s “Stand By Your Man” to Lieber and Stoller’s “Jailhouse Rock,” captured on the soundtrack released that year. Made In America also released in 1980, with a soundtrack that found the Blues Brothers band covering Booker T and the MGs’ instrumental “Green Onions” along with Johnny Taylor’s “Who’s Making Love,” the Bar Kays “Soul Finger,” and Wilson Pickett’s “Funky Broadway.”
1990’s The Blues Brothers Band Live in Montreux revisited the older Blues Brothers material, but Eddie Floyd featured on vocals made this one a standout.
Blues Brothers 2000: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack was the companion piece to the ’98 film Blues Brothers 2000. Otis was back, represented on “I Can’t Turn You Loose” along with Cropper’s great soul classic written for Pickett, “634-5789.”
This latest go round, The Last Shade of Blue Before Black, is the best yet, with Floyd back as guest vocalist and Cropper, Shaeffer, Tom “Bones” Malone, and Blue Lou Marini from the core cast, and Dr. John and Joe Louis Walker guest starring as well.
There are no actors playing the role of singers here; this stuff is handled by the pros. Bobby “Sweet Soul” Harden comes from the Uptown Horns, but sings like a downhome soul man who just ran out of the church doors to play the devil’s music. “You Left the Water Running” has been covered by Redding, Pickett, and Sam & Dave, but Harden’s version hangs right up there with the big boys, Marini ripping out a King Curtis-worthy sax solo.
Eddie Floyd wrote and sings lead on “Don’t Forget About James Brown,” a funk-laden tribute to the the man Floyd labels as “King of the Mashed Potatoes: They called him a legend but his music can’t be measured/ he took the formula to his grave.”
Floyd co-wrote (with Cropper) and recorded “On a Saturday Night” in 1967, but he still sounds just as strong as he did back then.
Jimmy Reed’s “Baby What You Want Me To Do” is unrecognizable for the first minute and a half, the horn section taking it for a ride that sounds like a big band vehicle, but the funky undercarriage keeps you wondering when it’s gonna break down. It gets chopped down and dirty when vocalists Harden, Tommy McDonnell, and Rob Paparozzi do some laid-back vocalizin’, but the horns drag it back into luxury-ride mode til John Tropea’s guitar drops it back on the jukejoint floor.
There’s a lot of outfits purporting to be blues bands, but this one’s hard to top. It’s great to hear a horn section that sounds this muscular but doesn’t overpower the arrangements. The band pays homage to the Muscle Shoals and Stax Records sound but doesn’t copy the originals note for note, letting the material expand and grow as some of the original creators breathe new life into it. Let’s just hope the title isn’t prophetic, and this isn’t the last shade of blue before the final blackout curtain comes down. This band of blues brothers deserves a few more encores.