+ Contact Bobby
+ Bobby’s CALENDAR
- Stay Tuned on September 12, 2021 8:30 pm
+ Bobby in SHORT
Performed at:
- Tours with The Original Blues Brothers Band
- Inducted into New York Blues Hall Of Fame 2015
- Carnegie Hall 2014
- The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize 2012
- Arhangelsk Blues 2012
- Obama Inaugural 2009
- Lincoln Center
- Calgary StampedeCommercial Jingles:
- American Express
- Budweiser
- Holiday Inn
- SlimfastPerformed with:
- The Original Blues Brothers Band
- The Uptown Horns Revue
- Scott HardkissShared stage with:
- Ben E. King (Stand by me)
- Eddie Floyd (Knock On Wood)
- Lionel Richie (Endless Love)
- Solomon Burke (Everybody Needs Somebody To Love)
- Robert Cray (Smoking Gun)
- Howard Tate (Get It While You Can)
- Delbert McClinton (Tell Me About It)
Tag Archives: Lou Marini
June 28th, Thursday, City Winery “The Loft” Bobby Harden & his Soul Purpose Band
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
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bobby Harden, Carol Sylvan, Cliff Lyons, Gene Torres, Herbie Maitlandt, Joyce Stovall, Lee Finkelstien, Leon Pendarvis, Lou Marini, ottis redding, Reggie Pittman, Richard Rollison, Richie Gonzales, River Of Soul CD, Soul Purpose, Soul Purpose Band, Steve Cropper, The City Winery, The City Winery "The Loft", The Last Shade Of Blue Before Black CD, The Original Blues Brothers Band
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April 6th, Bettye LaVette – Bobby Harden & Soul Purpose opens for Bettye LaVette @ the City Winery
The Soul Legend Bettye LaVette
Bobby Harden & Soul Purpose opens for the Soul Legend
Doors open 6pm
Starts 8pm
Ends: 10pm (Estimated End Time)
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Bettye LaVette, Carol Sylvan, City Winery, Herbie Maitlandt, Joyce Stovall, Leon Pendarvis, Lou Marini, Richard Rollison, Richie Gonzales, Ron Thompson, Soul Purpose Band, Steve Cropper, The Original Blues Brothers Band
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Another great review of Last Shade of Blue Before Black
The Journal of Roots Music
http://nodepression.com/
The Blues Brothers Return
Blues Brothers – The Last Shade of Blue Before Black

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.
Posted in Press
Tagged Blue Lou Marini, Bobby Harden, Dan Ackroyd, John Tropea, Larry Farrell, Lee Finkelstien, Leon Pendarvis, Lou Marini, Rob Paparozzi, Rusty Cloud, Sou Music, Soul Music, Steve Cropper, Steve Howard, The Last Shade Of Blue Before Black CD, The Original Blues Brothers Band, Tom Malone, Tommy McDonnell
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Where Is The Love video
“Where Is The Love” Written by Bobby Harden (ASCAP) and Gene Torres (ASCAP) Video produced by Anana Kaye and Irakli G. Available on iTunes New “River Of Soul…
Posted in Blog, Home, Media, News, Videos
Tagged Carol Sylvan, Cliff Lyons, Gene Torres, Herbie Maitlandt, Indie artist, Joyce Stovall, Lou Marini, marvin gaye, ottis redding, r&b indie artist, Reggie Pittman, Richie Gonzales, Ron Thompson, soul indie artist, Soul Music, Steve Cropper, The Original Blues Brothers Band, Where Is The Love
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