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WEHM All Access - Sag Harbor American Music Festival - The Hoodoo Loungers · WEHM All Access

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's WEHM All Access, the Tag Harbor Music Festival, and what a lineup this year.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting a chance to connect and learn about all the different bands that are performing, and all of them have really a lot of them have a rich history uh with the east end of Long Island, and one of those certainly is the Hodoo Loungers.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: They've been around for a bit, and uh they are coming Saturday, September 26th to Steinbeck Park at 130 Hodoo Loungers performing.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: Joe Lauro joining us right now in the virtual studio.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: Joe, how are you?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: I am very well, thank you.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: How are you?
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for uh for coming on, I appreciate it.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you guys do so many shows, and it's great to see that you're still going into the fall.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: What's the summer been like for you guys?
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jess uh the summer out here is busy to say the least.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we play in various it's a big band, right?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, logistics alone, I have to imagine.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Just with some.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's an eight-piece band, so it used to be a nine-piece band, but one of our singers had to move back to Texas during COVID.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we play in smaller forms, so because we like to play.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we could play like last night, we're at this great venue on Shelter Island, the Ramshead Inn.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but then we do a lot of concerts in uh various municipalities throughout Long Island, sometimes a little bit uh into Connecticut and all that.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And that's with the full band.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: So uh yeah, and the summer is the time.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what we tend to do is when it gets quiet uh after New Year's, uh we we start working on our recording projects, and we're in the middle of well, we're at the very beginning of one now for our new what do you whatever you want to call it, our new album or something like that.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's exciting.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's no physical media anymore.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_00: I'm an old timer, but uh we do it, we put it out on Spotify and various places.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's great to create new stuff.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It it that's good to hear because I think it's been a few years since uh a record.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_01: For people that don't know, where where did you grow up?
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: Where are you initially from?
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm I'm uh from Brooklyn, actually, initially.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Then uh, like so many people of my generation, folks got a little bit of money, bought their dream house in Massapequa Park.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I lived there till I was 18, and then I was gone.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I started off up in near Burlington, Vermont, Plattsburgh area, and moved into the city.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and then I met a lovely woman uh uh at a place in the city, and she brought me to Shelter Island, where she grew up.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I have really not left that the area since.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: I moved my business out here and all that, and all my bands have been based out here as well.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, you have such a deep connection to New Orleans.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: Uh how did that come about?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: My day job is I'm a filmmaker.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I make documentary films, and I made three films in New Orleans, uh, and I just I just fell in love with the place, you know, as so many people do.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I was going, I started going in the early 90s, and a lot of my musical heroes, which tend to be some of the old timers, they're all still alive and well, still working.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Dr.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: John, Eddie Bo, Alan Toussaint, and I would just see these guys in bars and go to the jazz fest and hear all the Cajun music.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, boy, you know, really need a taste of New Orleans type music where I live.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was all about the drummer.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: I found this great drummer.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: His name, his name is Dave Giocone.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Dave was so into it that he was calling up New Orleans drummers and taking lessons with them.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, went down there and studied with Louis Prima's drummer.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And we so we were really working on the backbeat, which is the whole thing.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the Hoodoo Loungers, I I had been playing previous with Gene Casey and the Lone Sharks for about five years.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then I left to start my own band, that was the Hoodoos, to explore New Orleans.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_00: Not like the uh East End Brass.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's a brass band.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's a we we were more exploring the funk uh and the uh older rhythm and blues type stuff, like Fatch Domino, the Neville Brothers, and and the you know, the meters and that those sounds, not a marching band.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it took off from there.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: We did that for a lot.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our first three albums had a lot of music that we wrote that was inspired by that.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But lately we've been really getting more into Americana, and we're reinterpreting a lot of old folk tunes and old traditional tunes in our own style.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: We've begun that project, we're doing some Sister Rosetta Tharp stuff, some Freedom Singers things, and uh uh Mighty Waters, you know, just just old folk tunes like sitting on top of the world and Midnight Special and just having some fun rearranging them for a nine-piece band, eight-piece band.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I was curious about that.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: How do you arrange uh and approach arranging such a large group of musicians when you're writing?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Does it work?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: Do you kind of bring it to the how does that how does that go from kind of the beginning?
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: I can't read a note, but I surround myself with amazing musicians.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: I I have to tell you that there is not a gig, even if the gig stinks, that I am just not blown away being in the presence of some of the people that I have the honor of playing with.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_00: Donette Darden, our lead singer, girl, she could just entertain a phone book and get the letters to stand up and dance.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, she is just so talented.
• 5:25
  SPEAKER_00: And the horn section, Eric Kay, Eric Miller, Peter Arruccio, these guys are world-class guys.
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_00: And and Dan Coons, oh my lord.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he he just wrote a rock opera about the that amazing flight of the balloon that left Springs in 1970 and never showed up again.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's this 13-part, 13-song rock opera that he's gonna he's gonna do great with it.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: So I got great people.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I forgot what the question is.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: How do we do it?
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I don't read, but I have a lot of ideas.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll come up with a tune, and we have a guy in the band, our trombone player, his name is Eric Miller, young fellow, and I work with him.
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_00: I say, this is what I have in mind for the horn arrangement.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: Dan has ideas.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_00: Michael Sciano, our guitar player, a guy I've been working with since I was a kid.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: We work, we collaborate.
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_00: We're I I'm truly of the mind of a band.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I'm the guy that gets the gigs and deals with the business, we are totally a cooperative unit.
• 6:27
  SPEAKER_00: Everyone is so talented, they just can't be side men.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: They have to contribute and they want to contribute.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: And we're not, you know, we're sort of a uh we're sort of outliers uh in the area.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: We're not playing, you know, the surf lodge and the talkhouse every week.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: We're playing like in the other direction.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, but it doesn't mean that the band just doesn't swing, man.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: It swings.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Oh yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_01: Uh when did you uh how old were you when you first started doing music and learning the guitar and kind of starting to sing?
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Twelve.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: The Beatles, you know, I'm 70 now.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the Beatles, uh the Beatles came out, everyone, you know, I started with the tennis racket, imitating Paul, you know, and then um then learned, got an instrument, played the first band without even knowing that that you had to tune the instruments up.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: Then we figured that out, and then it was all about Louie Louie and and uh uh pictures of Match Stick Men and all the tunes that were coming out at the time when I was a kid.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, then then uh Mike and I had a I think we were one of the first Grateful Dead bands.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: Wow.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: Talking like 71, 72.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: We were jamming uh a bunch of venues in the Massapequa area, and so I I I always loved that jam band thing, but I started learning about traditional jazz and bluegrass and all that and played with a lot of groups like that.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I still like to stretch out on a tune, and with great musicians, you could do that, and it could be different every night.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm sure it is.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_01: So was it a challenge when you started making films and kind of balancing that with the music?
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, uh, I'm I'm insane.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: People think I'm out of my mind.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I run three businesses and an eight-piece band, you know, all at the same time.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's own business, I manage to do it, but sometimes I forget something.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, um, it's just me.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I thank God I'm I'm able to have that energy.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: But the key is this you surround yourself with stuff you love.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: If you love all these things, you're gonna have the energy for it.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you're inspired by playing music, you're gonna go the extra mile to make it happen.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's the same way with films.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, we just finished a film, it got picked up by Magnolia.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's called Newport and the Great Folk Dream.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna be in theaters near you, like early next year.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: It premiered at the Venice Film Festival.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm doing that too, you know.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I love it.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, everything I do is something I truly love and I'm inspired by.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it gives you that extra energy.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, that's me anyway.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_01: You are you're such a great part of the the music scene on the East End of Long Island.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_01: How have you seen it grow and change over the years?
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because clearly the East End has changed as well.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: There's uh there's the core bands that are every one of them is great.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Gene Casey, uh Nancy Atlas, and and my band, and several others, uh Cliff Black and all of his groups.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's all these new kids that are coming up, and they're kind of making their way in, and and it's great, it's healthy.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Ellen, uh, who um is in the Chamber of Commerce in Sag Harbor, I vi she told me that she was resigning last year, and I said, Look, let me let me help you book the Harbor Fest.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: So I focused on not the usual groups, not that they're not wonderful, but I tried to bring in different people, a lot of young people like that, you know, are on their way up, and then some other groups from other areas like Mighty Ramon and the Disciples of Soul and the Scofflars, who were uh legends out here years ago.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: But then young people like uh Eric Carey and his band uh and and Julia King and and uh some of the other new voices that are out there, and there's many.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, music will it'll change, but human beings' desire to create and make beautiful sounds will never ever cease.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_01: You are certainly a part of the culture of Sag Harbor uh and uh the Sag Harbor American Music Festival.
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_01: Your fixtures for years at that.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_01: What does this festival mean to you?
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: I'm curious.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I uh the festival is Carrie and Kelly.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on the board, as uh are a bunch of other great people, uh Cynthia Daniels and and and uh Gavin uh uh and you know some some other people, but they they really do the work.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: They we're their sounding board for ideas.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh does this look good?
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: Should we do it this way?
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of the day, they're creating and they're having the fun of finding this great talent and bringing it here and mixing what people want, like the regular bands, like my band, like Gene Casey.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like when you go to the New Orleans Jazz Fest, there's all this great new stuff, but there's always the Neville brothers.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: There's always the basic people, even though they were playing last week or playing the next night.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: People want to see them because they're part of the fabric of the local community.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: That town, and Sag Harbor has the same thing.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: So the festival just brings all this great new stuff, you know, and you just go there with your ears open, man, and you're gonna hear some good things.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: The Hoodoo Loungers performing this year at the uh Sag Harbor Music Festival.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you mentioned that uh you're starting to work on some new music and uh possibly putting together a new record.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: How's that going?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you mentioned uh starting January, but you were kind of kind of dipping your toes in the water a little bit uh for this now.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: How does that work?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_01: Who or have you been writing?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: You work with your obviously your your band.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: I've come up with the tunes I want to do.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and again, we're we're we're hitting into the traditional realm.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I'm steeped in that.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um I have a radio show on LIW that explores pre-World War II music, you know, jazz, blues, folk.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm really interested in that stuff, and I have a pretty deep knowledge of it.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm picking stuff like that.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: Then Dan Coons, who uh also has a background in the Mississippi John Hurt world and and great gospel, he is a church organist by profession.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, your funny story about Dan, we we had a gig at Claudio's just last week.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: I got stuck in Asheville.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: My flight couldn't get out, so I missed, I missed it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I said, Dan, what are we gonna do?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if we can get a bass player late notice.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: He goes, Don't worry, I'll bring my pedals.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: What?
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: His organ pedals that play bass because a regular church organs he's working his feet at his.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: So the band played with organ pedal bass, and it was nobody noticed.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm out of a job.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: All right, so we started recording in the spring, but then we we did, I think we have four basic tracks done, meaning rhythm section.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: We just started getting so busy.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: So put it off to after the fall when we'll have a long time where we're not playing much at all, and we'll be able to dig into it and and and and really start, you know, working on the songs.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: In the film that I just did, you know, it really talks about that whole civil rights era and how the music of the time was really part of it at Newport.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And there was a group called the Freedom Singers, and they do this song, Woke Up This Morning with my mind, fed on freedom.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's just this amazing gospel thing.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to get that and rearrange it and just do an a cappella version of that and expand it a little bit.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, so plenty of ideas.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: We just need the time to get them together.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds great.
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_01: So hopefully we'll have a new record by maybe next summer or yeah, by the spring.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's that that's perfect.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: Who do I think?
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have a Christmas tune in the can.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, wow.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of a naughty Christmas tune that we kind of did it.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's fun.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_01: You must send that over to us.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I will.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's it's a steroid, it's a little risque, but it's it's it's funny.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's definitely funny.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: I will send it to you.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: I love the I love the passion you have for music, filmmaking, and it just comes through even just just chatting with you now.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: You're so excited about it.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: Even at the at the age of 70, you're still going.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_01: How do you do that?
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_01: Because you're constantly traveling.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: I was curious to get back to New Orleans at all.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I go back to New Orleans at least once a year.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: I used to go three times a year.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have lots of friends down there from all the years I worked there and and played there.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, one of my dear friends, Ira Padnos, he did this insane thing called the Ponderosa Stomp for 10 years.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: During uh the two weeks of the Jazz Fest, those days in between, he would do his own mini festival and he would dig deep into all the northern Louisiana one-hit wonders and caging guys, and bring these people and get a great band to back them up that really knew how to play that stuff.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he he gave it up after 10 years.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: The day of his event, about five years ago, a hurricane came in and every it locked the city down, and so he lost a fortune.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: But but he uh he's still a dear friend, and I go visit him, and he's a record collector too.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: And uh yeah, this and we have a lot of friends.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: Tom McDermott, the great piano player down there, and and David Boatinghouse, another great piano player.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: Got a Jelly Roll Morton project coming out uh in in the late fall that I produced uh for Tompkins Square Records.
• 15:34
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna have the release party uh in New Orleans in April.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, that's right.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm looking forward to that.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_01: That's great.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_01: So busy, so many different projects.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_01: And then I I guess we'll we'll wrap up with this.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was curious how you put your set together for the Sac Harbor Music Festival, because I think I read you have over 150 songs, and it sounds like you're just adding to it on a weekly basis.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: How do you determine what to play?
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: How do you how do you kind of narrow it down?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: This year was particularly uh interesting and unusual.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you why.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: The Harbor Fest and the Music Fest, they're usually a couple of weeks away from each other.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_00: This year, they're a week away.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And Kelly, for good reason, she says, Well, you know, you're you know, some of you guys are playing at that and this.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I don't really like that.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I said, Well, how about this?
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'll come up with something very unusual for the music fest.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: And I did.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do uh a tribute to Ray Charles.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: And we're we're coming up with about 12 amazing Ray Charles tunes.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: We'll do a few of our originals to get it started, but then we're gonna go into a deep dive into Ray Charles.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: And that's so that's gonna be an unusual set for us uh at the music festival.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds great.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_01: Saturday, September 26th, 1.30 at Steinbeck Park.
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_01: Hodo Loungers, Joe Lauro.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for your time.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_01: You're always busy.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: And uh let's chat about that documentary by Newport.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds fun down the road.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure, sure.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever you'd like.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's it'll be released, uh, it's probably in a play at the SAG Cinema.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Magnolia's got it.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think that'll be early next year, so I'll see you then.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we'll see you at the uh at the St.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_01: Harbor Music Festival this year.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: Joe, thank you so much for your time.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_01: Really appreciate it.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.