The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Donna the Buffalo returns ready to ‘Dance in the Street’
FAIRFIELD — Donna the Buffalo, the long-running roots jam band — with its large “Herd” of followers — from the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, is back at Fairfield Theatre Company’s StageOne on Thursday — this time on the cusp of releasing its eighth studio album.
The new album, “Dance in the Street,” Donna the Buffalo’s first new album in five years, has a Nov. 9 release date. Copies may or may not be available by Thursday, said the band’s publicist, Maria Ivey of The Press House.
But you can bet the band will be playing cuts off it — and new Donna is always a good thing!
I can also tell you based on Donna the Buffalo’s recent sets at the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Rhode Island over Labor Day weekend that all of the new songs they played there
(about a half-dozen) sounded great and had folks dancing!
Donna the Buffalo, cofounded in Trumansburg, New York, by Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins, has had a tight relationship with “The Herd” for more than 30 years now, writing songs about community, human potential and the way things could be and should be.
The new album is no exception.
“We feel the album provides an enjoyable ride between the general and the personal, from both male and female perspectives,” says Puryear in a news release about the album and their current tour.
“My songs on this record are about letting go,” says Nevins in the release. “Whether it be the attachment of love lost, the past, or the particular blue funk you’re coming out of.”
To record the latest album, Donna the Buffalo hooked up with producer/ engineer Rob Fraboni — best known as producer of “The Last Waltz” soundtrack but also respected for his work with Bob Dylan, Hubert Sumlin, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Bonnie Raitt, Sheryl Crow and The Rolling Stones — and recorded at Sonic Ranch Studio in El Paso, Texas.
He had the band record in a circle directly to tape — a 100 percent analog recording all the way to vinyl.
And on “Dance in the Street,” just as they do every time they play, Donna the Buffalo shows that it knows a thing or two about rhythm.
Cajun, zydeco and oldtime rhythms. A bit of reggae rhythm. Various guitar and fiddle rhythms. The rhythms of traveling by bus year after year for more than a quarter-century now, criss-crossing America and returning to the same places (and occasionally new or slightly different places) over and over again.
With a warm, soulful Lowery organ washing over it all.
On Thursday, they’ll be doing it at FTC — and as usual, StageOne will be full of members of “The Herd,” Donna the Buffalo’s loyal legion of longtime friends, fans and dancers.
Showtime is 7:45 p.m. Tickets are $38, available in advance at fairfieldtheatre.org or by calling 203-259-1036. Fairfield Theatre Company is located at 70 Sanford St.
Could it really be possible that you STILL haven’t heard of Donna the Buffalo? (Or “Herd of ’em?” as the ubiquitous DTB bumper stickers ask.)
Well, if you are the kind of person who values traditional roots influences fused with a highly danceable groove, you might want to get to know the band. For more than 30 years now, Donna the Buffalo has offered a colorful, eclectic mix of old-time bluegrass, Cajun and zydeco, folk, reggae, dusty Americana and San Francisco organ jam-band rock ’n’ roll.
All of those influences go into what they do — but it always comes out as a warm, spicy, dance-till-you-drop vibe all its own. While Donna the Buffalo as much as any band out there boogies to its own beat, chances are that if you like The Grateful Dead or Rusted Root or Leftover Salmon or Railroad Earth, you will probably love Donna.
Puryear and Nevins have been joined onstage for the past few years by Dave McCracken on keyboards, Kyle Spark on bass and Mark Raudabaugh on drums.
Nevins and Puryear both are prolific songwriters. Together, they have written a couple hundred Donna the Buffalo songs over the years.
In 1991, the band started the Finger Lakes Grassroots Festival in Trumansburg. The four-day festival has become an annual destination for over 15,000 music lovers every year.