New Haven Register (Sunday) (New Haven, CT)
Have you ‘herd’?
Donna the Buffalo to perform Thursday
OLD SAYBROOK — Donna the Buffalo has been playing its long-running brand of rhythmic, deeply grooving, accordion and organ-drenched, zydeco-spiced, old-time fiddle-infused, earthy and VERY danceable roots jam music for longer than most of you know.
And for just as long, their “Herd” of fans has been following them wherever they go.
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.)
Don’t worry, it’s not too late.
With a new album, “Dance in the Street” — their eighth studio album — out, Donna the Buffalo will perform at The Katharine Hepburn Cultural Arts Center on Thursday.
Showtime is 7:30 p.m. The Gary Douglas Band opens. Tickets are $39-$42, available in advance at thekate.org or 860510-0453. The Kate is at 300 Main St.
“Dance in the Street,” Donna the Buffalo’s first new album in five years, came out in November, just about the time the band played its last Connecticut gig at Fairfield Theatre Company’s StageOne.
In Fairfield, as at the Rhythm & Roots Festival in Rhode Island over Labor Day weekend, all of the new songs they played sounded great and had folks dancing!
So who is this Donna the Buffalo? Well, it’s not a “who.” It’s a “what” — a really good band. And there is no Donna. The name is a twist on “dawn of the Buffalo.”photo
Donna the Buffalo was co-founded in Trumansburg, New York, just outside Ithaca, by Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins. It has had a tight relationship with “The Herd” for more than 30 years now.
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.
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 old-time rhythms.
Some reggae riddim. Various guitar and fiddle rhythms. The rhythms of traveling by bus year after year for more than a quartercentury now, crisscrossing 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.
Some other good stuff coming up:
1 The Jayhawks will
perform at Fairfield Theatre Company’s Warehouse tonight. Folk Uke opens. Showtime is 8 p.m. Tickets are $48, available in advance at fairfieldtheatre.org or 203-259-1036. The Warehouse is at 70 Sanford St. in Fairfield.
1 The great Alejandro Escovedo will play at FTC’s StageOne on Saturday, with Don Antonio opening. Showtime is 7:45 p.m. Tickets are $48, available in advance at fairfieldtheatre.org or 203-259-1036. StageOne is at 70 Sanford St. in Fairfield.