More Bear Creek Music Festival VIDEOS: Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio / Spam Allstars with Pee Wee Ellis / Breakestra

When we left Atlanta on Friday morning, our goal was to arrive at Bear Creek Music Festival, set up camp, and get our asses down to the Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio set at 3pm. After some fast driving and an even faster tent set up, we set out to explore the magical Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park with time to spare.

As we exited the campground area, I encountered the Big IV Ampitheater for the first time. I had seen pictures and heard stories, but now I was able to truly appreciate the wonder of this small piece of earth they call Suwannee. At that point in time, the Spam Allstars were on-stage with Pee Wee Ellis guesting.

As I pulled out my video camera to shoot my first video of the weekend, they began the James Brown classic, Cold Sweat! I started shooting immediately, then decided to try out my new press pass to enter the pit area. You can see at the end of the video as I try to enter and security informs me that my press pass only allows access to the pit during the first 3 songs of each set. Turned away, I stopped filming in order to better absorb this magical place with my own senses, rather than the camera. Accordingly, this particular video is less than 3 minutes long, but it shows some of the vibe on this Friday afternoon.

Spam Allstars w/ Pee Wee Ellis – Cold Sweat 11/11/11 Bear Creek:

Bear Creek is like late night at New Orleans Jazz Fest on steroids. You have to walk away from someone like Pee Wee Ellis in order to catch another legend like Dr. Lonnie Smith. I was excited for his trio in large part because of the drummer, Jamire Williams, who has played with Christian Scott, Robert Glasper, Gretchen Parlato, Bilal, and others from the NYC jazz/hip-hop scene. Although, I was equally impressed with guitarist Jonathan Kreisberg, whom I wasn’t familiar with. Anyway, When the good organ doctor and his trio came out the silky smooth B-3 organ sounds wafted through the warm afternoon air and all was good…

Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio – Mellow Mood 11/11/11 Bear Creek:

Dr. Lonnie Smith Trio – Beehive 11/11/11 Bear Creek:

Finally, I’ll include another early afternoon video, this one from Sunday morning. Breakestra took a rare trip out of the LA area to bring their non-stop medley of hip-hop samples to Florida, and I was able to capture a few bars…

Breakestra – Medley (Ring Of Fire > Greedy G > Shifting Gears > Champ > Because I Got It Like That > Funky Soul > Getcho Soul Togetha) 11/12/11 Bear Creek:

Dumpstaphunk 11/13/10 Bear Creek Music Festival

Credit to Greg Aiello for the photo

Dumpstaphunk – Stinky into Do That Stuff (11-13-10 Bear Creek)

Let’s begin with a band that you’ve probably heard me praising recently, Ivan Neville’s Dumpstaphunk. These guys are the next generation of New Orleans funk, carrying on the torch from the (Funky) Meters. They’ve been constantly touring for the past 4+ years and have merged into a forceful funk unit to be reckoned with. The band includes Ivan Neville on B3 organ, clavinet and vocals, Ian Neville on rhythm guitar, Tony Hall on guitar, bass and vocals, Nick Daniels III on bass and vocals, and Raymond Weber on drums and vocals.

Every November for the past three years, Dumpstaphunk has descended upon the Bear Creek Music Festival in Live Oak, FL with the “DumpstaJam,” which has included many guests from Bernie Worrell to Eric Krasno (from Soulive) to Derek Trucks to Skerik and the Shady Horns. This year they were joined by George Porter Jr, Freekbass, Roosevelt Collier (from The Lee Boys), Joel Johnson (from Fred Wesley’s band), and a plethora of horn players.

The track I present to you includes Skerik and other horns players. It begins with Dumpstaphunk busting out an older original that they haven’t played much in the past year, Stinky, with only Skerik on sax. This segues into [@7min45sec] the deepest, brownest bass solo I’ve ever heard from Tony Hall, which then segues [around 10min52sec] into a full on rendition of Do That Stuff (a Parliament-Funkadelic cover) with a full horn section that is obviously well prepared for Fred Wesley’s triumphant horn arrangement. It’s unfortunate, however, that Fred Wesley himself didn’t join in on this performance, as he was an artist-at-large at the Festival this year.

Here is a link to the mp3 audio: http://www.megaupload.com/?d=9JBEC2WQ

In addition, here is a video of highlights from this DumpstaJam set: (this footage includes excerpts from Stinky > Do That Stuff, including the beginning of Tony’s monstrously low-toned bass solo, from 1min12sec to 2min49sec.

FYI, Dumpstaphunk is on the Live Music Archive and you can stream and/or download many live recordings: http://www.archive.org/details/Dumpstaphunk
Recordings of note:
http://www.archive.org/details/dumpstaphunk2008-11-15.AKG482.FLAC16
http://www.archive.org/details/dumpstajam2009-11-14.matrix.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/dumpstaphunk2009-04-01.6channelmtx.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/dumpstaphunk2008-01-25.flac16
http://www.archive.org/details/dphunk2010-10-27.matrix

This is the type of post you can expect from me in the future. So check back often for more goodies.

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