Blues and Bourbon Wednesdays: Red's Blues with Horns

A very special first at “Blues and Bourbon”–Red’s Blues is bringing a double sax horn section to this pre-Thanksgiving night event– SBS Hall of Famer Marty Deradoorian and young hotshot Danny Sandoval!

Red’s Blues has always had a finger-poppin’ attitude—straight out of the golden years when blues, R’n’B and swing all meshed together and dance floors every night were filled with snake hips and slow drags. Beth Reid-Grigsby, with her sensual, southern voice and classy behind-the-beat phrasing is more a Peggy Lee or Bobbie Gentry-styled singer: smoky with languid, sexy sophistication. Her “Hands Off,” accompanied by elegant swingman John Cocuzzi on piano, is pure, late nightclub vibe. Beth says “A fun tribute for folks who are married to or involved with musicians. Inspired by a lot of women over the many years, and it is in jest…sort of.”

Beth, thanks to her older brother, grew up listening to Huddie Ledbetter, Muddy Waters, and Mississippi John Hurt records and as a kid, learned from and sang songs at home with her Mom — “Summertime,” “God Bless the Child,” and “St. Louis Blues.” Across the street in her hometown of south Santa Barbara though, the shy seven year old redhead was bold enough to go perch on the neighbor’s porch listening to a Cuban salsa band rehearse, and from that learned to love the rhythms, the bass and percussion in particular. She and RW Grigsby met through the local Santa Barbara blues scene years later in 1977 and have lived in his home state of Georgia and then Texas before heading back to sunny Sacramento in 2006.

2014 Grammy-nominated and Blues Music Award (BMA) winner bassist/singer/songwriter RW Grigsby has been playing since he was 14 years old and began his professional career when still a teenager. He’s toured the U.S., Canada, and Europe since the ’80s. He played and recorded with Texas blues stars Gary Primich and Black Top Records’ Mike Morgan and the Crawl in the 1990s, and later with Mark Hummel and The Golden State-Lone Star Revue with legends Little Charlie Baty and Anson Funderburgh.. RW is the bassist on the 2014 Grammy-nominated and BMA-winning CD, Remembering Little Walter. He was nominated for a BMA “Best Bassist” Award in 2017 and was inducted into the Sacramento Blues Society Hall of Fame in 2018.

Red’s Blues guitarist Doug Crumpacker, a well-known name in Sacramento for nearly forty years, is one of a handful of musicians who truly taught the city about blues beginning in 1990 with his hugely popular band, The Hucklebucks (with RW on bass, Tim Wilbur on drums). A Sacramento 2016 Blues Society Hall of Fame inductee, he joined Red’s Blues in 2018. “We included Doug Crumpacker’s country-flavored original, ‘G.O.N.E.,’ because we feel he achieved the near impossible with this tune, saying a lot with just a handful of words” says Beth. “Tim has been with us for almost four years now, and Doug joining almost four years ago, was a natural fit for our band. We are all like family.“

Red’s Blues draw their audiences into a grown-up music world—southern music with downhome simmer, dance floor fun and stellar, sophisticated players who know they have no need to blast at earsplitting volumes to make the biggest impact.