Organist Melvin Seals, who manned the keys the last 15 years of the original Jerry Garcia Band’s run until its namesake passed in 1995, is the special guest performer as Mark Joseph and Heatbox both release LPs at the Fitzgerald Theater in St. Paul Saturday.
It’s not too late to get advance tickets. Buy them here.
It’s going to be an exciting and diverse night of music at the historic theater.
Mark Joseph, who has helped keep The Big Wu going for much of the past decade or so, has also kept busy with a solo music career and with his concert, booking and management company, MJG Productions.
One-man extraordinaire Aaron “Heatbox” Heaton, who has notable beatboxing, singing and looping talents, will be releasing the appropriately titled Hilarious and Epically Legendary, which features the humorously pertinent (directed at passive-aggressive Minnesota drivers) “Zipper Merge,” among other gems such as “Inigo Montoya,” and “Stupid Fence.” Zipper Merge is thankfully already popular with 16,754 Spotify listens as of this writing and step-by-step instructions for those troubled with the basic driving maneuver.
“Why don’t you know how to zipper merge?
Now I know you think you’re being polite
OOOoh, but that ain’t right
We gotta use all of the lanes tonight
So we don’t have to get into a fight”
Joseph is releasing his fourth album, Palisade Peach, which features a number of session musicians such as Stanley Behrens (WAR, Canned Heat, Willie Dixon), Jerry Jemmott (Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett) and Tony Austin (Kamasi Washington), among others. It also includes some of his friends such as Mobile, Ala.-native Ryan Balthrop and Minnesota vocalists Steph Devine and Jill Mikelson.
It also features Seals as they cover “Deep Ellum Blues,” a traditional song that Garcia and Seals covered in JGB. Seals organ is piping hot in this version with Joseph.
“I have wanted to do a track with him for a long time,” Joseph said of Seals in a phone interview this week. He said that he first met him back in 2007. “It is such a great honor. He is such an amazing musician, and a very vibrant and positive person.”
Seals, who has kept Jerry Garcia Band’s legacy alive touring as Melvin Seals and JGB, brought his band to St. Paul in 2019 for the last of a series of street music concerts that year at Big River Pizza. The original Jerry Garcia-led outfit played only two shows in Minnesota, at the St. Paul Civic Center on Nov. 22, 1975 and, presumably with Seals in the lineup, on Nov. 24, 1991 at the Target Center in Minneapolis. Seals’ post-Garcia band has been to the state several times in the past decade.
Joseph said that a conversation he had with Seals at that street fest is what led to Seals’ involvement on Joseph’s new blues record.
“That night we ended up talking a bunch about recording some music,” Joseph said. “He seemed receptive to the idea. The seed got planted that night. We talked about it and we had a great experience with the event.”
Seals’ name naturally came up as Joseph started brainstorming ideas for this latest album and conversations revolved around who all might be involved.
Joseph said that Seals has another Minnesota connection of note, Rich Waryan, organ technician and owner of Minnesota Organ Service.
“He works on all of Melvin’s organs and has built and rebuilt all of his organs for him,” he said.
For that matter, the studio cut for “Deep Ellum Blues” featured Seals’ original Jerry Garcia Band touring rig.
“It was in storage for a good 20 years after Jerry passed away,” he said. “It sounds just brilliant. But really, it is just about Melvin’s playing — the way he throws it down. Those amazing gospel roots.”
There’s something about hearing Seals’ Hammond organ for old (or new) Deadheads. Seals is known as the third-longest tenured member of the original Jerry Garcia Band lineup, behind only founders Jerry Garcia and bassist John Kahn.
For those of us that hold Jerry Garcia’s spirit close to heart, hearing Melvin Seals on a Hammond organ is a powerful way to stoke the fire.
Joseph was pumped talking about Saturday’s show and the opportunity to play music with the legendary Seals.
Photo courtesy of Michael Weintrob
“Anybody who is connected to the Grateful Dead or the Jerry Garcia Band feels that lineage through shows you went to, the songs you connect with, tapes you listened to,” he said. “To perform with somebody who spent so much time with Jerry, who is so steeped in that music and that lineage, is the highest honor. For me, it’s also about people. I have been doing this for 20 years. You meet a lot of people. Some have true hearts and are a pleasure to be around, and Melvin is one of those.”