The inspiration behind Joey the Saint and the A-Men came in early 2008. After helping aspiring bluesmen murder Cross Cut Saw at a jam session for at least the thousandth time in my career -- and then watching a fledgling guitarist guide the house band through a set of "originals" consisting of three nearly-identical hookless two-chord solofests -- I paid my tab and went home. When I turned on my car radio, I heard Bonnie Raitt singing Blender Blues on NPR. I got home, put on the TV and flipped channels, and a few minutes later I was watching Chef doing his well-known Dirty Funk schtick on South Park.
Thus began the scrapings of an idea. I downloaded "Blender Blues," broke out my Victor Borge DVD's and my vinyl collection, and stayed up all night writing.
The next week, at Doug McGrew's jam session at the Barrel, I threw a couple of reworked verses to "Blender Blues" -- and a couple of entirely new verses -- over a 16-bar shuffle and called it Cookin':
Let's get each other cookin'
Let's simmer and flambe
Gonna whip up some cookie dough and a sweet lil' love souffle
Grease up a cookie sheet, get the oven nice and hot
Hop up on the counter, honey, show me what you got
To say it went over well is an understatement.
I followed it up with what is still the most suggestive number in our repertoire, based off a brilliant Mark Dufresne lyric, a song I called Oh, Yeah.
At the end of Oh, Yeah I received a standing ovation. Probably the first one in the history of The Barrel.
Joey the Saint and the A-Men were born.
I started doing some serious homework, finding scraps of songs I thought were cleverly -- but not too overtly -- suggestive. Usually, I'd be in my car or at a club when I'd hear something, and I'd only be able to remember a few lines. I'd go home and write the rest.
I have since learned that many years ago, Delta bluesmen would do exactly what I have done: hear a song they thought was clever, play as much of it as they could remember at their next gig, and then improvise the rest. Willie Dixon’s Hoochie Coochie Man has the same melody as John Brim’s Tough Times. Chuck Berry took the talking verse of Bo Diddley’s I’m a Man and used it in No Money Down. My song, Lemonade, is my take on Robert Plant's take on Robert Johnson’s take on a tune that was written by Son House, but was also written by Charley Patton and/or Bumblebee Slim, depending on which history books you read and where you were at the time. (When I offered Mark Dufresne cowriting credit on Oh, Yeah, he told me he'd gotten his idea from a TV appearance years ago by Memphis Slim, and he was sure that the idea was much older than that.) I could quote examples all day but if you know the blues, you know all this, already. I try to give credit where due throughout the night.
You will see co-writing credits on the album that I am sure I will have to explain a thousand more times, but let me do it now: I did not collaborate with Bonnie Raitt, Martin Mull, or Robert Plant. I bastardized their ideas of my own volition; they are not responsible.
There are standards we play verbatim; they're obscure but they all were scandalous hits in their day. They include Big Ten Inch, Mess Around, Shake, Rattle, & Roll, and Keep On Churnin' Till the Butter Comes. We will not play anything by Stevie Ray Vaughn, so don't ask. We do not play Cross Cut Saw, Red House, or anything popularized by Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, or the fucking Allman Brothers. If you request "Gimme One Reason" by Tracy Chapman, the doorman has instructions to show you out. Sit down, have a drink, and relax. This will be fun, I promise.
We are working on an album, Old Whiskey in New Bottles, at Vagrant Records. It will be released solely on vinyl, and will be a purely analog process -- 24-track 2" mastered specifically for vinyl on 1/4" Ampex 499. However, I appreciate that it is hard to listen to vinyl while snowboarding, so we'll be doing mp3's through the usual distribution sites.
The idea behind Joey the Saint and the A-Men was, and remains, to stick our collective finger in the eye of an art form that often seems to take itself way too seriously, to deliver it with enough musicianship to thread the needle of respectability, and entertain the hell out of you.
Enjoy the show.
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- Joey
"Batting it out of the park with nasty juke joint saxophone."
-- Blue Suede NewsHonkin', growlin', screamin', and wailin', Joey the Saint’s hallmark tenor style has become a fixture around the Pacific Northwest from roadside bars and juke joints to the Gorge Amphitheatre. His aggressive sound, electric stage presence, and showmanship hail back to the 40's and 50's honkers and shouters.
Joey cut his teeth in the Seattle Blues and R&B scene as a saxophonist and vocalist with the internationally acclaimed jump blues combo Tim Casey & the Bluescats. He has performed with such legends as Frankie Lee, Charlie Musselwhite, Rusty Zinn, John Nemeth, Mitch Woods, The Mighty Mighty Bosstones, and the JB’s, and has been nominated for Best Horn by the Washington Blues Society for his work with local heroes including Polly O'Keary, Nick Vigarino, and The Fabulous Wailers. He is featured prominently on the soundtrack of the cult horror smash RetarDEAD from 4321 Films, and remains a steady call for recording projects in Seattle and L.A.
Joey is currently available as a saxophonist and keyboardist for sessions, lessons, subs, and roadwork.