|
|
|
Dave Matthews Band - Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King
| Rollingstone |
|
Saxophonist LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band was a famously taciturn man. Moore, who died last August at 46 of complications from injuries suffered in an off-road-vehicle accident on his farm in Virginia, never spoke onstage — not at any DMB show I saw, anyway — and declined to be interviewed for stories about the group. When I wrote about the Dave Matthews Band for a Rolling Stone cover story in 2002, Moore avoided even saying hello. A founding member of one of America's best-selling bands, he was also spectacularly successful at minding his own business. Matthews, who drew the richly detailed artwork for this record, knew a different Moore. On the cover of Big Whiskey and the GrooGrux King, DMB's seventh studio album, Matthews portrays Moore as a giant laughing head on a Mardi Gras float, leading the delirium on a French Quarter street. And Matthews opens the record with a sparkling evocation: the sound of Moore's piercing alto sax dancing atop drummer Carter Beauford's eruptive rolls and Stefan Lessard's humming bass in the brief instrumental "Grux." A still, stocky presence in concert, like an upright bear in corkscrew dreads, Moore was a nimble, lusty player on his various horns, threading Matthews' vocal melodies and Boyd Tinsley's violin runs with jazzy intuition and funky punctuations....full text |
|
|
| Spin |
| The first sound you hear on the new Dave Matthews Band album is the bleat of LeRoi Moore's saxophone -- appropriate for a disc titled in honor of the founding member, who died unexpectedly last August following a freak ATV accident. GrooGrux is harder edged and more bottom heavy than DMB's usual fare, undoubtedly due to the band's decision to work with Green Day and My Chemical Romance producer Rob Cavallo, but probably also a result of the grief suffered by Moore's surviving bandmates. A fond, funky farewell....full text |
|
|
| Bandweblogs |
|
On June 2, 2009 Warner will release Dave Matthews Band’s ‘Big Whiskey And The GrooGrux King,’ the group’s seventh studio album and its first since 2005’s ‘Stand Up’. The 13-track record was written by Dave Matthews Band and produced by Rob Cavallo (Green Day and My Chemical Romance). With its celebratory spirit and lyrical ruminations on fragile mortality, ‘Big Whiskey’ pays tribute to the band’s saxophonist, LeRoi Moore, and features some of his last recordings. Moore passed away in the summer of 2008, halfway through the making of the album. The remaining founding members - Carter Beauford (Drums), Stefan Lessard (Bass), Dave Matthews (Vocals, Guitar) and Boyd Tinsley (Violin) - regrouped at a New Orleans, LA studio in early 2009 to complete the album. They were able to integrate much of the material Moore had recorded during their 2008 sessions in Charlottesville, VA and Seattle, WA, providing an immensely powerful twist to the overall feel of the album. Guitarist Tim Reynolds, trumpeter Rashawn Ross and saxophonist Jeff Coffin also played on ‘Big Whiskey’ and will join the band on tour....full text |
|
|
Go to "Dave Matthews Band " lyrics