The Dave Matthews Band’s seventh studio outing, ‘Big Whiskey & the GrooGrux King’, smoulders into life with an impassioned sax solo — only fitting, really, for an album dedicated to the man playing with such fire in his belly.
Yes, the memory of Leroi Moore, who died suddenly last year, looms large over the album named after him. Quite appropriately then it’s a focused, no-nonsense affair — like the man himself.
Over the course of six albums, Dave Matthews has achieved so much more than success. The South African born singer has proved that an average-looking, everyday-kinda guy can compete with the image obsessed waifs on the charts. He’s brought back the improvisational jam band after the demise of The Grateful Dead’s Jerry Garcia. He’s introduced the world to Vusi Mahlasela. And he’s given the flute its rightful place on the top 40.
But while the mainstream popularity of Matthews’ folk-jazz-blues-rock might still be surprising to some, ‘The Best Of What’s Around’ reveals just why the Durban boy has hit it so big: he and his band have produced some genuinely good songs — musically ambitious but irresistibly appealing.
Hard to believe, but a band with a saxophonist and violin player in its lineup, a band that plays a hybrid of funk, bluegrass, jazz and world music (usually in the same song) is the biggest rock band in the USA. Their guitars aren’t even electric for chrissakes.
But listen to the live bonus disc on ‘Stand Up’, the Dave Matthews Band’s latest album, and you’ll understand why the quintet have sold some 10-million concert tickets. Their prolonged freeform jams, mentioned in the same breath as those of the Grateful Dead, ensure that every night punters are guaranteed one helluva show.
Nils van der Linden