Event: Live Interview with RONNIE BAKER BROOKS

Place: "Upper Room with Joe Kelley" Radio Show

WVOF 88.5 FM in Fairfield, Connecticut

Date/Time: Monday August 31st, 2015 6pm-8pm ET

Internet Stream: www.wvof.org

Listen in as WVOF's "Upper Room with Joe Kelley" welcomes legendary Chicago Blues/Soul guitarist/singer/producer RONNIE BAKER BROOKS. www.ronniebakerbrooks.com

Brooks grew up steeped in American music tradition yet his focus remains resolutely on the future. As well as anyone of his generation, he knows the transcendent release at the heart of soul, blues and rock. He knows because, as the son of blues great Lonnie Brooks, he came of age watching the fieriest guitar players and most soulful singers of a previous era express their deepest feelings through their music.

“I grew up among the best of the best,” Brooks says. “Every time I play, I feel like I’ve got to do it with the authenticity and passion that I saw in guys like Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters, B.B. King and my father. But I also have to put my twist on it. None of those guys repeated what came before them.”

Brooks’ twist involves enlivening blues-rock with deep soul and modern hip-hop vocals and funk rhythms. Working with Minneapolis producer Jellybean Johnson, a veteran collaborator of Prince and Janet Jackson, Brooks takes roots sounds and transforms them into something that spans the ages.

“I like to think of how Muddy Waters took the Mississippi blues he heard in his youth and modernized it for his times by making it electric and harder,” Brooks explains. “That’s what I’m trying to do for my generation. I want to take what’s authentic and powerful about the music I grew up loving and bring in other influences without losing the heart and conviction of it.”

Brooks is currently on tour and will be releasing a new CD in the near future.

Tour Dates:

Keep up the great work, Joe!

RodeoSchro said:

Keep up the great work, Joe!

Thanks a lot. Appreciate the kind words. Lots of talk from Ronnie about Prince and chilling out with him in the studio during on of The Celebrations. Will up on site next week and announce.