The Dream Café in Penticton will be hosting B.C.’s representatives at the 2015 Memphis Blues Challenge on Friday and Saturday.
Uncle Wiggly’s Hot Shoes Blues Band, who made the quarterfinals out of 280 acts in Memphis, will be appearing for the first time in Penticton for a pair of 8 p.m. shows on March 18 and 19. Originally formed in 1978, the band still features three original members over 30 years later, despite a 10 year hiatus from 1983 to 1993.
“We never lost the passion,” explained Hank ‘Uncle Wiggly’ Lionhart, the band’s lead singer of how they’re still together. “Everyone still gets along really well, we’re all pretty good friends.”
Signed to RCA records in the 80s, Uncle Wiggly’s Hot Shoes Blues Band has put out three albums, with the most recent coming within the past two years. The band has also shared the stage with many famous blues bands, opening for Muddy Waters, Joe Cocker, James Cotton, Koko Taylor and George Thorogood and the Destroyers, amongst others.
During the 80s, the Victoria-based band toured across Canada, and today they still perform throughout B.C. and in Alberta every summer.
“The music we do is really traditional blues, but it’s very eclectic because we have a horns section trio,” Lionhart described. “It’s easy to dance and listen to, and it’s our own original stuff.”
Uncle Wiggly’s Hot Shoes Blues Band certainly has a unique name, and Lionhart explained where it came from.
“I was jamming with some guys, and one of the guys in the jam had his son with him,” he recalled. “He was about five years old, and he had this book with him called Uncle Wiggily. I started singing some of the pages from the book, and just grabbed the name from there,” he said adding he changed the spelling. “It was a book from the 50’s about a rabbit, Uncle Wiggily, and much of the music we played was from the 50’s.”
Just as what seems status quo in the genre, many of the band members also have nicknames, such as Dave ‘The Duck’ Rowse, Mark ‘Westcoast’ Comerford, and ‘Lightnin’ Lonnie Glass.
“The nicknames came from each other, it was just kind of the thing to do in the 80’s,” Lionhart said. “Dave ‘The Duck’ Rowse is kind of a neat one, because we were together for almost a year when he joined. We did a gig and someone wrote an article on it, and he said when Dave Rowse played the sax, the baritone sounded like the mating call of a three tonne duck. He decided to embrace it.”
The band is currently working on writing a new album, and is hoping to start recording in the fall. More information about the band can be found on their website unclewigglyshotshoesbluesband.com.
Tickets to the shows are $20, and can be reserved by calling the Dream Cafe 250-490-9012.
