Mulebone’s hard-driving, rootsy blues sound was a favorite at last year’s Rock Hall FallFest and now they are back for a full concert at the Mainstay in Rock Hall, MD on Saturday June 1 at 8:00 p.m. Admission is $15. For information and reservations call the Mainstay at 410-639-9133. Information is also available at the Mainstay’s website https://www.mainstayrockhall.org.
Mulebone brilliantly combines Hugh Pool’s blues/roots guitar, harmonica, vocals and stomp-board with John Ragusa’s virtuosity on conch shell, Jews harp, cornet, all manner of flutes, tin whistle and back-up vocals. They play an intense mix of slide guitar boogies, 1 chord trance riffs a la Howlin Wolf, the uptempo rags of Reverend Gary Davis, country blues of all shapes and colors, a mix of tunes written by Pool and covers from the likes of Fred McDowell and Merle Travis.
John Ragusa plays conch shell, Jews harp, cornet, all manner of flutes, tin whistle, and chimes in on the harmony vocals. He is member of Beth Nielsen Chapman’s group as well as his own John Ragusa outfit, and plays regularly in conjunction with Deepak Chopra’s speaking engagements. Amongst dozens of studio credits are contemporary jazz greats Joe Taylor, Jeremy Wall and world music icon Tom Ze.
Pool says, “One time we were in Lexington, Kentucky sitting at an outdoor cafe and John played me a bunch of melodies sliding a straw up and down in a cup of ice water.”
Hugh Pool plays guitars, harmonica, boot board and sings, all with a mouth full of whiskey and a giant heart. He has played his brand of blues in clubs and at festivals from Jakarta, Indonesia to North Cape, Norway; From Vienna, Austria to Ottawa, Ontario and has been critically lauded by The New York Times, New York Press, The Village Voice, Pittsburgh Press, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Blues Revue Magazine…the list goes on. He is also a noted recordist and producer who has worked on hundreds of records at his Williamsburg, Brooklyn studio, Excello Recording including sessions with Taj Mahal, Debbie Harry, and Marah to name a couple.
Pool and Ragusa have been playing their own deeply rooted version of the blues since 1996. Sometimes they play close to the source, almost as if tracing the image, and at other moments, they re-examine the source, float above it, take a new look as one understanding their home from a distant land.
Their first CD spent 15 weeks in the Americana Top 100. Along with playing live and TV appearances, they won blues artist of the year at radio stations from Seattle, Washington to Red Bank, New Jersey.
From New York, they play regularly in the city, but have developed a following wherever they have toured. Any given week, you may find them playing clubs in NYC or entertaining at private parties thrown by David Rockefeller or Bruce Wasserstein and list of other East Coast residents who are enthusiastic about bringing these boys in for a party by road, sea or air or on short tours playing festivals and places like the Mainstay.
They were a big hit in front of the Mainstay at the 2012 Rock Hall FallFest after Mainstay booking manager Fred Kaiser saw them at a festival in upstate New York. They were such a hit there, he says, “that I knew their riveting blues/roots jams would be a big hit at FallFest and at the Mainstay. We are delighted to be able to bring them back for a full show. Their power and energy will be intensified in the Mainstay’s intimate space.”
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