Music is often a funny, small world–shown by how I met the Ragged Blade Band. I was part of a revolving brunch lineup in St. Louis and many other performers I didn’t meet in person. I encountered the Ragged Blade Band’s music through Twitter and began corresponding with band member, Jerry Rabushka, about blogging a song. Upon receiving the information, I realized our mutual connections and marveled at the small world. Click play on fellow St. Louis artist Ragged Blade Band and see if your world gets a little smaller. The story “Beat Of The River” below is in the band’s words.
Story Behind “Beat Of The River”
I guess saying a song has a personal meaning isn’t anything unusual but Beat of the River’s personal meaning for me is that I really did meet my partner of almost 11 years, as the song says “drumming by the side of the river” in New Orleans. He was a bucket drumming street performer and for the past year had made his living doing that in Hollywood, CA.
It was purely by chance we ran across each other because neither of us lived in New Orleans. We got to chatting for awhile, went to Café Du Monde for beignets and got a sugar high, and we’ve been together ever since. And also like the song says, we still don’t go down Bourbon Street. After awhile though the song, in your performance, stops being “about you” and you just do it like any other song.
It’s mostly a pop song feel but I tried to put a bit of the New Orleans sound at the beginning and the end – actually for me the intro was the most challenging part to learn. The band played the song a lot back in say 2010 but when those singers moved on we shelved it, and just revived it recently. I’m happy to have it back in the repertoire, I like the song a lot and I think as we now play a lot of jazz and blues, it’s a good bridge between jazz & pop. Originally we had a soprano sax & clarinet in the group, with no guitar, so for this version I combined the wind parts and even some of the original bass part into a tenor sax part and the guitar fills out from there. There’s a cool part in the song where everyone drops out but guitar and drums under the singer, for a different texture in the last verse.
People seem to enjoy it because it’s upbeat and fun. Ellen Saracini the vocalist really likes singing it, she says it’s “Just so Cute!” Josh Bohm the guitarist likes hitting the big chords of the chorus and all in all it seems to spread some good vibes around and people take notice. it’s sort of a duo with me on the other part & a lot of folks commented that we sound well together.
When we voted on songs to record this was one of the winners. We tried to record it with a “live feel” in that this is what the band sounds like when we play it live.
Ragged Blade Band Bio And Links
The Ragged Blade Band focuses on music from about 1895-1930, including a lot of ragtime, early blues and jazz, and some well known and rarely heard songs of the era, plus we play my original songs which range from jazz to country and…more! We play in the St. Louis area and regionally at brewpubs, wineries, restaurants, markets, and festivals, including some steampunk and prohibition events, and once a year we open a game for the KC Royals. Our new EP, called “At the Devil’s Ball” features that title track (By Irving Berlin), “Aunt Hagar’s Children Blues” (WC Handy), “Kansas City Blues” (Euday Bowman) and my two songs “Beat of the River” and “Wrong Side of Town.”
The band includes: Shawn Telkamp and Ellen Saracini (vocals), Jerry Rabushka (piano, trumpet, vocals), Isaac Cherry (drums), Josh Bohm (guitars, bass), John Woytus (bari and tenor sax).