They're a band of best friends, brothers, a husband and a wife. Their sound is a melting pot all their own of 1950s big city electric blues combined with the high-energy sounds of early rockabilly and soul. Laurie Jane's jazz influenced vocals, sincere and restrained, float across the churning depths of Cort Duggins's twelve string slide guitar, double stop leads and deep blues picking. Jason Embry's upright "cat-house" bass and Scott Dugdale's drums lay down raucous, swinging backbeats.
Laurie Jane tells the story of how the band came together, “Well the 45s, my husband, Cort and Jason Embry and Scott Dugdale have been playing together for over 20 years, they're like a band of brothers now. It's almost like when they do musical things with other people, they feel like they're cheating on each other! They've been a unit for so long. When Cort and I started dating, we started playing some duo shows together, and it naturally came around that we formed Laurie Jane and the 45s.”
The end result is a sound at least one describes as “country soul and roll.” It's high energy, with elements of rockabilly, deep blues, jazz and more. It's unique and one of a kind. “We are kind of a mix of a lot of things. There's some 40s jump blues, some 50s big city blues, some rockabilly, some early soul and then I have a style of singing that is classic jazz, almost like Ella Fitzgerald era.” They truly have their own sound and cannnot be pigeon holed into one narrow sub genre.
Kenlake Hot August Blues Festival will be the first appearance for Laurie Jane and the 45s in Western Kentucky. To learn more about Laurie Jane and the 45s, click the link below.
On the Net:
lauriejaneandthe45s.com
