Claude Dorsey

To a generation of Milwaukeeans, Claude Dorsey was the musical centerpiece of the city’s nightlife. For 40 years, he entertained diners as the house pianist and vocalist at the Clock Steak House, a downtown crossroads of politicians, entertainers, and reputed mobsters. “It had great food, and the entertainment was pretty good, too,” Dorsey quipped. “The best meals were when Miss Addie was cooking. Whatever she made, it was the best.” In many ways, The Clock became the crossroads where Milwaukee met the Vegas Rat Pack culture. “All the cabbies recommended it to touring acts – that’s how Bob Hope came to see me a few times. [The] same with Nat ‘King’ Cole , Tony Bennett, and others. The cabbies were great at networking.”

Dorsey traces his roots to Gainesville, Georgia, about 40 miles north of Atlanta. “My daddy was the main minister of a church there,” he said. “I wanted to follow him – I tried, but I was always playing music.” Dorsey came to Milwaukee as a teen in 1928. “My dad became minister at Calvary Baptist Church,” he said. The approval of his father was an important factor in Dorsey’s career. “When he heard me play, he said, ‘you’re ministering here; you’re reaching people. That’s what it’s all about.’ I was so happy that my daddy approved of what I was doing; that he was proud of me,” he said.

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Elf Lettuce

Some bands find their strength in Satan/Jesus and others in sexual escapades. However, for the Madison quartet Elf Lettuce they draw off another, more untraditional source of power and unmitigated majesty.

“We have a mascot - a lawn gnome named Ricardo Perfecto,” begins guitarist and vocalist Alex White in a recent e-mail exchange. “He’s actually the second mascot we’ve had, because our first mascot, Eugene, was tragically decapitated after an audience member ‘accidentally’ knocked him off the rather tall stage at The Frequency in Madison in September.”

The stalwart band, rounded out by Jacob Lison (guitar, harmonica, vocals), Joe Murray (drum kit) and Eli Reichenberger (bass, vocals), took their loss in stride and managed to recover nicely after finding a replacement.

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Bradley Fish

Bradley Fish has become the ultimate nomad. It makes sense though, he’s been perfecting it most of his adult life along with his passion, music.

A musical chameleon with a music degree to match, Bradley left his native Illinois for the much more liberal Madison, Wisconsin in the mid 1990’s and literally lived in a tent in a friend’s back yard while giving guitar lessons to local students. He also played many a night on State Street and could always be spotted with a guitar, head full of dreadlocks and a tie-dye t-shirt.

Eventually, the success of lessons, shows and street playing allowed him to set up his own place and live life from music. His solo shows were “one man band” style, and he wore bells, shakers and other noise makers on his legs and feet and play guitar, dulcimer, Chinese zither and whatever other instrument he could find. Bradley is also part comedian and his laugh is infectious. Some of his videos on YouTube feature this “humor” with his controversial song “Jewish Girl Blues.” Totally tongue in cheek, the song pokes fun at the plight of Jewish men who are pressured by old tradition to find and marry a Jewish girl, only in this video, he marries a few to cover the bases.

Besides playing as a one man band/comedian, Bradley has been in a ton of bands. In the mid-nineties, Bradley enlisted the help of a plethora of local Madison all-stars to play in his band, The Aquarium Conspiracy, and record on his first album. After some success it was hard to keep the “band” booked as scheduling of “all-stars” isn’t so easy.

The late nineties put the hippy in Bradley out to dry when he hooked up with Rökker, Philly, Mike McGinnis and Jeff Muendel to re-package the old Aquarium Conspiracy music plus new songs to a heavier format… a ROCK BAND called Bradley Fish’s Electrifried Band. Zany publicity stunts propelled his popularity, but something still seemed missing.

Following his mother’s advice to visit Israel, Bradley sold off most of his belongings, shipped the guitar and Marshall amp to his new home in Tel Aviv where he would work for the high-level audio software company Waves as well as get signed to Sony Records to sell CD’s full of loops. But Tel Aviv didn’t suit him so off to Jerusalem he went where he started a recording studio in his apartment just off the market. But the nomad in him would strike again.

Before he sold off all his belongings and shipped the rest back to the states, Bradley recorded his new album “Time To Rise”. Set to be released on October 12th at the High Noon Saloon in Madison, “Time To Rise” will take Bradley across the country as he promotes and tours in total DIY fashion. You see, Bradley purchased a big, purple van which you can’t miss. Instead of the tent, or an apartment or home, he has trimmed his possessions to the minimum and uses a fusion of old and new technologies to make the “Purple People Eater”, his fond name for it, into a mobile home/office, decreasing his lodging expense.

Bradley also went back to his one-man-band show but this time it’s a complete mix of analog and digital as he uses the laptop to control the layers of his improvisational playing on the many different instruments in his possession. Guitar and dulcimer remain his favorites while he incorporates bass, drum loops and “other” sounds into his repertoire.

Here is my conversation with adventure looping musician Bradley Fish. He is back in the Midwest after his 6 year residence in Israel and touring this fall with a new album.

Maximum Ink: Bradley, Are you a one man show or would you rather mash with others?
Bradley Fish: I love playing in bands. I must have been in a few hundred of them, practically every style you can imagine and have learned from a ton of great musicians over the years. The thing is, bands have a 99.9% chance of breaking up and solo acts are the inverse of that. So in a business that’s already known for being very unstable, being a solo act lets me enjoy a certain degree of stability. Plus, as a solo act, I can decide to rehearse spontaneously at 4 in the morning, make radical changes in a musical direction, or play a freaky gig for naked desert-trance-hippies for gas money and organic yogurt - without consulting or convincing anyone and still keep the act together for years on end.

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G. Love & Special Sauce

Deconstructing preconceptions, Philadelphia’s G. LOVE set 1993 on fire as a “white boy” daring to integrate the blues into hip-hop. Seventeen years later he’s still tearing up the joint, jamming and jiving. Appearing March 5th at Milwaukee’s Turner Hall and March 6th at Madison’s Barrymore, G. was kind enough to sit down with MAXIMUM INK and answer a few questions.

Maximum Ink: According to Muddy Waters the blues had a child and called it rock and roll. Where does funk and hip-hop come in?
G. Love: I think funk was basically blues on the one. John Lee Hooker would do his blues on the one and then James Brown and that generation flipped the backbeat and it was a whole new sound. Hip Hop is basically musically simplified funk with the voice of the youth on top. Hip Hop became the voice of the next generation (for the past 3 generations).

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Launchpad

“Some of the best original music today comes from high school garage bands.” –Les Paul

The Wisconsin School Music Association (WSMA) is about to kick off the seventh year of the one of a kind music competition called Launchpad, using the same idea that the late great Les Paul personified in his quote. Launchpad is a statewide alternative music competition for high school students in bands formed outside of the traditional music classroom. Maximum Ink caught up with director and creator of the competition, Dennis Graham to talk about how the competition got started and where he sees it heading in the coming years.

Maximum Ink: Tell us about how Launchpad got started.

Dennis Graham: I was approached by the WSMA, which presents this program, seven years ago to talk about raising awareness on raising funds for them. As a result of my discussions with Michael George, the current Executive Director of the WSMA, and I brought up a couple ideas and the first was to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to recognize people who had a successful music career and were also impacted by a music teacher. The first ever Lifetime Achievement Award in Wisconsin was given to Les Paul. I hand delivered a letter that I wrote, which was signed by Governor Doyle, to Les inviting him back to Wisconsin (He hadn’t been back in twenty years.) October 27th, 2004 was Les Paul Day in the State of Wisconsin and it was just a marvelous day of honoring him. Steve Miller (Steve Miller Band), Les’ godson, came out and was part of it as well.

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Harmony Bar - 20th Anniversary

As one of the area’s most carefree and nonchalant taverns, Madison’s Harmony Bar on Atwood Avenue has been delighting local residents with music, food, and drinks for the past two decades. Twenty years in business makes it one of the city’s longest-lasting live music venues in an industry that usually chews up clubs and spits them out. To celebrate the launch of their third decade, owner Keith Daniels is sponsoring an all-day anniversary party on March 14th at The Barrymore Theatre right down the road.

And the rationale behind it is simple. “I wanted to throw a party.”, Daniels says. “I wanted to throw a good party for all the good people that have been coming for twenty years. We’re having Bunky’s (a cafe also on Atwood and another near-east side of Madison tradition) do the catering because I want all our people to have the day off. And I still thought that we should do a little something for the neighborhood. So, we decided to put a five dollar cover on it and it all goes to the Goodman Community Center.” So, it’s not only a party but a benefit for one of the area’s most valuable programs for at-risk youth as well.

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Steve Katz of Blood Sweat And Tears

Steve Katz’ initial guitar motivation came from folky blues great Dave Van Ronk and the Reverend Gary Davis. I asked Katz about his first guitar and his connection to Van Ronk. “(It) was a Gibson J200 acoustic. I never even played electric until I joined The Blues Project. I took lessons from Dave when I was just a beginner. Both Van Ronk and Rev. Davis will always be major influences on me.”

Inspired by the folk and jug band music that was popular in the early/mid 60s Greenwich Village scene, Katz found himself in a group of like-minded friends and musicians, including Stefan Grossman, Maria Muldaur, John Sebastian, and David Grisman, forming the Even Dozen Jug Band and recording a self-titled album in 1964 for Elektra Records. Steve commented to me on this early group of eventually high profile performers, “The great thing about the jug band was the diversity of styles of all the members. There was a blues, bluegrass, and a ragtime contingent. We were all friends and it was a great way to bring all our musical interests together. We performed at Carnegie Hall, on The Tonight Show, and a TV show called Hootenanny.”

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