Holmes Brothers, Club Helsinki, June 24, 2000
By Seth Rogovoy

(GREAT BARRINGTON, Mass., June 25, 2000) - The Holmes Brothers brand of electric blues, r&b and soul music was born in urban nightclubs, and that’s only one reason that it’s heard to best effect in a place like Club Helsinki, where the Virginia-based quartet - two of whom are actually brothers named Holmes - rocked the house on Saturday night. No recording could quite capture the sweat and grit of a Holmes Brothers show, nor the dynamic tension and release that powers a club show, which relies on the sort of performer-audience interaction that a place like Helsinki allows for.

With the wildly enthusiastic dancing right in front of the band, the students of the music seated at tables and chairs alongside the walls, and the otherwise engaged deeply engrossed in conversation at the bar or in other nooks and crannies of the Berkshires’ most exciting nightspot, the Holmes Brothers performed several sets of classic and original blues-based music which ranged from honky-tonk guitar instrumentals, gospel ballads, steamy funk, jazz-laced Texas swing, Buddy Guy-style Chicago blues and ‘50s rock ‘n’ roll.

With three lead vocalists, each with a distinctive style, the group easily put forth its wide-ranging repertoire. Lead guitarist and frontman Wendell Holmes boasted a raspy growl, one part Muddy Waters, one part Howlin’ Wolf, well suited to the impassioned blues numbers that were his specialty. Bassist Sherman Holmes sang in a deep, smooth baritone in the service of his Lord on several gospel-based numbers, including his own “Promised Land.” Drummer Popsy Dixon boasted a versatile range from a silky falsetto to a lover’s croon, and he tossed around the more soul-based tunes. Wendell Holmes was a forceful frontman and lead guitarist. His playing was never flashy or showy, but rather full of tension and emotion. He fired machine-gun like runs of single notes, and answered them with funk- or jazz-based chords. He sang through his instrument in a seemingly effortless, organic manner. And he often did all of this simultaneously. But more than any individual effort, the Holmes Brothers are a band - more than the sum of its parts. Having played together for decades, the musicians, who are in their late 50s or early 60s, function telepathically with each other. They soloed on and around each other’s rhythms and lines like well-seasoned jazzmen. They knew when to drop out or tone things down to lend focus to a soloist, or just a particularly evocative passage. Sherman Holmes and Dixon particularly worked well together, with Holmes laying down fat, funky lines just ahead of or behind Dixon’s crisp, incessant snare shots. And the group’s pacing was inerrant, making ecstatic leaps from slow, mournful blues like “The New and Improved Me” or a slow, soul ballad like Sam Cooke’s “That’s Where It’s At” to giddy, uptempo rock tunes like Fats Domino’s “My Girl Josephine” or Mitch Ryder’s “Jenny Take a Ride.”

[This column originally appeared in the Berkshire Eagle on June 28, 2000. Copyright Seth Rogovoy 2000. All rights reserved.]

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