NORWICH – Search as you might, you’ll be hard pressed to find much information on Thistle Dew, one of the bands featured at this weekend’s Chenango Blues Festival. They’re not much more than a footnote on promotional materials distributed for the event, but members of the local band don’t seem to mind.
In fact, they’re hoping it will only add to their mystique and help draw out a crowd as they make their Blues Fest debut in a free show at 7 p.m. on Friday night at the Chenango County Fairgrounds.
For the last year, Thistle Dew has been making a name for itself playing at local venues, but each of the talented musicians has quite a story to tell. After all, how many local bands can claim to have a bass player who has toured with the likes of Carole King and opened for Foghat? How about a guitarist who has not only recorded with Joan Osborne and Chris Butler, but also made a name for himself as a studio musician, recording 28 episodes of the Comedy Central hit, Two Drink Minimum and a host of others for HBO?
If you’re still not impressed, try topping this: a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer on drums, who has performed both on The Dick Clark Show and at Carnegie Hall and played with Neil Young and Crazy Horse, Joe Walsh and the Jones Gang, the Beach Boys, Deep Purple and Fifth Dimension, just to name a few.
Because Thistle Dew has all that and more with bass player Jimmy John Kolet, guitarist Eric Porter and percussionist Bob Tousignant, who earned his Hall of Fame spot with The Music Explosion for their 1967 hit “Little Bit O’Soul.”
Rounding out the group is Mike O’Connor on keyboard and what the band considers to be the true feather in their cap, the powerful voice of songstress Jes Sheldon.
“She has such a wide range,” Kolet said, explaining that the band largely allows Sheldon to pick the music. Her eclectic tastes and vocal range have lead the band toward a sound they describe as “rock’n’blues r&b,” with a little bit of funk thrown in.
“I vividly remember going to the library when I was 8 or 9 and getting records,” Sheldon said. At that age she was already listening to jazz, big band music, blues and soul, she explained. And she still does, along with hip hop, metal and just about anything else she can get her hands on. All of those influences have “trickled down” into her music, she says.
