Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears

Shows Are Standing Room OnlyBlack Joe Lewis is the realest motherf*cker there is. When Covid sidelined his touring, hestarted laying concrete to help support his baby mama and his kid. Thats f*ckin real. When Joe and his band, the Honeybears, popped onto the national stage over adecade ago, many critics embraced him but still, there were some that maintained that they hadnt paid their dues. Joes still here. Still going. Still cashing checks and snapping necks. The dues of hard work; the delirious heights of the industry as well as the disappointments and low hanging fruit. Through this all, Joes only honed his mastery over gut bucket blues guitar and his true voice. Its a vital and distinctly American voice that never anticipated the attention he wound up receiving, never went looking for it either. It just started happening. The garage, the blues, the propulsive and synergistic live performances that inhabit the spaces of James Brown, Lightnin Hopkins, and the MC5...those things happened naturally from the very beginning and could only be accurately communicated in the live experience, not a press release or a slick brand campaign.Sharon Jones, Charles Bradley, Cedric Burnside and Lightnin Malcolm, The Dirtbombs, Detroit Cobras, the Strange Boys; these are some of the artists that Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears shared countless bills with; almost a roll call of the most influential soul and garage bands of the last twenty five years. Has the soul blues garage explosion from that era been commodified or worked into the overall template of pop rock? Sure. But the ground floor was avital space for people that like guitars and grease and at this point Black Joe Lewis is one of thelast standing that was there. Last of a dying breed. Or maybe a missing link. Does this make him a throwback? A throwback to a throwback? Itd be tempting and easy for Joe to go along with that but nah, we dont think so. We know that Joe Lewis is genuinely doing his thing and that hed do it regardless of whats coming down the pipe. A stone cold original and a veteran at that. If you like whistling in your music and some floppy hat, quaky kneed dudes cloyingly singing at you, then you might not get it but whatever...there are enough intrepid, degenerate weirdos that do. Those are the folks Joe cares about. Not the glad handing set. Not the fair-weather friend set getting down with the flavor of the month. Like the title of his last album says,the difference between me and you is Joe defining for himself that theres the belabored wannabes and then theres dudes that actually HAVE the blues...whatever the hell THAT is! Joes concrete pouring boss is going to miss him