For over a decade Sugar Lime Blue has been committed to recording music that draws from several genres and their latest effort is no different. Recorded at the Historic Blackbird Studio in Nashville, TN, The Blackbird Sessions is a crossroads album in many ways for Sugar Lime Blue. Signaling the end of an era while simultaneously ushering in a new one. Starting prior to the Covid pandemic with basic tracking completed shortly after the release of their third album, Narcoluptuous (added on 120 FM Stations), production came to a standstill at the loss of founding member and bassist Russ Dean in 2020.
Despite the loss, Ashley and Dave Beth remained committed to seeing the album to completion and enlisted the help of Bassist, Joe Bass (Brian Howe), and Keyboardist, Scott Guberman (Phil Lesh) to complete studio tracking. During this time the band also re-established a live presence embarking on several multi state-state tours over the summer adding members Luis “Slice” Echeverria on keys and Ikaika Pekelo on Drums who also contributed on the album.
Sugar Lime Blue remains a strong presence in the Americana/Jam Band scene having played national festivals alongside mainstays Umphrey’s McGee, Moe, Ween, The Wood Brothers, and Buddy Guy among others. With four albums in and over a decade of experience, SLB has performed nearly one-thousand Concerts and has been featured in national and international Press.
If you like music to be more than just the background noise in your life, check out Sugar Lime Blue next time they come to your town. The band feeds off the energy of their fans and puts their hearts into every show. We only have a short time on this planet and making the moment inclusive to all that hear and enjoy the sound is what it’s all about for them. Playing music is the ultimate group expression in creativity and Sugar Lime Blue is a family bound by love and music with the ultimate goal to be able to spread that music love around.
Blues-E-News (BEN) recently did an email interview with Sugar Lime Blue frontperson, Ashley Beth (AB). Here’s how it went.
BEN: How would you try to describe the musical sound and genre of Sugar Lime Blue to someone unaware of your band?
AB: Sugar Lime Blue’s music is a fresh reincarnation of the soul and feel of earlier music vibes. It FEELS familiar. Like meeting an old friend for the first time. If you wish to name a specific genre of music that it fits into, you’ll find that task quite elusive. The band has never sought to harness one particular style of song, we just seek to be inspired and hopefully to be inspiring. We enjoy so many styles of music ourselves, and we like it when that shines through in the originals.
BEN: Let’s discuss your latest album, The Blackbird Sessions, and how that came to be recorded, etc.?
AB: We were invited to the much-celebrated Blackbird Studios. It has beautiful recording spaces, and a really pleasing environment to create and record music in. We had several songs in the wings (pun intended), that just needed some studio time and effort to be ready for listening. The engineers had everything set up for us when we got there. We just had to do some sound checking and slight adjustments, and we were off! After the recording was completed, we brought the files back to the home studio and Dave put his mixing talents to work. Once we were all happy with the songs, they went off to be mastered and printed on CDs. We opted out of vinyl pressing for this album, for now, on account of the very long wait time. We were excited to get the music out there.
BEN: Can you discuss the loss of your late band member, bassist Russ Dean, and how the band carried on after that?
AB: Russ is a founding member of SLB. Over the years, we became a very close family. We spent countless hours together on the road, rehearsing, playing, eating, planning, and dreaming together. His loss was tragic and heartbreaking… He was so creative and so sold out on this band and its music. When we got the news of his passing, there was nothing but shock. When we remembered to breathe again, we already knew what to do. It was serendipitous that we had just been discussing how we would all carry on should we lose one of our members. We each made it plain that music, and in particular SLB’s music was too important and special to us to just let it languish or die… under his own prophetic directive, we were to carry on. The pandemic was a double-edged sword for us. Russ had just passed, and the whole world stopped… music is our therapy, but we couldn’t perform live. And the performance was also painful at the time (should we have been able to continue as usual) because our hearts had a big Russ-shaped hole in them. Hearing his harmony, only in our heads, instead of with our ears… remembering his favorite venues to play and watching them close their doors forever because of the impact of Covid… it was all painful, but we knew we had to keep going. Along the way we met some truly generous, fantastic people who helped us push through those painful days. We have adopted a new member in the aptly named bassist Joe Bass. He has a very similar attitude and love of the band and its music that Russ did. He has been an integral part of propelling SLB into the next exciting chapters of creating, playing, and being. We know beyond a doubt that Russ approves.
BEN: As someone residing in Nashville, please elaborate on the current state of both the live and recorded music scene there?
AB: Nashville, oh Nashville… what can I say? We sport some of the coolest venues around. Of course, there’s Broadway, but that is a bit more tourist centered, and being such, cover songs are the name of the game out there, unless you are already a household name. So, as an original band, we tend to play some of the vibe-y venues on the outskirts, rather than the heart of town (parking is easier too). For the business side and the recording parts of the music industry, you’d be hard pressed to find a better place. So much here is music focused. As an artist, I get a bit bogged down in the business side of things and would much rather be creating and playing music than discussing the finer points of things like entertainment law. But you do need all sides of it.
BEN: What do you see in the future for Sugar Lime Blue, in both touring and recording?
AB: Sugar Lime Blue is in each member’s veins. We are always looking forward to the next gig, writing the next song, playing/singing that next note. This next year will be focused on playing as much as possible. We will also be continuing our longstanding online presence with the popular YouTube series, the Sugar Lime Blue #Sundayshoutout. Having just reached the milestone of 500 videos, we are only 20 weeks from the monumental 10-year anniversary of the genesis episode. We will write, laugh, travel, record, play, and hopefully become masters of our art. We look forward to bringing everyone along for the adventure.
For more info on Sugar Lime Blue, visit https://sugarlimeblue.com/.
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