The Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College will present Jesse Dee, Saturday, March 22, 2014 at 8 PM in Milliken Auditorium. Tickets are $25 advance, $28 at the door and $22 for museum members plus fees. Tickets may be purchased by calling the Museum Box office at 231-995-1553 or on line at www.dennosmuseum.org, also at 1-800-836-0717 or www.MyNorthTickets.com.
Boston’s Jesse Dee is a singing, songwriting, guitar-playing soul man—a modern day trailblazer inspired by the old school. Dee’s passion is exploring and updating soul music for contemporary audiences. With his warm and honest sound, his instantly memorable melodies and positive, slice-of-life lyrics (evoking the heyday of the Brill Building songwriters), he accomplishes just that.
His inventive, hook-filled songs are delivered with buoyant, youthful exuberance. Live, he always brings down the house, and keeps his ever-growing fan base coming back for more. His band lays down driving, infectious grooves while Dee’s expressive vocals put him in a class by himself. On the strength of his fervent live shows, Dee plays to packed clubs in New England and has toured across Europe, earning new fans at every gig. The Boston Herald declares, “Dee has an explosive voice. He possesses a powerful, raspy tenor and an uncanny phrasing ability that can’t be taught.”
Dee won the 2010 Boston Phoenix Music Poll Award for Best R&B Act, both for the strength of his live show and the aftershocks of his 2008 debut CD, Bittersweet Batch (7Not Records/Munich Records). With his new album, On My Mind / In My Heart, his first for Alligator Records, Dee is now poised to break into the minds and hearts of music lovers across the country and around the world. The album, eleven original songs produced by Dee and Jack Younger, is a sweet soul masterpiece full of good vibes and funky, joyful music. Like Sam Cooke, Dee writes about real life with true emotional poetry. His lyrics are set to toe-tapping melodies with horn charts channeling The Memphis Horns and 1970s-era Van Morrison.
WHAT OTHERS SAY:
Tough-but-tender soul and rollicking, rootsy R&B…infectious, revival-meeting furor. –Boston Globe
The 2013-2014 performance season at the Dennos Museum Center is made possible with support from the Robert T and Ruth Haidt Trust, and the Osterlin Performance Endowment with media support from
WNMC 90.7, WCMU Public Broadcasting and TV 29&8. Housing for our performers is provided by the Cambria Suites and Country Inn.
More about Jesse Dee
Jesse Dee writes timeless songs that resonate as both humble tributes and clever updates of the classics. He brings them to life with a compelling voice that will lift you up as sure as it will lay you down. As a youngster in the Boston suburb of Arlington, Jesse was fascinated by the doo-wop groups and rhythm and blues artists he heard on the oldies stations. Since then, the singer/songwriter has drawn inspiration from everywhere he can; the raw and righteous Stax legends and the steam rolling electric grit of the Northern soul icons have ended up front and center.
Jesse has been hard at work since releasing his critically acclaimed debut album, Bittersweet Batch (7Not/Munich) in 2008. He and his band, an all-star gathering of Boston’s best talent, have toured the United States and Canada and are in high demand on the European festival circuits. A tireless performance schedule has earned Jesse a steady following. His stage presence and stamina are simply undeniable.
Some of Jesse’s heroes have picked up on his raw attack; he has performed with the likes of Al Green, Solomon Burke, Spencer Wiggins, Bettye Lavette, and his personal favorite, Etta James. Having shared the stage with Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings, James Hunter, Raphael Saadiq, and Nikka Costa, Jesse is also recognized as an important player in soul music’s modern era.
As a songwriter Jesse is able to channel real emotion and poetry into a workhorse strut. With a list of legendary influences fueling his honest-man’s delivery, Jesse carves out a vocal identity that’s purely his own. Whether he’s crooning it or belting it out, the beauty of Jesse Dee’s music is that it’s charged up with a perfect mix raw energy, class, and heart stealing forces. It works well in every environment, from posh jazz sit downs to sweaty rock clubs to big festival stages in front of 10,000 people. You can dress it up as easily as you can drag it through the mud.
Jesse molds all of the influences and experience into a well-honed, hard-working package, one that takes its rightful place in the evolution of soul music. It’s more than a tribute: It has fresh legs to carry the torch into the future. Soul music is in good hands with Jesse Dee.