This week, let's get acquainted via video with steel guitarist Roosevelt Collier, who's coming to St. Louis to perform his first headlining shows here next Friday, June 21 and Saturday, June 22 at Jazz St. Louis.
Collier grew up in Perrine, Florida, near Miami, and began playing music in the House of God Church in his hometown. He developed his “sacred steel” guitar chops performing with the Lee Boys, a family band made up of his uncles and cousins, and later began performing more secular gigs on his own in the early 2000s.
His debut album as a solo artist, Exit 16, was produced by Michael League, bassist and bandleader for Snarky Puppy, and was released last year. Collier also has become an in-demand performer in the jam-band world and on the summer festival circuit, performing alongside artists including the Allman Brothers Band, the String Cheese Incident, Buddy Guy, Umphrey's McGee, Los Lobos, Robert Randolph, the Tedeschi-Trucks Band, and the Del McCoury Band.
Collier's music is described as a “mixture of blues, gospel, rock, and funk," and as such, it's louder and more aggressive than many of the artists who have appeared on the Bistro stage, even drawing occasional comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. You can get a pretty good idea of what his performances here may be like by checking out the first video up above, a complete show recorded live in April of this year at Ronnie Scott's in London.
You can see the official live-in-the-studio music videos for two tracks from Exit 16, “Supernatural Encounters" and “Happy Feet," which were released in February 2018 to promote the release of the album.
Next, there are two more songs from the album, “That Could've Been Bad" and the title track, as recorded in May 2018 at Paste Studios in New York City.
The final video is another complete set, captured in February of this year at a venue called the Public House in Crested Butte, Colorado.
Collier grew up in Perrine, Florida, near Miami, and began playing music in the House of God Church in his hometown. He developed his “sacred steel” guitar chops performing with the Lee Boys, a family band made up of his uncles and cousins, and later began performing more secular gigs on his own in the early 2000s.
His debut album as a solo artist, Exit 16, was produced by Michael League, bassist and bandleader for Snarky Puppy, and was released last year. Collier also has become an in-demand performer in the jam-band world and on the summer festival circuit, performing alongside artists including the Allman Brothers Band, the String Cheese Incident, Buddy Guy, Umphrey's McGee, Los Lobos, Robert Randolph, the Tedeschi-Trucks Band, and the Del McCoury Band.
Collier's music is described as a “mixture of blues, gospel, rock, and funk," and as such, it's louder and more aggressive than many of the artists who have appeared on the Bistro stage, even drawing occasional comparisons to Jimi Hendrix. You can get a pretty good idea of what his performances here may be like by checking out the first video up above, a complete show recorded live in April of this year at Ronnie Scott's in London.
You can see the official live-in-the-studio music videos for two tracks from Exit 16, “Supernatural Encounters" and “Happy Feet," which were released in February 2018 to promote the release of the album.
Next, there are two more songs from the album, “That Could've Been Bad" and the title track, as recorded in May 2018 at Paste Studios in New York City.
The final video is another complete set, captured in February of this year at a venue called the Public House in Crested Butte, Colorado.
