Catching up with Cosmic Ray, leader of The Cosmic Blues Band, who have
recently acquired a residency as the house band at BB King’s and he’s going
to fill us in with a little more about that.
CR: Absoultely, firstly, thank you for allowing me to interview with your
magazine, I really appreciate this. Secondly, the way this all came about, it
spawned out of us hosting the biggest event I think Lucielles has had in
several years, “The Cosmic Blues Party.”
“The Cosmic Blues Party,” was an idea of not only celebrating the birthday
and life of BB King, whose birthday is September 16, and a CD release party
from one of the bands I booked.
What I did was I created an entire event and I brought this to BB King’s and
they liked what they saw and as a result of the success of the event, they
came back and offered me the residency.
[Author’s note: I was there and it was a happening time. It was definitely the
most crowded I’ve seen Lucielle’s on any of the occasions I have been there]
JS: Can you please explain to our readers what having a residency entails?
CR: What we’re doing is paying homage to the roots music, which I think
Willie Dixon quoted, “Blues are the roots and other music are its fruits and
you need to take care of the roots so there are stronger fruits.” Which is
absolutely true. So what I am doing is creating, or trying to create a blues
scene that pays tribute to that, but allows the group overall to learn from each
other as experiences are translated from one band to the other, so the whole
scene benefits.