Lonnie Knight & Easy Money
@ The Roadhouse, Mpls, January 16, 1998


Lonnie Knight
The Roadhouse 1/16/98
Photo © 1998 by Tom Asp
All rights reserved
The Roadhouse, on Washington Avenue in down town Minneapolis, is a modern day version of a road side tavern from years ago. A smoke filled bar (with the emphasis on bar, which was huge and right smack in the center of the room), with almost as much sound coming from the patrons as from the small bandstand in the front corner. There were quite a few distractions coming from the pool tables, video games, boisterous crowd, and numerous TV sets mounted from the ceiling. This was the night that the Timberwolves were on the tube and won in overtime by one point. When I go out to "listen" to the blues I would rather do "just that" and not have to put up with a lot of annoying distractions. However, because I know this comes with the territory (the clubs do have to make ends meet) I am usually able to just focus in on the band and the music. Having Lonnie Knight and Easy Money on stage certainly helped me do just that. This is a blues power trio format (with occational harmonica by sound man Kris Karr) featuring the strong lead guitar playing of Lonnie Knight.


Lonnie Knight
The Roadhouse 1/16/98
Photo © 1998 by Tom Asp
All rights reserved
Lonnie Knight, former lead guitar player with the last version of the Hoopsnakes, is one fine guitar player. He has been playing guitar since the 1960's both in bands and solo, even spending a number of years in a country band. His guitar playing draws on many influences and he brings an eclectic approach to his blues guitar playing. The band plays a more contemporary style of blues with not too much emphasis on the traditional sound. "After all, we're just a bunch of white boys from the suburbs" said Lonnie. Because the band is led by Knight, much of the material draws upon strong blues/pop/rock guitar songs from Freddie King, Albert Collins and Buddy Guy to Robben Ford, Delbert McClinton and John Haitt as well as some pop/folk and a few original compositions. Lonnie said the band is working on material for a CD coming out later this year.


Lonnie Knight
The Roadhouse 1/16/98
Photo © 1998 by Tom Asp
All rights reserved
One of the instruments in the band, however, is the harmonica so they can't get away from the traditional blues sound all the time. In fact, it was the guitar/harp interplay between Knight and harmonica player/sound man Kris Karr that provided some of the highlights of this performance for me. Besides Knight and Karr the band's fine rhythm section is made up of J. Hancuch on drums and Scott Nye on bass. The drumming was especially good and stood out during several of the songs.

Lonnie Knight has been nominated for the Guitarist of the Year Award by the Minnesota Music Academy and you can catch the band playing around town on a regular basis. You can also find out more about the band from Lonnie's excellent web site @: http://scc.net/~lonzmo/em.html

Or you can e-mail Lonnie Knight @: lonzmo@scc.net

Mailbox E-mail Ray Stiles at: mnblues@aol.com

Table of Contents:
Return To Home Page | Calendar | Spotlight | Live Reviews | New Reviews | Photo Gallery
CD Reviews | New CD Releases | Blues Links | Blues Bios | Blues Artists | Blues Clubs | Blues Jams

Free web pages from GeoCities

Copyright © 1997 by Ray M. Stiles
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, or any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author.