 I'm moving right now. Yes friends, hello and welcome to the Music Zone. I'm Pitz Quattrone. We are broadcasting from Montpelier, Vermont, right downtown the heart of the Green Mountains. And the Music Zone with Pitz Quattrone is brought to you by our friends at ArrowMed Essentials, specializing in CBD tinctures and pain-reducing topicals, essential oils and diffusers, organic Vermont-grown hemp flower, glassworks for smoking, located at 73 State Street in downtown Montpelier, online at arrowmedessentials.com and by phone 802-505-1405. Remember to tell Lauren and her staff when you stop into ArrowMed that you heard about them right here on the Music Zone with Pitz Quattrone. That's ArrowMed Essentials. Well, it is the pilot broadcast of the Music Zone right here from Orca Media in downtown Montpelier. And I thought I would introduce my good friend and he's a dear friend for many years. He's a soul blues R&B performer, guitarist, vocalist, band leader, composer, Vermont's own Dave Keller. How are you Dave? Thanks, Pitz. That's a great introduction, man. How could I not be doing well after an intro like that? Man, what else can I do? I can cook. Well, I thought I'd build it up for you. I appreciate it. No, I'm doing well. It's great to be here with you. I'm really proud and happy to be invited to be the first guest on your awesome new show, the Music Zone with Pitz Quattrone. Thank you. Well, thanks for taking some time out and being with us. So I know COVID is being a performer. COVID has been really tough for all of us. I know it shut you down in the middle of a tour. Tell us about what was happening last March while that came to be. Well, I was with my band down in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, which is the heart of soul country, Memphis, Muscle Shoals, Mississippi, places like that. We're playing a gig, Champions Fried Chicken Shack. Nice. And the very next day, everything started shutting down. We started heading back north. We had a bunch of gigs planned, the rest of our tour, about eight more dates. And they all basically just went right down the toilet. So ever since then, mostly been at home. I did some outdoor gigs later this summer once things started to open up a little bit for outdoor gigs. But I've been working on my music. I just put out a brand new CD, a benefit CD, which I'm sure you'll tell folks about. But I'm really excited about that. So I'm promoting that mostly. And you were planning on touring Europe? I was supposed to be in Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, last April. That all fell through as well because of COVID. Jeez. Well, one thing I noticed that a creative thing you did was online, you were giving away or raising money for some type of mustache trimming exhibition. What was that? It was my great mustache auction. I actually was able to grow mustache. That's not actually difficult for me. I grow facial hair fairly easily. But I have never really grown such a substantial mustache. I think it was about a month's time. And I sold the mustache in an auction. And I raised $250 for a great charity, helping immigrants who don't have enough money to pay their rent and things like that. And then I also raised some money for myself. Wow, that's a great thing. I remember watching that was a whole lot of fun. It's on YouTube, actually. You can look it up. Dave Keller Mustache Auction. It's quite something, let me tell you. All right, so you folks out there, check out the YouTube for Dave Keller's Mustache Auction. All right, so we're gonna jump over to the music studio now for a tune. One of the songs that's on your new album, you get what you give is the album. And I know it's a special, all kinds of guests from all over the country. And we're gonna hear about all those details and what would happen with that and how that came to be. But what is the song we're gonna hear now? We're gonna hear Land of the Lonely. Land of the Lonely. Land of the Lonely. Dave Keller from You Get What You Give. One street and light, ain't much to see in the old night. Just the darkness and the fog and the houses of people like me. House on the street, just like a book, be too scared to look. And welcome back. That was Dave and the Land of the Lonely with one of your good buddy and who tells everyone about that. So the album is an album of duets and on this particular song, it featured my buddy, Johnny Rawls, who's been a really great mentor to me. He's a Mississippi Soul blues man. He's been on the road for about 50 years. He was the former band leader with O.V. Wright, one of the greatest soul singers of all time. And just a great guy. He's been a really great friend to me and he was glad to participate in the album. All the funds from the album sales are going to help raise money for racial justice and equity nonprofits. So, yeah. Okay, so how did you figure out which organizations to give money to? I actually just asked the artists of color who were on the CD what their recommendations were. And so we got five different groups to divide up 20% each group, basically. Wow, that's great. People order, they can order on the website and 20 bucks from each CD sale goes directly to these groups. Divide it up, five ways. So every artist, studios, the manufacturing, promotion, everyone is volunteering for this project. Well, all the artists donated their time. And Sugarhouse Sound works down in Matter of Valley, donated a week's worth of recording time, which is super generous. Roger and Eric. Yep, Roger and Eric. Roger Stiles and Eric Bigsby. Sixby, rather. And up in Burlington, Tank Recording, Ben Collette and Rob O'Day donated about a week's worth of mixing and mastering time as well. And then, yeah, we had to pay for some stuff. So like the factory obviously wasn't gonna give us the CDs for free. So I was able to raise money from a lot of my hardcore fans, donated money specifically to help offset some of the costs of the project that we couldn't get donated. Okay. So thank you fans. Yeah. And so tell us about some of the other artists that are on this. Sure. I mean, when people listen to it, the first song is Anika Chambers, a really incredible soul blues woman from Texas, from Houston. A young woman really kind of outspoken on issues of race and just a fantastic singer. Carly Harvey from DC. She's DC's Queen of the Blues. Cool. We got her on there. We got Annie Mack, who's a good friend of mine from Minnesota. She grew up in Minneapolis where George Floyd was murdered. So that seemed like particularly apropos. Before you go, let me interrupt. Yeah. You mentioned George Floyd. This particular recording did the murder of George make this more in the front burner for you? Is that why, like, oh, I gotta do something? Or what gave you, what was that spark? Right. Well, honestly, it was inspired by that, you know, by that event, by the murder. Yeah. I wasn't really planning to do a record, honestly. I was, you know, at home after all my gigs got canceled because of COVID. And I had a lot of time in my hands. I was watching the news and I just thought as a white soul blues musician who's made his entire living and career off of playing essentially black music with, you know, being mentored by black musicians. Yeah. You know, inspired by so much great music from, you know, the black community over the years, whether it's blues or gospel or soul or R&B. I thought, what can I do to help? You know, I think, you know, white artists really need to step forward in ways that, you know, might be even uncomfortable and risky for them. I don't think the problems of racism are gonna be ended by people of color being the only ones speaking out. Really, it's systemic and all of us white folks need to just acknowledge that and step forward and do what we can. So I thought, well, what can I do? What are my skills? And my skills are writing songs and playing them and bringing people together to make records. So I thought, what if I do an album with my friends? And we donate all the profits to groups that are working to end racial injustice and inequality. Fantastic. Yeah, it takes all of us. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of white people listening might be like, well, you know, it doesn't really affect me that much. Like, you know, maybe they live in Vermont and, you know, it doesn't affect you on a daily basis, but I think it's really important that we listen to the voices of people of color both within Vermont and outside of Vermont and just trust that they're telling us their truth. And, you know, in much the same way the Me Too movement was about people finally listening to the stories of women and giving them credence, believing them. You know, it's the same thing. I mean, you know, I've got, you know, Toussaint Negritude who's on this record. I mean, he's experienced some serious discrimination here in Vermont. And he's a wonderful, positive, you know, beautiful light of a person. It's incredibly sad to me. And so when he- And he's right here in Montpelier. Yeah, yeah, he lives out in the woods a little ways outside Montpelier. But, you know, when he brings up stuff, I'm like, okay, you know, he's not making this up. You know, the stuff that happens actually happens to him. And I don't see it because it doesn't affect me on a daily basis, but it affects my friends, you know. And, you know, I just feel like it's important that we start speaking up more. If we have a boy, you know, I have a, the ability to let people know. I have a lot of fans and, you know, I hope if they love blues music, how can you not be anti-racist? You know, the music of blues was created out of racism. It was a response to racism. It was a response to oppression. Yeah, yeah. So there's, tell me more about the guest. It sounds like there's some Vermonters on this, but also people from all over the country. Right, so we have Chad Hollister from Vermont. We have, you know, your buddy in mind, Chad. Great, you know, kind of acoustic rock guy. We have Two Cent St. Negritude doing a spoken word piece with me that we did very impromptu. It was really fun. My national steel guitar and harmonica. Oh, so that sounds like it's more of a scale down approach than a full band on its side. Yeah, but there's a real variety of stuff. I mean, there is one tune with just me and Ira Friedman, my longtime keyboardist. He plays the grand piano on a tune called The Spark. So that one technically is not like a vocal duet, but it's sort of like me and Ira doing a duet or piano and vocals. So the name of the album is You Get What You Give and Where Can Folks Find It? Well, they can find it locally at Book Speeler in Montpelier on Langdon Street and also Exile on Main Street in Barrie. But they can find it at DaveKeller.com. There's a, DaveKeller.com. The good starting point. I will personally sign and mail you a copy. That sounds good. And a couple more folks. Joe Lewis Walker's on there. He's a blues Hall of Famer. He's based in New York now, but he grew up in the Bay Area. He was kind of the same kind of grouping as like, you know, Robert Cray and he used to be roommates with Michael Bloomfield. You know, really one of the top names in the blues, you know, by anyone's standards. And Joe was generous enough to volunteer his time. Trudy Lynn, Blues Queen of Texas, unbelievable singer and so soulful, she's on there. Yeah, just, you know, a whole mix of people. And is it Brother Bob White? Brother Bob White is on a gospel track. Yep, he's 89 years old. No, he just turned 90. He's 90. That's beautiful. Yep. And we have ages 18 through 89 on there. Oh my God. Because we have a fellow who's the grandson of a guy that I wrote songs with, Darrell Carter's grandson. Darrell and I wrote 17 years together and deeper than the eye can see. There have been a couple of my previous albums. And his grandson's 18 lives in Memphis and he played the guitar solo on a tune that Don Tyler Watson duets with me on. She's a great blues woman out of Montreal. So his grandson, Vince Allen, is on God is Love, Love is Everything. Okay. Yeah, like an Ernie Isley vibe on that one. That was wonderful. I love this, there's so many things I love about the description and the music on this album. For me, I love an album that has a variety of stuff. And not just like as window dressing, but this is like serious musical variety on this album. And all pretty much almost every state in the country. Yeah, we hit it from like Montreal to Florida to Texas to New York to DC to Memphis to Kansas City. Yeah, Minnesota. Beautiful, yeah. You get what you give folks, davekeller.com. You can find the album there and all the artists volunteered their time going towards great causes to make this country and this world a better place. Can I mention one more thing? Yes. My buddy Jim Gallagher and I have put together a video that by the time this show comes out it will be released for one of the songs it's called The Evil That Men Do. And people should look for it on YouTube. All right, Jim Gallagher, the Montpelier videographer master extraordinaire. The famed master behind many of your masterworks, Pitz. If you've seen my cheese steaks video, the moving video, lot of the live ones, Jim Gallagher has done that for me and you. Yep, exactly. You're the one who turned me on time, yeah. Does great work. So what's the name of the song? The Evil That Men Do and it features four of the singers that are on the record with duets, Johnny Rawls, Anika Chambers, Annie Mack and who am I missing? Trudy Lin. Fantastic. All right, and when is that coming out? That should be out in a couple of weeks. Okay, great. All right, so it's time for another trip over to the magical music studio. And this time I join you on Didgeridoo on a number and what song are we gonna sing? What are we gonna do as the years go passing by? It's a great tune, Albert King kind of made it famous. I think it goes back to Fenton Robinson. I think he's the one who wrote it. But I've always loved this tune, yeah. As the years go passing by, Dave Keller, Pitz Quattrone, right here on the Music Zone with Pitz Quattrone. There is nothing I can do if you leave me here to cry. Gonna follow you, gonna follow you. Okay friends, welcome back to the sound studio here in Montpelier on Pitz Quattrone. This is the Music Zone. Today's guest, Dave Keller, joining us for the maiden voyage of the Music Zone. And so Dave, I know things are slow right now. Let's wave the magic wand and say COVID is gone. What's your first move? Oh, I wanna just get out and play for even two people. I wouldn't even care. I just wanna be out playing with my band and getting to see people dance and hug and have fun and get sweaty on the dance floor, all of that. All right, cool. And how about maybe some of the things that got canceled, such as the Southeastern, Mid-Atlantic tour, the European tour. Is there some like, hey, when things start to get better, give me a call Dave and we'll rebook something. Yeah, I'm looking forward to going back over to Europe. I've never played in Europe. So this will be the first time and they're being very patient. Of course, they can't really travel much either. Everybody kinda understands, it's just the way it is. But I'm looking forward to getting out there and playing. My band and I were really on a roll before this all hit. I've got Ira Friedman on keyboards as I have for the last 14 years, I think it is now. Jay Gleason, my original drummer from the band back in 96, has rejoined me the last couple of years. Super funky, super dance band now with him on drums. And Alex Budney, the great bass player out of Mortown, Vermont. People have seen him with Seth Yagavoni or Craig Mitchell's Prince tribute, Josh Panda. Great bass player. So we're really excited, it's really kind of gelled. Yeah, so it sounds like that four piece band is the core of what you bring on the road. Exactly, exactly, yeah. Okay, good. All right, so that's Dave Keller here on the pilot broadcast of the Music Zone. Dave, thank you so much. It's the first show. So things are a little bit wacky and we're working out some kinks but I wanna thank you for coming out and spending some time with us. Well, it's my pleasure, man. And like your mask says, you gotta make lemonade out of lemons. And you know what, lemons have pits in them. Oh! It's like a double meaning. That's perfect. Perfect, man, it's so good to be your friend, man. Thanks for having me on the show. Well, thank you, Dave. Yeah, I thought I'd wear the dancing lemons today and make some juice. All right, friends, so that's Dave. We'll be back next time but before we head out, I wanna thank our sponsor one more time and that is ArrowMed Essentials right here in downtown Montpelier, specializing in CBD tinctures and pain-reducing topicals, essential oils and diffusers, organic Vermont grown hemp flower, glassworks for smoking, ArrowMed Essentials located downtown, 73 Main Street in Montpelier, arrowmedessentials.com is their site and you can, they can be reached by phone, 802-505-1405 and remember to tell Lauren and her staff that you heard about them right here on the Music Zone with Pitts Quattrone and that is ArrowMed Essentials. I'm Pitts, thank you so much for joining me. I'll talk to you next time on the Music Zone with Pitts Quattrone.