Jeremy Lyons & The Deltabilly Boys

It would be easy to insert Jeremy Lyons into a standard story line: Former street musician makes good in the clubs. Yankee travels south in search of the nation's musical soul. College professor's son shuns academe because, frankly, it's more fun to play music than to analyze it.

All true, and all pretty interesting. But to those who've followed his journey's - and by most accounts, it's a staunchly devoted and quickly growing bunch - the most important thread of Jeremy Lyons story is much simpler.

This guy, they insist, puts on one of the best shows in town.

In the eight years since he landed in New Orleans and talked his way into a French Quarter street band, Lyons has built a reputation as a top=drawer interpreter of blues and rockabilly classics, an engaging storyteller in his own right, and one of the most mesmerizing slide guitarists on the circuit. His shows fronting the Deltabilly Boys band have been known to pack clubs on a Monday, normally the deadest night of the week.

This past year of so has been full of breakthroughs for the 30-year old upstate New York native. First came daughter Luciana Matilde, whose early arrival last summer cut short Lyon's European festival gig. Fall brought his record label debut, "Count Your Chickens Before They Hatch," for Louisiana Red Hot Records. This afternoon at 4:20, Lyons hits yet another milestone when he takes to the Lagniappe stage for his inaugural gig as a headliner at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Up-and-coming Star

Tom Thompson, owner of the Baby Arts Entertainment management company and manager of breakout star trumpeter Kermit Ruffins, has been helping Lyons with bookings and says the new found attraction is well-earned.

"He's a prolific writer, and he's an excellent guitar player as well," Thompson said. "I think he's one of the up-and-coming stars on the New Orleans scene."

Which genre? Good question.

At club shows and on his two CDs (the first one was self-produced), Lyons plays some of his own material and also covers blues from Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Leadbelly, as well as old-time country from Johnny Cash. Lyon's own term, deltabilly swing, incorporates Delta blues, rockabilly, hillbilly and swing. Thompson said even that doesn't fully describe it.

"He's kind of doing his own thing," he said.

The roots of Lyons' "Thing" are equally complicated.

Raised in the college town of Ithaca, N.Y., by a Cornell University philosopher father and social worker mother - both '50's radical types and folk music devotees, he said - Lyons absorbed his parent's ideological approach to the field.

"I was sort of into the populist idea of music," he said.

Lyons picked up a guitar at 14 and took lessons from guitar master and now fellow New Orleans transplant Martin Simpson.

He then headed off to Hampshire College in Massachusetts, where he studied music and social history, eventually earning a degree in ethnomusicology, and where he spent much of his time boning up on the repertoires preserved on scratchy old records at the college library. His thesis tracked the history of country blues guitar. His song "Coffee Rag," an homage to espresso and latte featured on his first CD, dates to those highly caffeinated days.

Lured to New Orleans

Lyons considered sticking to the academic track and, like his father, becoming a professor. But after graduating in 1992, he found himself drawn to New Orleans for an education of a different sort.

Lyons had first heard the Big Mess Blues Band, a ragtag, constantly evolving crew that used to set up shop at Jackson Square or Royal Street, during a vacation a few years earlier. When Lyons returned to town, that's where he headed, and he soon earned a spot in the group's rotation.

His new teachers included Butch Trivette, who fronted the band in Lyon's only previous Jazzfest appearance, and Augie Rodola, Jr., Big Mess band leader and a genuine French Quarter character - a cross between Archie Bunker and Lenny Bruce, Lyons says, as well as one of the best blues singers in the city.

The tips were decent - $100 apiece on good days, $30 on not-so-good days - but playing long hours and sleeping at curbside to stake out prime performance spots left Lyons with little energy to build a career. In 1997, he left the streets behind to focus on playing the clubs.

His band eventually coalesced into Jeremy Lyons and the Deltabilly Boys, rounded out by local drummer Paul Santopadre and Lyons' childhood chum, Greg Schatz, the trio's undisputed clown, on upright bass. All three are part of a second combo, Schatzy, an original roots rock band fronted by Schatz on accordion.

Lyons and company started picking up gigs around town, including regular slots at Margaritaville. But it was at the now-shuttered Dragon's Den that things really took off.

By 1997, the faithful, sometimes more than 100 strong, were piling into the cramped upstairs hideaway on Monday nights for music and the $2 sake special.

Tuesdays at El Matador

Some regulars have followed band members across Esplanade Avenue to El Matador since the Deltabilly Boys signed on to a regular Tuesday night slot a few weeks ago (but not this Tuesday; there's a Jazzfest special). Different drink special - sangria, not sake - but the band is just as tight, and enthusiasts predict it's just a matter of time before the big crowds follow.

"They're a great show band," Dragon's Den veteran Mia Elias said at the Matador show last week. "You can see they enjoy playing together and playing the music."

Their recordings capture a similar spirit.

:Lyons' first CD, "Deltabilly Swing," is a twangy assortment of live and studio recordings. "Count Your Chickens" is more thematic, with songs such as "Hurricane Way: and :Cafe au Lait" meant to evoke the feel of New Orleans Lyons' mentor Rodola is there, too, as a disembodied commentator between tracks and as a character in "(There's Gonna Be A) Fight At The BBQ Tonight": He's one of the guys debating the best method for cooking ribs.

Lyons attributes his Jazzfest acceptance, after several years of rejections, in part to his newfound emphasis on marketing. On tap, he hopes, are more regional festivals and perhaps opening slots for bigger House of Blues-level acts.

Which doesn't mean he's ready to go strictly commercial. Don't expect to see the Deltabilly Boys on Bourbon Street playing coverband standards, whether the tourist request them or not. Although he occasionally cranks out an instantly recognizable tune such as "Ghost Riders in the Sky" or "Hey, Good Looking," Lyons said he still feels a responsibility to honor the giants by keeping less-well-known songs alive. Perhaps, he acknowledged, that's just the old family ideology rearing its head.

"We're just trying to do something a little more thoughtful," he said, "than cranking out the same old hits."

Return to Reviews