Photo Journal: 2016 Springfield Reggae Fest ft. Josh Heinrichs & Skillinjah, Zack Mufasa, 77 Jefferson, and Max Dab [includes photos and external links]
Springfield Reggae Fest at The Outland Ballroom is one of my favorite things about living in Springfield, Missouri. Josh Heinrichs always brings together some amazing reggae artists from all over the country and the world in some cases to Springfield, which is always an incredibly special event with great music and a great community of people.
I have included links to each band's Facebook pages at the bottom of this post. Please check them all out.
Max Dab
I'd been really excited to see this new project in action since its inception. Chase Parker and John Hoffman (of Stiff Necked Fools from Shreveport, Louisiana) started a looper-based, groovy, jammy-as-hell reggae duo.
John plays just about every instrument known to man, and uses the Boss RC-300 to manipulate multiple keyboards, MIDI, as well as playing an acoustic drum kit and providing lead vocals to the lineup.
Chase is a great guitarist with incredible skill and both artists bring multiple influences to the table, and Chase's masterful guitar grooves compliment and round out their sound so well.
Zack Mufasa Band ft. Ivy
Zack Mufasa Band, hailing from Kansas City, Missouri was also incredible. Zack is also an incredibly talented multi-instrumentalist, and while he mainly sports a guitar and center stage with lead vocals, he also slayed the keys for both 77 Jefferson as well as the Josh Heinrichs Band. He was on stage most of the night with passion and exuberance, and I was incredibly impressed.
I was particularly impressed with his co-vocalist Ivy and did some digging around online to see that she is also a very talented solo singer-songwriter as well. I'm going to include her link as well, and highly recommend checking out her most recent video of an Aaliyah cover.
77 Jefferson
77 Jefferson, headed by Joel Castillo, is always a force to be reckoned with. Their set is always completely high energy and solidly tight both instrumentally and vocally.
Josh Heinrichs & SkillinJah
Josh Heinrichs, formerly of Jah Roots, has been releasing Number 1 albums on iTunes Reggae as well as Amazon and making Billboard Charts for a number of years pursuing his solo project.
He and SkillinJah regularly share the stage, and they make pure reggae magic. While Josh is primarily an acoustic-based roots influenced songwriter and musician, SkillinJah rounds out the stage performances with his dub and hip-hop rude boy influences to make a great show always.
Check these artists out.
If you dig all sub genres of reggae, you will not be disappointed. A great mix of the diversity of modern or "Cali" reggae music, from roots to electronic and experimental.
Included in Steemprentice Spotlight :)
Tweeted by SteemLand
@virtualgrowth Awesome! Thank you!
Great post, I love reggae. Going to go and check out these bands. Cheers! :)
I'm glad you're going to check them out! Like I said, if you like reggae, you will not be disappointed. All worth listening to their catalogs and they all have a lot of content available on YouTube as well!
If you like dub and rude boy influenced reggae/reggaeton I really recommend digging into SkillinJah's catalog under his previous moniker BaddaFlexx as well.
Cool music, I like these bands. SkillinJah is great too, his style reminds of old ragga influenced drum and bass and the early jungle days. I was listening to your solo acoustic at lindbergs tavern on youtube, I love all the tunes, but the first one really got me good hehe and I love "Alice, wake up" video too. Keep up the great work Jessamyn :) p.s. really loving 77 jefferson's stuff aswell.
excellent post my friend @ jessamynorchard, congratulations thank you for sharing this brilliant post
@jlufer Thank you, my friend. I am glad it resonated with you.