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Morgan Heritage
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Mickey Hart Band
Wednesday · Southgate House
If Mickey Hart had done nothing more than man one of the Grateful Dead's two drum kits, his place in Rock history would be secure. Thankfully, Hart was not content to rest on his laurels as one of the most musical drummers on the planet. Hart's interest in percussion was sparked after a grade school demonstration from Nigerian drummer Babatunde Olatunji, ultimately leading to a lifetime of percussive pursuits. Hart joined the Dead in 1967 and he and fellow Dead drummer Bill Kreutzmann quickly earned an appropriate tandem nickname: the rhythm devils.
During the 40-plus years Hart has logged with the Dead (minus a three year sabbatical that produced his Rolling Thunder album in 1972), he has sought out worldwide percussion sounds and highlighted them within his own work. A champion of the World Music genre before it was recognized as such -- he's written four books on the nature and history of percussion -- Hart's 1991 Planet Drum album spent half the year on Billboard's newly-established World chart and he received the first Best World Music Album Grammy.
More importantly, Hart has helped identify and record global musical traditions that are in danger of disappearing from memory through his work with the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress and the Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Institution. Hart is also involved with the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function, which aims to explore music as therapy for brain injury and dysfunction.
Hart's current tour supports the recent reissue of much of his back catalog on Shout! Factory, as well as the new two-DVD set from his other project, the Rhythm Devils, featuring Bill Kreutzmann, guitarist Steve Kimock and former Phish bassist Mike Gordon. (Hart's current tour partners include Kimock and Kyle Hollingsworth of the String Cheese Incident).
Mickey Hart is defined by many roles -- scholar, teacher, humanitarian, author, rhythmatist, preservationist, historian, musical innovator -- and he displays elements of all of them when he takes his rightful place at his kit as one of the greatest drummers of all time. (Buy tickets, check out performance times and find nearby bars and restaurants here.)
Morgan Heritage with Laza and Irie Love
Saturday · Madison Theater
When you bring 30 children into the world, it's a safe bet that some of them will enter the family business. Eight members of Reggae pioneer Denroy Morgan's amazing brood have taken a stroll down their father's musical path, five of them banded together to create the world-renowned Reggae/Rock hybrid, Morgan Heritage.
Born in Brooklyn's notorious Bushwick neighborhood, raised in Springfield, Mass., Morgan Heritage's five sibs (Una, Mojo, Lukes, Gramps and Peter) started their group in the early '90s, with their debut appearance at the 1992 Sunsplash festival attracting positive buzz and a 1994 MCA contract.
Although the Morgans disavow their early work as too Pop influenced, the fivesome was always interested in adding Western musical flavor to their Reggae gumbo. The group's Rock undertones became so pronounced that Morgan Heritage was twice tapped to make appearances on the Warped Tour, one of the only non-Punk acts to be invited to the summerlong rolling mosh pit.
In recent years, Morgan Heritage has been honing a musical concept they call Rockaz, a skillful blending of Reggae's elemental appeal and Rock's visceral intensity, typified on 2005's Full Circle and the subsequent tour which yielded last year's Another Rockaz Moment, a live album.
Morgan Heritage's latest album, Mission in Progress, was released in April to the greatest acclaim they have yet received; the album shot to the top of Billboard's Reggae Album chart, the Morgans' first No. 1 album in their nearly 20-year career. Morgan Heritage is clearly mindful of Reggae tradition in general and their father's legacy in particular -- it's in the name of their band -- but they also have an incredible vision for shaping the genre in the 21st century. (Buy tickets, check out performance times and find nearby bars and restaurants here.)
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