Louisiana is teeming with music, but some of the state’s regions remain terra incognita. Take northern Louisiana, a central source of inspiration for the funk/soul/blues of Louisiana Soul Revival featuring Doug Duffey. “North Louisiana, in the Mississippi Delta, has deep musical roots in the blues, Memphis soul, southern gospel, Rock & Roll, folk, and hybrids* that are uniquely its own,” explains LSR frontman and songwriter Doug Duffey, the unsung creative force behind many of funk’s greatest hits.

“There’s a real tangible difference that you can hear in Louisiana’s music. It’s more rhythmically intricate,” adds Dan Sumner, guitarist and arranger for the band. “In Louisiana, music is uniquely rhythmic across all styles.”

LSR revels in these unique features on their eponymous debut album (National and International release date: May 20, 2016) drawing on Duffey’s extensive catalog of songs, stretching back to the halcyon 70’s and 90’s heyday of funk, soul, and electric blues. Irreverent and defiant, witty and earthy, Duffey’s songwriting comes into its own with Sumner’s arrangements, which include everything from gritty organ and funky guitar, to blazing horn sections and soulful vocal arrangements.

{full story below}

Classically trained, Duffey cut his teeth playing bars and clubs as a teen in and around Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually, his songwriting skills landed him in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Orleans where his songs were recorded by a list of stars that reads like a who’s who of funk: Parliament/Funkadelic, Rare Earth, George Clinton. He played a role in some of the scene’s most iconic hits, including “One Nation, Under a Groove.” LSR tunes “Funky Bidneh” and “B What R Ya” were written during this era.

Duffey kept coming back to Louisiana, spending time in New Orleans and Monroe. Over the years, he built up a huge trove of bluesy, soulful and funky songs. He played in various bands and configurations, at major festivals from New Orleans to Moscow, and all points in between. He worked with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Marcia Ball and other luminaries. He was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 2001, the National Blues Hall of Fame in 2009. He’s lived the life of a musician’s musician.

Until 2015, many of Duffey’s strongest songs remained unheard on old work tapes and demos.They had been captured in various stages: the demo for ”Do It Right,” (originally penned for the Brides of Funkenstein), featured little more than the Pfunk backup vocalists and Duffey’s clavinet accompaniment, with Bernie Worrell noodling on a synth in the background.

Then one night, Duffey met Sumner, a longtime Louisiana resident who’d fallen hard for the region’s sounds. They hit it off and decided to start a band that would chronicle all of the state’s varied music. Then Sumner and LSR’s drummer Adam Ryland asked Doug to play them a few of his demos of his unreleased songs. It changed everything.

“Dan and Adam were flipping out. I was just looking at them like they were crazy,” recalls Duffey with a chuckle. “I’ve had the songs with me for 40 years. I didn’t get it.” But Sumner did, and, they soon discovered, so do audiences. At their first public performances as a band, LSR shot some simple videos of a few songs and uploaded them to youtube where they quickly topped 25,000 hits.The band began performing sets combining classics songs from Louisiana with songs from Duffey’s recorded catalog.

The appeal is easy to grasp. Sumner takes Duffey’s gems and arranges them in a perfect brass-rich, groove-heavy setting.

Duffey channels the dirty goodness of Chuck Carbo on “1-900-For-Love,” some charming snark-on anthems like “I Don’t Need Ya Anyway,” and some real romance of “Love Into My Life.” They’re the works of a master craftsman, backed by a serious, multigenerational band that spans all the decades from twenties to sixties. “We have energy coming from lots of different places in life,” Sumner notes. “Every decade is covered.”

“There’s also the thing that when you take the stage with 11 people, the sound is massive,” says Sumner. “It’s huge! It’s a big, blasting, full sound. It’s a big gumbo.” The kind of sound that speaks brashly of Louisiana’s promising funk future.

Louisiana is teeming with music, but some of the state’s regions remain terra incognita. Take northern Louisiana, a central source of inspiration for the funk/soul/blues of Louisiana Soul Revival featuring Doug Duffey. “North Louisiana, in the Mississippi Delta, has deep musical roots in the blues, Memphis soul, southern gospel, Rock & Roll, folk, and hybrids* that are uniquely its own,” explains LSR frontman and songwriter Doug Duffey, the unsung creative force behind many of funk’s greatest hits.

“There’s a real tangible difference that you can hear in Louisiana’s music. It’s more rhythmically intricate,” adds Dan Sumner, guitarist and arranger for the band. “In Louisiana, music is uniquely rhythmic across all styles.”

LSR revels in these unique features on their eponymous debut album (National and International release date: May 20, 2016) drawing on Duffey’s extensive catalog of songs, stretching back to the halcyon 70’s and 90’s heyday of funk, soul, and electric blues. Irreverent and defiant, witty and earthy, Duffey’s songwriting comes into its own with Sumner’s arrangements, which include everything from gritty organ and funky guitar, to blazing horn sections and soulful vocal arrangements.

{full story below}

Classically trained, Duffey cut his teeth playing bars and clubs as a teen in and around Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually, his songwriting skills landed him in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Orleans where his songs were recorded by a list of stars that reads like a who’s who of funk: Parliament/Funkadelic, Rare Earth, George Clinton. He played a role in some of the scene’s most iconic hits, including “One Nation, Under a Groove.” LSR tunes “Funky Bidneh” and “B What R Ya” were written during this era.

Duffey kept coming back to Louisiana, spending time in New Orleans and Monroe. Over the years, he built up a huge trove of bluesy, soulful and funky songs. He played in various bands and configurations, at major festivals from New Orleans to Moscow, and all points in between. He worked with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Marcia Ball and other luminaries. He was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 2001, the National Blues Hall of Fame in 2009. He’s lived the life of a musician’s musician.

Until 2015, many of Duffey’s strongest songs remained unheard on old work tapes and demos.They had been captured in various stages: the demo for ”Do It Right,” (originally penned for the Brides of Funkenstein), featured little more than the Pfunk backup vocalists and Duffey’s clavinet accompaniment, with Bernie Worrell noodling on a synth in the background.

Then one night, Duffey met Sumner, a longtime Louisiana resident who’d fallen hard for the region’s sounds. They hit it off and decided to start a band that would chronicle all of the state’s varied music. Then Sumner and LSR’s drummer Adam Ryland asked Doug to play them a few of his demos of his unreleased songs. It changed everything.

“Dan and Adam were flipping out. I was just looking at them like they were crazy,” recalls Duffey with a chuckle. “I’ve had the songs with me for 40 years. I didn’t get it.” But Sumner did, and, they soon discovered, so do audiences. At their first public performances as a band, LSR shot some simple videos of a few songs and uploaded them to youtube where they quickly topped 25,000 hits.The band began performing sets combining classics songs from Louisiana with songs from Duffey’s recorded catalog.

The appeal is easy to grasp. Sumner takes Duffey’s gems and arranges them in a perfect brass-rich, groove-heavy setting.

Duffey channels the dirty goodness of Chuck Carbo on “1-900-For-Love,” some charming snark-on anthems like “I Don’t Need Ya Anyway,” and some real romance of “Love Into My Life.” They’re the works of a master craftsman, backed by a serious, multigenerational band that spans all the decades from twenties to sixties. “We have energy coming from lots of different places in life,” Sumner notes. “Every decade is covered.”

“There’s also the thing that when you take the stage with 11 people, the sound is massive,” says Sumner. “It’s huge! It’s a big, blasting, full sound. It’s a big gumbo.” The kind of sound that speaks brashly of Louisiana’s promising funk future.

Louisiana is teeming with music, but some of the state’s regions remain terra incognita. Take northern Louisiana, a central source of inspiration for the funk/soul/blues of Louisiana Soul Revival featuring Doug Duffey. “North Louisiana, in the Mississippi Delta, has deep musical roots in the blues, Memphis soul, southern gospel, Rock & Roll, folk, and hybrids* that are uniquely its own,” explains LSR frontman and songwriter Doug Duffey, the unsung creative force behind many of funk’s greatest hits.

“There’s a real tangible difference that you can hear in Louisiana’s music. It’s more rhythmically intricate,” adds Dan Sumner, guitarist and arranger for the band. “In Louisiana, music is uniquely rhythmic across all styles.”

LSR revels in these unique features on their eponymous debut album (National and International release date: May 20, 2016) drawing on Duffey’s extensive catalog of songs, stretching back to the halcyon 70’s and 90’s heyday of funk, soul, and electric blues. Irreverent and defiant, witty and earthy, Duffey’s songwriting comes into its own with Sumner’s arrangements, which include everything from gritty organ and funky guitar, to blazing horn sections and soulful vocal arrangements.

{full story below}

Classically trained, Duffey cut his teeth playing bars and clubs as a teen in and around Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually, his songwriting skills landed him in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Orleans where his songs were recorded by a list of stars that reads like a who’s who of funk: Parliament/Funkadelic, Rare Earth, George Clinton. He played a role in some of the scene’s most iconic hits, including “One Nation, Under a Groove.” LSR tunes “Funky Bidneh” and “B What R Ya” were written during this era.

Duffey kept coming back to Louisiana, spending time in New Orleans and Monroe. Over the years, he built up a huge trove of bluesy, soulful and funky songs. He played in various bands and configurations, at major festivals from New Orleans to Moscow, and all points in between. He worked with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Marcia Ball and other luminaries. He was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 2001, the National Blues Hall of Fame in 2009. He’s lived the life of a musician’s musician.

Until 2015, many of Duffey’s strongest songs remained unheard on old work tapes and demos.They had been captured in various stages: the demo for ”Do It Right,” (originally penned for the Brides of Funkenstein), featured little more than the Pfunk backup vocalists and Duffey’s clavinet accompaniment, with Bernie Worrell noodling on a synth in the background.

Then one night, Duffey met Sumner, a longtime Louisiana resident who’d fallen hard for the region’s sounds. They hit it off and decided to start a band that would chronicle all of the state’s varied music. Then Sumner and LSR’s drummer Adam Ryland asked Doug to play them a few of his demos of his unreleased songs. It changed everything.

“Dan and Adam were flipping out. I was just looking at them like they were crazy,” recalls Duffey with a chuckle. “I’ve had the songs with me for 40 years. I didn’t get it.” But Sumner did, and, they soon discovered, so do audiences. At their first public performances as a band, LSR shot some simple videos of a few songs and uploaded them to youtube where they quickly topped 25,000 hits.The band began performing sets combining classics songs from Louisiana with songs from Duffey’s recorded catalog.

The appeal is easy to grasp. Sumner takes Duffey’s gems and arranges them in a perfect brass-rich, groove-heavy setting.

Duffey channels the dirty goodness of Chuck Carbo on “1-900-For-Love,” some charming snark-on anthems like “I Don’t Need Ya Anyway,” and some real romance of “Love Into My Life.” They’re the works of a master craftsman, backed by a serious, multigenerational band that spans all the decades from twenties to sixties. “We have energy coming from lots of different places in life,” Sumner notes. “Every decade is covered.”

“There’s also the thing that when you take the stage with 11 people, the sound is massive,” says Sumner. “It’s huge! It’s a big, blasting, full sound. It’s a big gumbo.” The kind of sound that speaks brashly of Louisiana’s promising funk future.

Louisiana is teeming with music, but some of the state’s regions remain terra incognita. Take northern Louisiana, a central source of inspiration for the funk/soul/blues of Louisiana Soul Revival featuring Doug Duffey. “North Louisiana, in the Mississippi Delta, has deep musical roots in the blues, Memphis soul, southern gospel, Rock & Roll, folk, and hybrids* that are uniquely its own,” explains LSR frontman and songwriter Doug Duffey, the unsung creative force behind many of funk’s greatest hits.

“There’s a real tangible difference that you can hear in Louisiana’s music. It’s more rhythmically intricate,” adds Dan Sumner, guitarist and arranger for the band. “In Louisiana, music is uniquely rhythmic across all styles.”

LSR revels in these unique features on their eponymous debut album (National and International release date: May 20, 2016) drawing on Duffey’s extensive catalog of songs, stretching back to the halcyon 70’s and 90’s heyday of funk, soul, and electric blues. Irreverent and defiant, witty and earthy, Duffey’s songwriting comes into its own with Sumner’s arrangements, which include everything from gritty organ and funky guitar, to blazing horn sections and soulful vocal arrangements.

{full story below}

Classically trained, Duffey cut his teeth playing bars and clubs as a teen in and around Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually, his songwriting skills landed him in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Orleans where his songs were recorded by a list of stars that reads like a who’s who of funk: Parliament/Funkadelic, Rare Earth, George Clinton. He played a role in some of the scene’s most iconic hits, including “One Nation, Under a Groove.” LSR tunes “Funky Bidneh” and “B What R Ya” were written during this era.

Duffey kept coming back to Louisiana, spending time in New Orleans and Monroe. Over the years, he built up a huge trove of bluesy, soulful and funky songs. He played in various bands and configurations, at major festivals from New Orleans to Moscow, and all points in between. He worked with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Marcia Ball and other luminaries. He was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 2001, the National Blues Hall of Fame in 2009. He’s lived the life of a musician’s musician.

Until 2015, many of Duffey’s strongest songs remained unheard on old work tapes and demos.They had been captured in various stages: the demo for ”Do It Right,” (originally penned for the Brides of Funkenstein), featured little more than the Pfunk backup vocalists and Duffey’s clavinet accompaniment, with Bernie Worrell noodling on a synth in the background.

Then one night, Duffey met Sumner, a longtime Louisiana resident who’d fallen hard for the region’s sounds. They hit it off and decided to start a band that would chronicle all of the state’s varied music. Then Sumner and LSR’s drummer Adam Ryland asked Doug to play them a few of his demos of his unreleased songs. It changed everything.

“Dan and Adam were flipping out. I was just looking at them like they were crazy,” recalls Duffey with a chuckle. “I’ve had the songs with me for 40 years. I didn’t get it.” But Sumner did, and, they soon discovered, so do audiences. At their first public performances as a band, LSR shot some simple videos of a few songs and uploaded them to youtube where they quickly topped 25,000 hits.The band began performing sets combining classics songs from Louisiana with songs from Duffey’s recorded catalog.

The appeal is easy to grasp. Sumner takes Duffey’s gems and arranges them in a perfect brass-rich, groove-heavy setting.

Duffey channels the dirty goodness of Chuck Carbo on “1-900-For-Love,” some charming snark-on anthems like “I Don’t Need Ya Anyway,” and some real romance of “Love Into My Life.” They’re the works of a master craftsman, backed by a serious, multigenerational band that spans all the decades from twenties to sixties. “We have energy coming from lots of different places in life,” Sumner notes. “Every decade is covered.”

“There’s also the thing that when you take the stage with 11 people, the sound is massive,” says Sumner. “It’s huge! It’s a big, blasting, full sound. It’s a big gumbo.” The kind of sound that speaks brashly of Louisiana’s promising funk future.

Louisiana is teeming with music, but some of the state’s regions remain terra incognita. Take northern Louisiana, a central source of inspiration for the funk/soul/blues of Louisiana Soul Revival featuring Doug Duffey. “North Louisiana, in the Mississippi Delta, has deep musical roots in the blues, Memphis soul, southern gospel, Rock & Roll, folk, and hybrids* that are uniquely its own,” explains LSR frontman and songwriter Doug Duffey, the unsung creative force behind many of funk’s greatest hits.

“There’s a real tangible difference that you can hear in Louisiana’s music. It’s more rhythmically intricate,” adds Dan Sumner, guitarist and arranger for the band. “In Louisiana, music is uniquely rhythmic across all styles.”

LSR revels in these unique features on their eponymous debut album (National and International release date: May 20, 2016) drawing on Duffey’s extensive catalog of songs, stretching back to the halcyon 70’s and 90’s heyday of funk, soul, and electric blues. Irreverent and defiant, witty and earthy, Duffey’s songwriting comes into its own with Sumner’s arrangements, which include everything from gritty organ and funky guitar, to blazing horn sections and soulful vocal arrangements.

{full story below}

Classically trained, Duffey cut his teeth playing bars and clubs as a teen in and around Louisiana and Mississippi. Eventually, his songwriting skills landed him in Los Angeles, Nashville, and New Orleans where his songs were recorded by a list of stars that reads like a who’s who of funk: Parliament/Funkadelic, Rare Earth, George Clinton. He played a role in some of the scene’s most iconic hits, including “One Nation, Under a Groove.” LSR tunes “Funky Bidneh” and “B What R Ya” were written during this era.

Duffey kept coming back to Louisiana, spending time in New Orleans and Monroe. Over the years, he built up a huge trove of bluesy, soulful and funky songs. He played in various bands and configurations, at major festivals from New Orleans to Moscow, and all points in between. He worked with artists as diverse as Keith Richards, Bernie Worrell, Herbie Hancock, David Byrne, Marcia Ball and other luminaries. He was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame in 2001, the National Blues Hall of Fame in 2009. He’s lived the life of a musician’s musician.

Until 2015, many of Duffey’s strongest songs remained unheard on old work tapes and demos.They had been captured in various stages: the demo for ”Do It Right,” (originally penned for the Brides of Funkenstein), featured little more than the Pfunk backup vocalists and Duffey’s clavinet accompaniment, with Bernie Worrell noodling on a synth in the background.

Then one night, Duffey met Sumner, a longtime Louisiana resident who’d fallen hard for the region’s sounds. They hit it off and decided to start a band that would chronicle all of the state’s varied music. Then Sumner and LSR’s drummer Adam Ryland asked Doug to play them a few of his demos of his unreleased songs. It changed everything.

“Dan and Adam were flipping out. I was just looking at them like they were crazy,” recalls Duffey with a chuckle. “I’ve had the songs with me for 40 years. I didn’t get it.” But Sumner did, and, they soon discovered, so do audiences. At their first public performances as a band, LSR shot some simple videos of a few songs and uploaded them to youtube where they quickly topped 25,000 hits.The band began performing sets combining classics songs from Louisiana with songs from Duffey’s recorded catalog.

The appeal is easy to grasp. Sumner takes Duffey’s gems and arranges them in a perfect brass-rich, groove-heavy setting.

Duffey channels the dirty goodness of Chuck Carbo on “1-900-For-Love,” some charming snark-on anthems like “I Don’t Need Ya Anyway,” and some real romance of “Love Into My Life.” They’re the works of a master craftsman, backed by a serious, multigenerational band that spans all the decades from twenties to sixties. “We have energy coming from lots of different places in life,” Sumner notes. “Every decade is covered.”

“There’s also the thing that when you take the stage with 11 people, the sound is massive,” says Sumner. “It’s huge! It’s a big, blasting, full sound. It’s a big gumbo.” The kind of sound that speaks brashly of Louisiana’s promising funk future.