“Oh, baby – if you like to cut loose, we can kick it like high heel leather boots.” Following a familiar drum lead-in and painfully likable guitar riffs, the opening lines to Baby Bee’s release Drop It Like a Bomb, conjure up the sights and sounds of both classic rock and dirty southern blues.
Baby Bee – Tambourine
Stemming from the now defunct Sons Of William, Joe and David Stark of Houma, Louisiana (yes, this is now the second and a half band I’ve written about from Houma) caught my eye within the first few seconds of a performance they nailed at Eiffel Society. I remember not having a drink in my hand yet and wanting to rush the stage and dance to this fun sound: a guitar strumming with swagger through three amps for added dimension. Having only played for around six months, Baby Bee pulled off that show as if they were playing an arena of 10,000 people.
Last Thursday I went over to DBA to meet with the guys and watch a crazy good match-up of Baby Bee and Johnny Sansone. The set opened with an instrumental, Sansone’s self-acclaimed “hardcore wrecking-ball power Chicago blues,” with our boys dishing up some blues of their own to coincide. Do you know Johnny Sansone? He plays some killer harmonica, can sing like a madman through a megaphone, and recently recorded with another local celebrity, Anders Osborne. Take all of that craziness and add to it Joe Cabral of The Iguanas on the sax, and everyone was quite musically satisfied. I promise if you listen to both Baby Bee and Johnny Sansone for half an hour, you’ll be just as drunk off the pairing of their soulful sounds as I was at the end of the night.
When asked about his connection to Baby Bee, Sansone says, “My old manager heard about them. They got the kind of sound my record’s got. Joe (Stark) dropped his record off at my house and I was completely blown away when I heard it. It was a no-brainer, we had to do something together. The rest is beautiful history.”
Looking into the brief history of such a powerful bass-drum dyad, the metaphorical icing on the cake is how involved the Stark brothers are in local charity. From building homes to opening a kids camp, these two really love to alleviate the pains of others. Baby Bee recently graced the stage at this year’s Voice of the Wetlands, which they also stand as proud supporters of.
The band’s next stop? A straight-to-fan release. A sweet remake of Cleveland Crochet’s “Sugar Bee,” the very first Cajun record to break into Billboard’s Top 100. They weren’t kidding when they wrote “Born on the bayou” as their Facebook description. Regarding the cover and Baby Bee’s goals, David Starke says,“The last thing that we did with Sons Of William was tour, tour, tour. We were never here. Our fans are here, why don’t we just please them and hopefully it will bleed out elsewhere. We took about two years trying to figure out what our plan of action is. We wanted to reinvent ourselves, and now we’re trying to implement the plan.”
And so they are. While many bands prematurely try the approach of cross-country touring and major press, Baby Bee are smart as a whip by taking total advantage of all their local opportunities rather than playing “fake it til you make it.” Word has spread they’re already regarded as local celebrities in Houma, and are fast growing their reach to New Orleans. They’ve opened for Big History and performed at the after party for Nola Fashion Week designer, Matt Arthur.
An extract from the Baby Bee bio says it best: “[Baby Bee is] that feeling you get at a great South Louisiana swamp rock night… where everyone is a musician in their own right, even if it’s just to shake their tambourine.” La Fin.
