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25-401: The band's music is a fusion of Delta blues , gypsy jazz , 1930s–era swing , klezmer , and other styles. They found commercial success during the swing revival of the late 1990s with their 1996 single "Hell", written by Tom Maxwell. After a hiatus of several years, the original band members reunited and performed in 2007, playing in the U.S. and Canada. In 2016, Mathus and Phillips reunited

50-722: A duo with New Orleans pianist and singer Tom McDermott . As of 2023, her latest project is Aurora Nealand and the Reed Minders. Nealand was voted "Best Female Performer” by the 2016 Gambit awards, and her band was named "Best Traditional Jazz Band" in the 2015 and 2017 Big Easy Awards. She was named one of Downbeat Magazine 's "Rising Stars" on both soprano saxophone and clarinet in 2017, 2018, 2020. Downbeat Magazine 2017 Rising Star - Soprano Saxophone Rising Star - Clarinet Big Easy Awards Best Female Performer - 2016 Big Easy Awards - Best Jazz Band - 2016 McDowell Colony Resident 1Beat Music Fellow (USA) Aurora Nealand and

75-421: A few months later. Stacy Guess (formerly of Pressure Boys) joined shortly after. "Nut Zippers" is a southern term for a variety of old bootleg moonshine. The band's name comes from a newspaper story about an intoxicated man who climbed a tree and refused to come down even after police arrived. The headline was "Squirrel Nut Zipper." It is also the name of a caramel and peanut candy dating back to 1890. The band

100-646: A hand in numerous other projects. Je Widenhouse and Reese Gray recorded and toured with Firecracker Jazz Band. Chris Phillips spent two years with the Dickies and William Reid from the Jesus and Mary Chain . His band The Lamps included members of the Bangles and The Connells . In early 2007, the band's official website announced tour dates with a lineup consisting of Jimbo Mathus, Katharine Whalen, Chris Phillips, Je Widenhouse, Stuart Cole, Hank West, and Will Dawson. With

125-525: A pop-influenced city blues style. This was displaced by the new Chicago blues sound in the early 1950s, pioneered by Delta bluesmen Muddy Waters , Howlin' Wolf , and Little Walter , that was harking back to a Delta-influenced sound, but with amplified instruments. Delta blues was also an inspiration for the creation of British skiffle music, from which eventually came the British invasion bands, while simultaneously influencing British blues that led to

150-898: A studio album in 2010. The band taped a performance for NPR's Mountain Stage , which aired in mid-November. Following renewed interest at the approach of the 20th Anniversary of Hot , Mathus began assembling a revival band, focusing on musicians in the New Orleans area. They began touring in June 2016, with the initial line-up including Mathus, Dr. Sick (fiddle, vocals), Ingrid Lucia (vocals), Kris Tokarski (piano), Charlie Halloran (trombone), Dave Boswell (trumpet), Hank West (saxophone), Tamara Nicolai (upright bass) and Kevin O’Donnell (drums), with original Zippers drummer Chris Phillips managing, and Alex Holeman as road manager. The band has continued to tour;

175-658: A tribute concert to Sidney Bechet at Preservation Hall in New Orleans. Along with the Royal Roses, Nealand also performs as a member of the rockabilly band Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers and solo under the name Monocle. In 2019, Nealand, under the name "Monocle", brought her project "KindHumanKind" to the New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center , receiving a positive review from OffBeat magazine. She frequently performs in

200-466: Is credited for contributing to the swing revival that occurred during the 1990s. The band was influenced by Johnny Ace , Cab Calloway , Django Reinhardt , Raymond Scott , Fats Waller , and Tom Waits . The breakthrough single "Hell", with its calypso rhythm, more closely aligned the band with the neo-swing movement. The Zippers's debut album, The Inevitable (1995), received airplay on National Public Radio , and its second album, Hot (1996),

225-793: The Oberlin Conservatory of Music in 2001, where she created her own major in music composition. While studying at Oberlin, Nealand spent eight months in New York City where she learned about Laurie Anderson , Brian Eno and Philip Glass . Nealand embarked on a cross country bicycle trip, during which she interviewed rural Americans and compiled their stories into a musical piece titled "American Dreams". The trip concluded in New Orleans, where she began playing traditional jazz, much of which she had grown up listening to in California. Nealand formed The Royal Roses in 2011 for

250-423: The 1970s, Bonnie Raitt and Phoebe Snow performed blues. Bonnie Raitt, Susan Tedeschi and Rory Block are contemporary female blues artists, who were influenced by Delta blues and learned from some of the most notable of the original artists still living. Sue Foley and Shannon Curfman also performed blues music. Many Delta blues artists, such as Big Joe Williams , moved to Detroit and Chicago, creating

275-487: The Library of Congress researchers did not record any Delta bluesmen or blueswomen prior to 1941, when he recorded Son House and Willie Brown near Lake Cormorant, Mississippi , and Muddy Waters at Stovall, Mississippi . However, among others, John and Alan Lomax recorded Lead Belly in 1933, and Bukka White in 1939. In big-city blues, female singers such as Ma Rainey , Bessie Smith , and Mamie Smith dominated

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300-698: The Squirrel Nut Zippers has appeared in 25 films or television shows. Delta blues Delta blues is one of the earliest-known styles of blues . It originated in the Mississippi Delta and is regarded as a regional variant of country blues . Guitar and harmonica are its dominant instruments; slide guitar is a hallmark of the style. Vocal styles in Delta blues range from introspective and soulful to passionate and fiery. Although Delta blues certainly existed in some form or another at

325-812: The band with a new lineup to tour in support of the 20th anniversary of their highest-selling album, Hot . The Squirrel Nut Zippers continue to tour, and released their new album Beasts of Burgundy in March 2018, and singles "Mardi Gras for Christmas" and "Alone at Christmas" in November 2018. The band was founded by James "Jimbo" Mathus, formerly of Metal Flake Mother and Johnny Vomit & The Dry Heaves , and his then-wife Katharine Whalen in Carrboro , North Carolina, with Tom Maxwell, Chris Phillips, Don Raleigh, and Ken Mosher. The group made its debut in Chapel Hill

350-459: The birth of early hard rock and heavy metal . Aurora Nealand Aurora Nealand is an American saxophonist, clarinetist, singer and composer. She leads her own band, Aurora Nealand and the Royal Roses. Born the youngest of four children in Pacifica, California , to parents she calls "hippies", Nealand moved to New Orleans in 2004 after earning a degree in music composition from

375-531: The early Delta blues (as well as other genres) were extensively recorded by John Lomax and his son Alan Lomax , who crisscrossed the southern U.S. recording music played and sung by ordinary people, helping establish the canon of genres known today as American folk music . Their recordings, numbering in the thousands, now reside in the Smithsonian Institution . According to Dixon and Godrich (1981) and Leadbitter and Slaven (1968), Alan Lomax and

400-567: The early recordings on field trips to the South, and some performers were invited to travel to northern cities to record. Current research suggests that Freddie Spruell is the first Delta blues artist to have been recorded; his "Milk Cow Blues" was recorded in Chicago in June 1926. According to Dixon and Godrich (1981), Tommy Johnson and Ishmon Bracey were recorded by Victor on that company's second field trip to Memphis, in 1928. Robert Wilkins

425-579: The proclamation "Ladies and Gentlemen...They're Back," the band performed concert dates throughout the U.S. and Canada in the spring and summer of 2007 and through 2008. In late February 2009, Phillips sent an email announcing a forthcoming live album titled You Are My Radio , recorded in Brooklyn in December 2008. The album title was later changed to Lost at Sea and was released on October 27 through Southern Broadcasting/MRI. They also announced plans for

450-597: The radio show Prairie Home Companion and on television shows The Tonight Show , Late Show with David Letterman , Conan O'Brien , and Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve . By the early 2000s, the Zippers were inactive. Mathus and Katharine Whalen had divorced, and the band members went their separate ways. Whalen released her debut album, Katharine Whalen's Jazz Squad. Mathus toured and recorded extensively with Buddy Guy and has released 18 solo records on various labels, and under various names, while keeping

475-451: The recordings of the 1920s. Although very few women were recorded playing Delta blues and other rural or folk-style blues, many performers did not get professionally recorded. Geeshie Wiley was a blues singer and guitar player who recorded six songs for Paramount Records that were issued on three records in April 1930. According to the blues historian Don Kent , Wiley "may well have been

500-535: The rural South's greatest female blues singer and musician". L. V. Thomas, better known as Elvie Thomas , was a blues singer and guitarist from Houston, Texas , who recorded with Geeshie Wiley. Memphis Minnie was a blues guitarist, vocalist, and songwriter whose recording career lasted for more than three decades. She recorded approximately 200 songs, some of the best known being "Bumble Bee", "Nothing in Rambling", and " Me and My Chauffeur Blues ". Bertha Lee

525-756: The studio album Beasts of Burgundy was released on March 23, 2018 through their own label Southern Broadcasting. Performers on the album include Mathus (guitar, vocals), Dr. Sick (fiddle, banjo, various instruments, vocals), Cella Blue (vocals), Vanessa Niemann (vocals), Tamar A. Korn (vocals), Dave Boswell (trumpet), Kevin Louis (trumpet), Aurora Nealand (clarinet), Charlie Halloran (trombone), Colin Myers (trombone), Henry Westmoreland (tenor and baritone saxophone), Kris Tokarski (piano), Leslie P. Martin (piano), Tamara Nicolai (upright bass), Neilson Bernard III (drums) and Chris Phillips (percussion). As of 2021, music performed by

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550-399: The turn of the twentieth century, it was first recorded in the late 1920s, when record companies realized the potential African-American market for " race records ". The major labels produced the earliest recordings, consisting mostly of one person singing and playing an instrument. Live performances, however, more commonly involved a group of musicians. Record company talent scouts made some of

575-434: Was a blues singer, active in the 1920s and 1930s. She recorded with and was the common-law wife of, Charley Patton. Rosa Lee Hill , daughter of Sid Hemphill, learned guitar from her father and by the time she was ten, was playing at dances with him. Several of her songs, such as "Rolled and Tumbled", were recorded by Alan Lomax between 1959 and 1960. In the late 1960s, Jo Ann Kelly (UK) started her recording career. In

600-547: Was certified platinum . Hot was also one of the first enhanced CDs, containing an interactive presentation created by filmmaker Clay Walker . In support of the album, the band toured with rock singer Neil Young . Perennial Favorites (1998) followed, then Christmas Caravan and Bedlam Ballroom . The Squirrel Nut Zippers performed at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta and at President Clinton's second inaugural ball. Their numerous appearances included such notables as

625-850: Was first recorded by Victor in Memphis in 1928, and Big Joe Williams and Garfield Akers by Brunswick / Vocalion , also in Memphis, in 1929. Charley Patton recorded for Paramount in Grafton, in June 1929 and May 1930. He also traveled to New York City for recording sessions in January and February 1934. Son House first recorded in Grafton, Wisconsin, in 1930 for Paramount Records . Robert Johnson recorded his only sessions, in San Antonio in 1936 and in Dallas in 1937, for ARC . Many other artists were recorded during this period. Subsequently,

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