The players had a built-in fan base when they started making music together in 2011.
A longtime staple of the Madison music scene, Jimmy Voegeli and his band, the Jimmys, have carved out an old-school Chicago blues niche fueled by horns, Hammond B-3, funk and fun.
If Voegeli’s name rings a bell, it’s because the singer and keyboardist spent 18 years in the Westside Andy/Mel Ford Band — one of Madison’s legendary blues groups — and he’s earned multiple Wisconsin Area Music Industry accolades and Madison Area Music Awards.
But the Jimmys’ astonishing musical pedigree doesn’t stop there. Voegeli plucked the three-man horn section and bassist Johnny Wartenweiler from the band led by former James Brown drummer Clyde Stubblefield; that outfit used to perform regularly at the Frequency.
New guitarist Perry Weber counts Milwaukee harmonica player Jim Liban and the late Luther Allison among his mentors, and drummer Mauro Magellan played in the Georgia Satellites, a Southern rock band that scored a top-five single in 1986 with “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.”
All of this means the Jimmys had a built-in fan base when they started making music together and released Gimme the Jimmys in 2011 and HaDaYa Do That Thing Live! in 2013. Imagine a fantasy jam between Stevie Ray Vaughan and the Mighty Blue Kings.
The Jimmys hope to have their third CD, Hot Dish, available when the band opens for Sonny Knight & the Lakers at the Live on King Street free concert series Aug. 7. “It may or may not be a CD release party,” Voegeli says, explaining that minor unforeseen delays might prevent the physical discs from being available at the gig. “We’ll definitely have downloads available.”
Hot Dish represents the Jimmys’ musical maturation during the past two years, as band members changed and the addition of Weber introduced a new songwriting dynamic to the group. The lineup now includes seven members, down from nine. Says Voegeli, “This is as few as we could have to still get the sound I want.”
