Soulshine Revival is making their triumphant return to the Cooler in the Mountains concert series this Saturday outside the K-1 Base Lodge in Killington at 3 p.m. This will be their second year in a row playing it. If you don’t know, the band is an Allman Brothers Tribute. I can only attend one Cooler in the Mountains concert this season and this is the one, so I’m psyched. I had the pleasure of interviewing Ken Shofield for this article. Ken is one of the two drummers. The band is Phil Graziano (guitar, slide guitar, vocals), Schofield (drums & vocals), Tim Comings (bass & vocals), John Wallace (drums), Gregg Krech (piano, organ, vocals) and Scott Adams (guitar). Ken said, “We’re delighted to be back in Killington, we don’t play in Southern Vermont a lot. To be invited back for a second year is cool. A woman from the resort came out to the Zen Barn this winter and asked if we’d be playing there again.”
All the guys are Vermonters, living all over the state. The band just celebrated their four year anniversary, but some of the guys have been performing together for 20-30 years. This is their first Allman Bros. project, that started due to a friend of Tim’s who passed. Ken said, “His wife reached out to Tim to see if he could put together a memorial with Allman Bros. music since that was his favorite. They didn’t want a traditional funeral, more like a pig roast with a band. Tim put the call out on social media and 20 people responded and said they’re in. What you’re looking at, with the current line-up, is the six people who actually showed up. We just kept it going, it’s grown organically ever since. Every time we played, people would ask us to play elsewhere. Next thing you know we’re doing crazy things like opening for Great White. It’s been fun, a real blast. We’re all older but we’ve been playing together for years so we had that in common. It made putting it together relatively easy.”
The band mainly plays in the summer, but has some winter things like a Cancer Awareness Event at Jay Peak. They don’t do clubs because they feel they’re too big in size for clubs. Ironically the only club they do is the Zen Barn in Waterbury, which is tiny. I was just there so I can’t imagine how they fit. The two drummers alone would take up the whole stage.
I’m a fan of the Allman Bros. and Warren Haynes so basically any tribute band show will be a greatest hits of sorts, because every song is good. Ken said they started by honoring the tradition of the early Allman Brothers. “Our stuff is along the lines of the Fillmore concert, that’s primarily our set list. We do a couple of the newer, the Warren Haynes era songs as well. They played for 35-40 years. Their catalog is huge. We honor them by trying to stay true to form. In terms of the tonal quality, the instrumentation. All of our instruments are vintage. John and I play 1960s drum kits. All the guys are running old, authentic instruments from the era, tube amps, etc. It makes it more authentic sounding.”
Their fan base appreciates that. There are many Allman Bros. tribute acts but Ken said the positive feedback they get is about their authenticity. “We don’t play anything note for note, we don’t try and learn the songs note for note. There’s certain passages in the tunes that kind of have to be there, according to the ways the Allman Brothers did them but when it comes time for solos, we stretch them.” I said to Ken that they probably do jams in their own way, which is true but their fans tell them their jams sound more authentic than some of the other bands because we try and stay true to the way and style that the Allman Brothers played them. I think we’ve been kind of successful doing that.”
Ken grew up on the Allman Bros. and Southern Rock. He said, “I cut my teeth on the whole Southern rock thing that was going on in Mass. in the late ’70s, early ’80s I was singing and playing drums in a band down there. We did a variety of songs like folk, rock and we did some Allman Brothers.” He’s from the Worcester area.
Ken and Tim’s favorite Allman Brothers tune is, “In Memory of Elizabeth Reed”. Ken said, “I love playing all the stuff. I’ve been an Allman Brothers fan all my life. To be performing in a band, of this caliber, at this level, in this stage of my career, I pinch myself sometimes. I didn’t realize until I started performing the Allman Brothers that the music transcends generations. It’s amazing to me when we perform, we get people who are retired veterans in their 70s and 80s, all the way down to kids with new families, and little toddlers running around. People come up and say they’re listening to the Allmans because their Dad did. You guys perform the stuff and it brings me right back. It’s just amazing. To me they were American rock ‘n’ roll, pure and simple. It’s a testament to what they did as a band, to be out here performing it, and to connect with so many people.”
Ken is really enjoying playing in this band. He gets to play with his friends so the camaraderie is great. He said, “We’re a band of brothers as we say. I love the energy. I didn’t anticipate this happening, it’s unique to this band that the fans who come out are true Allman Brothers fans. Sometimes we laugh on stage after seeing the fans excitement, because we know we nailed it. When we see their reactions, our adrenaline shoots up. Every band gets good reactions but this is different, they know when you’re playing it correctly. It’s so cool.”
The band is headlining the Orleans County Fair in Barton, Vermont on Sept. 7 at 8 p.m. You can find them on Facebook under Soulshine Revival. There’s a link to their store, and their YouTube page.
