The New Mastersounds return to Domino Room

Published 12:00 am Thursday, September 26, 2019

The New Mastersounds are shaking things up to celebrate their 20th anniversary as a band.

The British funk group’s latest album, “Shake It,” is its first release on guitarist and founder Eddie Roberts’ record label, Color Red. But more significantly for fans of the instrumental quartet, the album is the first to feature a dedicated vocalist, Lamar Williams Jr., throughout its 11 tracks (although “On the Up (S.K.A.)” is an instrumental).

Williams, who brings a soulful energy to “Shake It,” is the son of former Allman Brothers Band bassist Lamar Williams, who was with the band from 1972 to 1976 and died of lung cancer in 1983. Roberts met Williams Jr. while sitting in with Gregg Allman Band and Blind Boys of Alabama keyboardist Peter Levin at a show.

“I was playing a couple of tunes, (Williams) was playing a couple of tunes and we were just like, ‘Oh, I see what’s going on here,’ and we just started talking,” Roberts said while on a break between shows in Sausalito, California, last month. The New Mastersounds will return to Bend to headline the Domino Room on Wednesday. “So the next time I came to Atlanta with Mastersounds, he came and guested on a couple of tunes. I hadn’t mentioned anything to the guys — I was like, ‘Oh, there’s this guy who’s gonna come and sing’ — but in the back of my mind, I was like, ‘I think I’ve found something pretty special here.’ It just clicked, and everyone was really excited. We just started writing the album and within a few months really we had it in the bag.”

The chemistry in the studio and on the road means Williams will stick around for the foreseeable future. He and the band are writing new songs, and shows booked into next year will feature Williams, Roberts said.

“It wasn’t like, ‘OK, it’s 20 years now with instrumental music; let’s find a vocalist,’” Roberts said. “And actually … we’ve had a lot of guest vocals on albums in the past, but we’ve never really taken anyone on tour with us. But (there’s) something about the dynamic of how it works with Lamar — he stays onstage a lot and plays the tambourine and just jumps in with the whole band. It just really works. It’s lifted the energy for us.”

The band’s combined 20th anniversary celebration and album-launch tour will take it to cities it has performed at regularly over the years, including Bend. Its last performance in the city was at the 2018 4 Peaks Music Festival, while Roberts performed at this year’s 4 Peaks as part of Matador! Soul Sounds. (Organ prodigy Maxwell Friedman, who will open for The New Mastersounds at the Domino Room with his eponymous band, sat in with Matador! Soul Sounds at this year’s festival.)

Roberts formed the first version of The New Mastersounds while working as a promoter for a club night in Leeds, England, called The Cooker, according to the band’s online biography. Initially the quartet would play 45-minute sets in between DJs, but by the mid-2000s, the band was a draw in its own right, and began touring the U.S.

The band eventually found a home in the burgeoning jam band scene, but it had to learn how to play for U.S. audiences. In past interviews, Roberts has mentioned the differences in DJ culture between Europe and the U.S. Used to playing shorter sets between DJs, the band had to expand its show when it started visiting the U.S.

“When we got here and realized there wasn’t a DJ playing before us or after us … as soon as the band’s finished, even if you try to bring a DJ with you to play afterwards, everyone would just leave after 10 minutes,” Roberts said. “… I’d come from a jazz background anyway, so it wasn’t a crazy departure because I was already used to doing improvised music. It was more — how this band operated was more in the constraints of this 45-minute set. And then suddenly it was like, oh, you want us to play longer? We can do that, we just didn’t think that that’s what we were supposed to be doing.”

In recent years, the band’s lineup settled with Roberts, drummer Simon Allen, bassist Pete Shand and keyboardist Joe Tatton. While it formed as a quartet, the group toured as an eight-piece band with horns and vocalists in the early 2000s before reverting back to the original four-piece.

In addition to continuing to work with Williams, the members of The New Mastersounds have plenty to keep them busy. Roberts continues outside collaborations such as Matador! Soul Sounds (which features Soulive drummer Alan Evans) while ramping up production work for his year-old Color Red label.

“As you’re touring around you meet people, and it’s all about friendships really,” Roberts said. “It’s nice to make music with people who you like and people who you respect. In terms of what it does bring back to the band, it does bring a freshness back. When I go off and play with a whole bunch of different people, I always feel that it just breathes new life into what I’m doing with Mastersounds, rather than just doing the same thing with the same people.”