Upper Lake >> Southern California blues band Hot Roux was so inspired by New Orleans cooking, they decided to name themselves after the foundation of so much southern Louisiana cooking. Roux combines butter, flour, onion and spices. Borrowed from French cuisine, it’s used as a base for dishes such as gumbo and jambalaya.
Much like the southern staple, Hot Roux creates music that’s a blend of flavors, from rock and roll to country to Cajun to blues. “Throw all that stuff in together and you get a gumbo,” said drummer and lead singer Jerry McWorter. “So that’s really the origin of the name and the style.”
Blues is big on simplicity and virtuosity, and that’s the draw for McWorter. While there are numerous styles under the umbrella of the genre, he prefers Cajun and country, which he describes as “the white man’s blues.”
The true origin of the blues of course lies in black history, and all the great blues singers are African American musicians such as B.B. King and Buddy Guy. McWorther doesn’t want to try to sound like those guys, because he knows he never could. “The country music and the Cajun music is really the white people’s interpretation of their soul music,” he explained. “I think it comes out a little more authentically using those influences.”
Hot Roux has been together under the name for seven years, but McWorter and bassist Brent Harding have been playing side by side for much longer. Over 20 years ago they were performing together, often as back up musicians in other bands. Then 16 years ago they started writing songs together and in 2007 the first Hot Roux album was recorded.
Rounding out the group is Franck Goldwasser on guitar. With influences like Professor Longhair, Muddy Waters and Hank Williams, Hot Roux focuses on vocal harmonies and their own original music. And it’s the original material that’s key. There’s a sense of gratification that comes with hearing an audience sing your lyrics back to you, of seeing fans listen to something they’ve never heard before, and liking it. “If we were out here doing the jukebox thing and playing cover music it wouldn’t be nearly as fun,” McWorter said.
While many musicians have origin stories that include toddling around with a guitar in their hands, McWorter found the drums a little differently. While he’d always been a music fan — he discovered the blues through the Grateful Dead, who were influenced by the genre — it wasn’t until his late 20s that he decided he wanted to learn to play. Although he’d spent his life thinking he didn’t have talent, McWorter insists that it’s not about talent at all. Like anything, playing music, and playing well, is about practice.
McWorter pulled out a sports analogy. In golf, you only excel by getting out there and hitting a thousand balls. The same theory applies to music. But when he was younger, McWorter didn’t quite have that mindset. It took him years to pick up the drumsticks because he didn’t believe he had talent.
“Like anything else you have to learn how to do it,” he added. “The whole point is there’s great joy in that process. You have to enjoy learning and you have to enjoy that process, whatever it is. It’s never about the end result, it’s about enjoying the path.”
When McWorter decided he wanted to learn, he reached out to a friend who was a working drummer. From him McWorter learned the basics, but after that it was all about real world experience. Three months after sitting down at a drum set, he was up on stage performing. Even if he stumbled through those beginning shows, he learned more playing with others than he ever could have sitting in a room, studying an instrument.
Part of it is abandoning any insecurities. “You have to suffer the embarrassment of being willing to be bad,” he continued. “You have to have an attitude that you’re willing to be bad at it and learn.”
Hot Roux perform Monday from 6:30-9 p.m. at the Blue Wing Saloon, located at 9520 Main St., Upper Lake. Reservations are suggested. Call 275-2245.
Jennifer Gruenke can be reached at 900-2019.
