Song Dogs Reboot

New Feature in April OffBeat Magazine

Song Dogs backstage at Jazz Fest, 1993. Photo courtesy of Song Dogs.

Song Dogs play French Quarter Festival on Sunday, April 16, 2023 at the Jack Daniel’s Stage from 11:10 a.m. until 12:30 p.m. Song Dogs also will appear at the New Orleans Jazz Museum on Tuesday, April 18, 2023 at 2 p.m. Their CD release party is on Friday, April 21, 2023 at Chickie Wah Wah.

Some 30 odd years ago, a group of seasoned musicians formed a band in a milieu not so unlike our own current scene. They came together from different genres and different geographic spaces in a period before the internet and social media opened up the ability of musicians to connect.

That band was the Song Dogs, and for a relatively short time in the length of a musical lifer’s career, they were a local sensation with designs on national attention. They played their first show at Tipitina’s in early 1986 as an opening act for another much-loved band from the era, the Continental Drifters, and by the end of the year they were blowing up locally, even trading places with the Drifters (three of whom became the subdudes) as the headliners at Tips.

A string of Tuesday nights at the Maple Leaf were packed every night for four years before the Rebirth Brass Band took over the slot. Major labels came calling in an era when signing with a label was the only real way to break out. They rocked Jazz Fest the following spring, recorded an album at Tipitina’s, Live Without a Leash, played again at Jazz Fest in 1989, but by December of that year they called it quits for reasons too numerous to explicate.

They reunited briefly in 1993 and played at the Jazz Fest (pictured above in a backstage trailer that year). More recently, they played some sporadic shows over the last several years and discovered the chemistry that made the band so special is still intact.

So, they recorded their first studio album, Light in the Distance, revisiting a number of songs that fans will remember from the band’s first go round plus new tunes, one from the band’s newest member, a super fan named Richard Bates, and a cover by David Egan—one of Louisiana’s best-known songsmiths.

The songs, which were always paramount the first time around, hold up amazingly well, addressing universal themes of life’s challenges, love and love lost anchored by a decidedly New Orleans groove. Even more interestingly, some of the lyrics are prescient, particularly vocalist, keyboardist and accordionist Lisa Mednick Powell’s “Face in the Crowd,” which is also known as “The Whistleblower’s Song,” and sound as relevant as they did back in the day.

The Song Dogs featured four principal songwriters—Alison Young, Lisa Mednick Powell, Bruce MacDonald and Red Priest—but tragedy struck as the band was preparing to release the album and make a triumphant return to festival stages in 2020. First there was a pandemic.

Then in March of 2022, MacDonald—a powerful guitarist with George Porter, Jr.’s early solo band Joyride and a Louisiana musical legend for his role in Coteau, a band from Lafayette that made waves for being one of the first to add a rock edge to traditional Cajun music—passed away after a long illness.

Young, who produced the new album, is the front woman, and who serves as the group’s manager, was at a loss for how to proceed, or even if the band should try to carry on given the loss of their friend and musical partner. Bates suggested having MacDonald’s son, Alex, an award-winning washboard player, sing his father’s parts.

The 40-year-old musician’s mother was “Little Queenie” Harris of “My Darlin’ New Orleans” fame, so music is literally in his blood, and he had already been performing on washboard with the reunited band. However, he isn’t a guitarist.

Part of the musical charm of the original configuration of the band was the musical dynamic between Bruce MacDonald and Red Priest. Priest was the guitarist in many of the blues groups that were denizens of the sorely-missed uptown dive bar Benny’s, including the J Monque ‘D Blues Band and the New Orleans Blues Department (N.O.B.D.). He also logged many years with the acclaimed blue-eyed soul band Satisfaction in the ’70s and ’80s.

Young asked Bates if he “would mind using a crunchier tone” since Priest “occupies a different part of the sonic landscape” in the band. Bates was honored to fill his guitar idol’s shoes.

Complicating matters were original drummer Paul Santopadre’s family obligations, which are preventing him from participating in the now-rescheduled reunion and the release of the new album. Tyler Clements, the son of guitarist Cranston and keyboardist Jan, both veteran New Orleans musicians, was recruited to fill the drum chair.

The newly configured band has been rehearsing in earnest and is set to play three shows in April. They will appear at the French Quarter Festival at the New Orleans Jazz Museum and at a CD release party at Chickie Wah Wah. Acclaimed singer/songwriter Pat McLaughlin is opening the show with a solo set, and everyone gets the new CD with paid entry.

So how do they sound? The band keeps the dance floor moving and is attractive to fans of different genres because of the musical makeup of the group. Funkateers love them because of the deep-in-the pocket rhythm section, which features original member Paul Clement on bass.

They all sing lead, and they all harmonize with each other, creating an amalgam of sound evoking everything from 1950s girl groups to New Orleans R&B and soul. Even the new wave genre that was popular nationally when the band formed, and is influencing music again, is in the mix.

Clement and Santopadre were the youngsters in the band when they first started out. Now Alex MacDonald and Tyler Clements represent the youth and are keeping intact the intergenerational nature of music, both on stage and in the audience, for which New Orleans is famous.

The album will unleash waves of nostalgia for anyone who remembers those Tuesday nights at the Maple Leaf and will undoubtedly attract new fans interested in well-written songs and infectious performances. By all accounts, the newly configured band will do the same. They say the sum is often greater than the parts and that couldn’t be truer for the Song Dogs.

Album cover artwork by Lisa Mednick Powell