Press Kit

Dreams to Remember from Don't You Just Know It

Press Clippings

“San Francisco's Macy Blackman and the Mighty Fines return with a record of New Orleans R&B that's sure to set your hips swinging and your feet shuffling…The Mighty Fines are a talented bunch, and they really can do it all: symphonies, jazz- you name it…With such big jazzy sounds and rocking grooves, I Didn’t Want to Do It delivers enough New Orleans groove to keep you swinging right into Mardi Gras and beyond".

Katie Lambert
Living Blues

"Pianist Macy Blackman's mission in life appears to be granting immediacy to 1950's New Orleans r&b songs and soul-blues items of similar vintage…Nancy Wright, the tenor player in his swinging band, takes over vocals for five selections."

Frank Hadley-John
Downbeat Magazine

"We’re party-hoppin’ now ‘cause I Didn’t Want To Do It (MamaRu) by Macy Blackman & The Mighty Fines is a New Orleans fest fit to knock yourself out to. Macy’s a Delaware piano prodigy since age 12 who got hip fast to The Crescent City’s pleasures when he met drummer Hungry Williams in New York. Now, listening to this cat is like stepping into the Dew Drop Inn circa 1955. The material? How ‘bout Allen Toussaint, Brook Benton, Otis Redding, Etta James, Dr. John, Irma Thomas, Ike & Tina Turner and Jackie Wilson? (Saxophonist Nancy Wright adds the female vocals.)"

Mike Greenblatt
The Aquarium Weekly
December 4, 2013

"The pianist Macy Blackman, a long-time music educator and piano expert, has been an active performer since the 1960s, specializing in jazz and rhythm and blues, in particular the R&B music of New Orleans. He recently released his third album with his band The Mighty Fines. The 14 tracks on I Didn’t Want To Do It supply everything necessary for a rollicking good time except the partygoers.

The rock-solid Mighty Fines are Jack Dorsey or Adam Goodhue (drums), Bing Nathan (bass), Ken Jacobs (baritone saxophone–delicious!), and Nancy Wright (tenor saxophone, vocals), supporting Blackman (piano), whose singing is excellent and interesting. In contrast to the Mighty Fines’ lively and infectious music, Blackman’s vocal style is pretty far from excitable—not deliberate, exactly; languid perhaps comes closer. Although I have no sense that Blackman is trying to imitate the great Professor Longhair, and any similarity lies more in feeling and attitude than in sonic resemblance, his resonant timbre and playful, yet somehow grave, quality do recall Fess. That is no small asset for anyone singing Crescent City music...

That sense of fun is at the heart of what most of us think of when it comes to the R&B of New Orleans, and Macy Blackman and The Mighty Fines convey it perfectly. I Didn’t Want To Do It goes further, showing rarer aspects of New Orleans music: Saturday night and Sunday morning, romance and heartbreak, high seriousness and low clowning, all skillfully played and sung."

Tom Hyslop
Golden Gate Grooves, The Golden Gate Blues Society Newsletter
January 2014

Videos

Chicken Shack YouTube link: http://youtu.be/Td5cmfFWHmI
Just the Same YouTube link: http://youtu.be/m3VXEnWPQ44
Road Block YouTube link: http://youtu.be/udX2LXZ8Fag

Photos

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