Young musicians tend to dominate the press and public consciousness. The talent and the energy of youth will always be compelling, but if we’re talking about music as a capital-A Art, experience will always win out. Folks like Bo Ramsey, Joe Price and Vicki Price have been making music for well nigh five decades, and it shows in the depth of their work as musicians and songwriters.
Before the Mill closed, the Prices were regular performers for so long that the grandchildren of their original fans also showed up to see them play. Their most recent album, Live @ Octopus, illustrates their inviting, groovy take on the blues. They play electric guitars but their roots are in the country blues of Lightning Hopkins and Robert Johnson, Elements of the Chicago electric blues are in their playing, as well, but the country blues just fit with Iowa’s rural landscape.
Bo Ramsey has also been around Iowa music for a minute. He’s more associated with folk and Americana than the blues, but no one is better at that high and lonesome sound. I first saw him play at Gabe’s in the late 1970s, before our hair went gray. A sought-after studio musician, he’s performed and produced records by Greg Brown, Pieta Brown, Iris Dement, Joe Price, Lucinda Williams and many others.
Bo is in his 70s, but his playing and singing have only deepened over the years. On his recent EP Sidetrack, he plays his trademark atmospheric, spooky guitar and talk-sings in a rasping voice that sounds like a thousand miles of dirt roads. I last saw him at the Mill — the sorely missed epicenter of Iowa roots music — and as good as his recordings are, his live performances are riveting expressions of the river of music that runs through him.
While you can — and should! — listen to their records, they both shine brightest playing live. I guess if you spend 50 years perfecting your art, you end up someplace special. And that “someplace special” this month is their show at the Ideal Theater on Oct. 12.
Bo Ramsey | Joe & Vicki Price
Ideal Theater & Bar | Oct. 12 | $20
Bo Ramsey with Joe & Vicki Price perform at the Ideal Theater & Bar in Cedar Rapids.
