If you haven’t had a chance to check out Winos and Tacos, you’re in for a treat. From the ground up, it’s beautiful wood floors, stained copper tabletops, a giant solid walnut community table, a beautiful bar that plays off of mirrors, glass shelves and colorful lighting, high ceilings and elegant chandeliers. What really gets you isn’t the fantastic “wow factor” however, but what’s going on inside Winos and Tacos. From supporting local, sustainable farms with their menu selection to bringing in some of the funk and soul of New Orleans, Chris and Shannon Blossman have created a “go-to” destination for young and older generations alike. They will be hosting Chris LeBlanc tonight, March 27th, after their weekly free wine tasting. Friday they welcome back Glen David Andrews, and Saturday Flow Tribe will bring on the funk. Here’s what these cats are up to:
Chris LeBlanc has spent the last two decades writing music, producing and releasing four different full length CD’s on his own label Sweetroll Records, touring the U.S. and Europe, and headlining festivals and nightclubs from Alaska to Algiers. Playing covers ranging from The Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival to Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters, or his own original music, Chris LeBlanc puts on a driving show that draws in the crowds and keeps them waiting for the next song to drop!
Glen David Andrews is a favorite at Winos and Tacos. The brass-band music and traditional jazz he was raised on are still his greatest loves. “The musicians that played in my neighborhood, they brought me out of the womb,” he says, not by way of metaphor. Vana Acker, his mother, tells a story from when she was pregnant with Glen: Anthony “Tuba Fats” Lacen, a traditional-music icon and mentor to many musicians, came by and blew his horn with the bell of the instrument pointed at her very pregnant belly. He said the sound of the tuba would induce labor. Glen David was born the next day.
“Aside from being a great musician, Glen David has absorbed a fading tradition,” says Ben Jaffe, who runs Preservation Hall. “He’s a link for his generation to something important, but he also has a rare enthusiasm and energy that makes it all special and exciting for even casual listeners.”
Straight out of New Orleans and into your frontal lobe, Flow Tribe comes at you with the delicacy of a sledgehammer. They create “backbone cracking music”, a soul shaking mixture of styles and sounds guaranteed to drive you wild. These are 6 seasoned performers who have shared the stage with the likes of Trombone Shorty, Juvenile, and BIll Summers just to name a few. A relentlessly touring band that plays major venues and festivals around the country bringing with them a heat and passion best described as “bizarrely irresistible”.
