Yellow Jack - About

L to R: Keith Glass (bass+vocals); Warren namingha (percussion); Dennis Reed Jr (guitar, Harmonica+vocaLs); Andrew GiannI (mandolin, BANJO+vocals); Lainie REID (fiddle, banjo+vocals). PHOTO: CHRIS KALISIAK

ABOUT.

Yellow Jack plays an energetic selection of American folk, hillbilly, sacred songs and bluegrass from the last two centuries, as well as original material, songs related to Western New York and Erie Canal history, and occasionally amusing folk interpretations of mainstream rock and pop songs. Since forming in 2019, we have performed at clubs and festivals across Western New York. We were pleased to be featured as an "Emerging Artist" by the Sportsmen's Americana Music Foundation in November 2019.

A CENTURIES-WIDE SAMPLING of american music and original material.

Our picks start way back with the English and Scottish-derived ballads and reels of Appalachia, then onto the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers, Joe Hill, Charlie Poole and Woody Guthrie; into the 1950s-60s "Folk Revival" artists such as Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, the Greenbriar Boys and Jean Ritchie; through 1970s troubadours Tom Waits and John Prine and 1980s iconoclasts the Violent Femmes and Michelle Shocked; up to modern artists like the White Stripes, Old Crow Medicine Show and the Devil Makes Three. We are also increasingly writing our own material.

feel the BUFFALOVE.

The Niagara region has a rich history recorded in song, and Yellow Jack diligently researches and shares this tradition with modern audiences. Feel the “Buffalove” with our presentation of familiar songs like “Buffalo (The Er-I-E is Rising),” “Low Bridge (Everybody Down!),” “Buffalo Gals,” “White House Blues” (about McKinley’s assassination), as well as lesser-known numbers. Our own carefully researched contributions to local history in song include “O! Mighty Niagara,” “The Legend of Black Hannah” and “The Battle of Buffalo (The Burning of the City).”

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