On Saturday, Nov. 1, Kents Hill School’s Newton Hall (www.kentshill.org/concertseries) will welcome Marcia Ball and her band as part of the Aleigh Mills Concert Series for a 7:30 p.m. performance. Ball will be serving up her signature musical gumbo of New Orleans boogie, Gulf Coast blues, Tex-Mex flavored zydeco and groove-laden R&B that has been the hallmark of her shows and albums ever since her solo debut album came out in 1978. She’s currently touring in support of her latest Alligator Records CD “The Tattooed Lady and The Alligator Man” and seeing that road will lead back up to Maine, a phone interview was arranged where I called her to chat about her upcoming gig.

Q: Where am I calling? Are you out on the road, perchance?

Ball: No, I’m in Austin — we take off tomorrow.

Q: Are you on the road a lot nowadays?

Ball: Ah, steadily on the road. Typically all the time, we play pretty much year-round, but with this new record, I have a very busy couple of months. So I would say that this being home today is something I really need to enjoy because I’ll next be able to sit at my table and drink my coffee and read my paper in about six weeks!

Q: When did this album come out anyway?

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Ball: It came out in the middle of September.

Q: Oh, so it’s really new. What kind of response have you been getting from the fans?

Ball: Very good — the audiences they like the songs and we just broke into the Americana Top 40 chart, blues charts and we’re getting picked up by Sirius Radio on two different channels: not just the blues channel but also on one called “The Loft” which is an Americana channel. So it’s performing well in the market place but the key thing for me is that people like the songs when we get there and play them.

Q: You’ve got a four-piece band with you on the road, do you not?

Ball: Well, it’s me and four other players, yes.

Q: And they are Don Bennett on bass, Damien Llanes on drums, Michael Schermer on guitar and Thad Scott on tenor sax?

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Ball: Actually, Thad has decided to stay home from the road for a while … he lives in New Orleans, he’s got a lot of stuff going on there including a marriage, so he basically groomed me a replacement: he’s a wonderful sax player and his name is Eric Bernhardt.

Q: What can folks expect from your upcoming show?

Ball: Well, there’s a song on the new record called “Like There’s No Tomorrow” — that was the first line I thought of when I started to write the song — and the key line in the chorus is, “We came to party.” Now we’ll slow it down for a slow dance — and we do have some thoughtful songs in the mix — but for the most part we came to party.

Q: And you’ve got such an incredible body of work to draw upon, seeing you have so many albums our nowadays.

Ball: It is really getting kind of difficult because we have especially enjoyed the last two records before this one: “Peace, Love & BBQ” and “Roadside Attractions” — they have a lot of songs that we really enjoy playing and that people really enjoy hearing, but anybody who has been with us for longer than that, they want to hear “Down the Road,” they want to hear “Louisiana,” they want to hear “Red Beans,” so we’ve got half a set full of things that people want to hear…it’s interesting to try and fit all that in.

Q: Is there anything you’d like to pass on to the readers of this article?

Ball: Well, we are really looking forward to coming up — I’m sure it’s going to be beautiful when we get there — and, gosh, we’ll bring the party, you bring the dancing shoes … of course, it might be a sit-down gig but you can dance in your chair!

Lucky Clark has spent 45 years writing about good music and the people who make it. He can be reached at luckyc@myfairpoint.net if you have any questions, comments or suggestions.


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