Listening Room Tour • MUSIFCESTNEWS

Melody Trucks and Bobby Lee Rodgers: Listening Room Tour

Melody Truck And Bobby Lee Rodgers are on their Tour of the listening roomwhich kicked off last night (Wednesday, August 21st) at the Blue Jay Listening Room in Jacksonville. They have six more dates left in this series of shows including Tallahassee, a couple in Marietta GA and Richmond before finishing up in Ocean City MD and Lewes DE. Here’s the video of last night’s show!

Rodgers and Trucks met for the first time in 2013 at Wanee Music Festival at the Spirit of the Suwannee Music Park, an event started by Melody’s father, Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band. Rodgers performed regularly in Wanee.

Trucks is a talented singer and percussionist who has performed at major music festivals such as Peach Fest, Suwannee Rising and Suwannee Hulaween. She and her brother Vaylor truck are dedicated to education, including Roots rock revivalthe important annual event where aspiring musicians can learn from some of the greatest in the scene. They are also involved in the Master at sea Program on Jam Cruise.

Melody Trucks – Sunshine Get Down ’24. 📸: Mitch Levine Photography

Although Trucks claims she wasn’t looking for another band after her stellar career in Jacksonville. Melody Trucks Band disbanded, instead she found a group through Roots Rock Revival. The Fitzkee Brothers took on trucks, or the other way around, and the result is absolutely spectacular. The Fitzkee Brothers The band features drummer Alex and bassist Drew from Delaware as well as two outstanding musicians from Maryland, guitarist Otto Grundman And Nick French on keyboards. Trucks has been playing with these young men (Alex is 17, Drew is 19) for two years and they are amazing. The depth of their grooves is amazing.

Melody Trucks & The Fitzkee Brothers Band. 📷: Tucker Joenz

Bobby Lee Rodgers was a founding member and creative force behind The Codetalkers along with Col. Bruce Hampton. Since then he has played shows that blended rock, funk, jazz and blues into a magical musical fabric. At just 23 years old he was one of the youngest professors of jazz studies at the prestigious Berklee College of Music. Bobby is currently on the 20th anniversary tour of Jazz is dead with band founder Alphonso Johnson.

Rodgers gives his performances a unique sound, as he plays through a combination of a Leslie cabinet and a vintage guitar amplifier, which gives him the beautiful sound of an organ and a guitar at the same time. On the Jazz is Dead tour he plays a hybrid banjo. As an outstanding songwriter, singer and guitarist, he combines rock, funk, jazz and blues into a magical musical tapestry.