Welcome back to Shecky's Jam Bands. I'm Shecky.
Quick question for you before we get into it
today. What does CBDB stand for? I've been asking
around, reading interviews, scouring the internet,
and here's what I found. Nobody knows. The band
doesn't say. They've never officially explained
it. It's four lowercase letters and a complete
mystery. And somehow... is the most perfectly
on -brand thing about one of Alabama's most interesting
bands. Today we're talking about CBDB, the self
-proclaimed purveyors of joy -funk from Tuscaloosa,
Alabama. And by the time we're done, you'll know
everything about them except what the name means,
which honestly makes them even more interesting.
Frontman and guitarist Sy Simonton graduated
from the University of Alabama, spent some time
back in Georgia, and then returned to Tuscaloosa
in 2011 with a specific purpose, set up a band.
He'd heard a guitarist named Chris Gottlieb playing
at a local jazz fusion outfit, walked up to him,
started a conversation, and discovered that Gottlieb
had already been playing with a few other musicians
around town. described it simply, I heard Chris
playing in a jazz fusion thing and we just struck
up a conversation. He'd been playing with some
of the rest of the guys, so we basically put
it all together like that. That's it. That's
the formation story. A conversation between two
guitarists at a Tuscaloosa jam session. Saxophonist
and keyboardist Glenn Dillard was already part
of that orbit. And Dillard is arguably the most
distinctive element in CBDB's sound, a multi
-instrumentalist who gives them a tonal dimension
that almost no other jam band in the southeast
has. Drummer and bassist roles evolved over the
years with the current touring lineup anchored
by Blake Gallant on bass and Chris Podichick
on drums. One booking agency described them with
this line and I love it. Filtered through the
water of Alabama's Black Warrior River, a great
jam band emerges from the muddy depths. The Black
Warrior River runs through Tuscaloosa. That description
is poetic and it's also accurate. CBDB sounds
like somewhere specific. They sound like Alabama.
So, we've established that no one knows what
CBDB stands for. And I want to sit with that
for a second, because in a world where every
band wants to explain itself, where every name
has a story attached to it, CBDB just does not.
Four lowercase letters. Take them as you find
them. What the band does explain, loudly and
proudly, is their genre. And their genre is JoyFunk.
They coined it themselves. They own it completely.
and Simonton's own definition of it is the best
explanation I've heard for what a great live
show actually is. He said, there's that back
and forth between the crowd and the band when
everyone is into it and dancing and completely
in the moment. That's JoyFunk. JoyFunk is not
a sound, it's a state. It's what happens between
the band and the room when everything clicks.
It's the energy exchange that every great jam
band lives for and most can't name. CBDB named
it. And then they titled their second album with
the perfect deadpan humor, Joyfunk is Dead, which
is, they made clear, a fictitious title. Joyfunk
is very much not dead. It was a joke from a band
that has a great sense of humor about itself.
Their influences confirm the range. Humphreys
McGee, Phish, Led Zeppelin, Steely Dan, The Funk
Meters, Kendrick Lamar, Widespread Panic. That
is genuinely unusual combination. Steely Dan
and Kendrick Lamar in the same breath, which
tells you everything you need to know about why
CBDB sounds like nothing else on the Alabama
circuit. My one song for CBDB is Slow Foxes.
from their 2012 debut album, Phone Keys Wallet,
which is also a great album title, by the way.
The thing you check for before you leave the
house, the essential three. Slow Foxes was CBDV's
breakthrough moment. It hit 30 ,000 plus plays
on Spotify back when 30 ,000 plays actually meant
something for an independent band in Tuscaloosa,
Alabama, and it earned every single one of them.
Here's why Slow Foxes is the right entry point.
Most jam band songs ask you to be patient. They
build, they stretch, they reward you for staying
with them. Slow Foxes does something very different.
It hooks you immediately. The melody is in your
head with the first eight bars. Simonton's lyrics
have what the Crimson White call empathetic maturity.
The kind of writing that sounds like a person,
not a character. Glenn Dillard's saxophone adds
warmth and jazziness that turns a good rock song
into something more dimensional. Okay, I want
to tell you about a day in July 2015 that produced
some of the best music CBDB has ever made. And
it happened in 13 and a half hours. Now... Regular
listeners of this podcast will remember that
we covered The Stoos in the last episode, and
I mentioned that The Stoos recorded their first
EP at Fame Studios in Muscle Shoals, Alabama,
the legendary room where Aretha Franklin cut
our first sessions, where Wilson Pickett recorded
Mustang Sally, and where Otis Redding and Etta
James and dozens of the greatest names in America
music. made history. I said the Stoos were shocked
they can even get studio time there. Well CBDB
got there first. On July 2015 they booked one
day, a single day, at Fame Studios and in 13
and a half hours of continuous recording they
cut four tracks that became the Fame EP released
that September. Think about what 13 and a half
hours in a studio means. You arrive in the morning
with your instruments and your ideas, the clock
starts, there's no tomorrow, just today in this
room with these mics and this console and walls
that Aretha Franklin stood in front of you. You
work, you push, you find what's there, and at
the end of the night you have four songs that
didn't exist that morning. The Fame EP captures
CBDB at a particular creative peak, more adventurous
than the debut, tighter than the sophomore record,
with a sonic warmth that Fame's legendary room
adds to every recording made there. The saxophones
breathed differently in that space. The two guitars
found pockets they hadn't found in other studios.
The rhythm section locked in with confidence
that came from knowing where they were and what
they meant. Of all the recordings in their catalog,
the Fame EP is the one I come back to when I
want to explain CBDB to someone new. After Fame,
they went to Zac Brown's Southern Ground Studios
in Nashville to record Out of Line in 2018. Fame
to Zac Brown's studio Aretha's room to one of
the most successful country artists of the 21st
century. Now that's trajectory. All right, a
few things I want to share with you that are
unique. One, they shared a stage with Colonel
Bruce Hampton. Colonel Bruce Hampton, the legendary
eccentric musician who founded the Aquarium Rescue
Unit and inspired a generation of southern jam
bands, shared a stage with CBDB. Hampton was
one of the most revered figures in the history
of music. His presence on a CBDB bill is a generational
endorsement. Last fact is the saxophone makes
all the difference. The Crimson White review
specifically noted that CBDB earns extra jam
points for having a flex saxophonist. Glenn Dillard
plays both saxophone and keyboards, which means
he can shift between melodic lead voice and harmonic
rhythm player with a single song. That flexibility
could give CBDB a tonal range that most guitar,
drums, bass, jam bands simply don't have. The
saxophone is a secret weapon. Here's what I land
on with CBDB. They are a band that named a genre
and then spent over a decade proving the name
was right. Joyfunk. The state of being when everyone's
into it, everyone's dancing, everyone's completely
in the moment. That back and forth between the
crowd and the band makes a show feel like a shared
experience rather than a performance. They built
over 13 plus years in Tuscaloosa clubs and southeast
theaters and a legendary muscle show studio session
that lasted 13 and a half hours. They made a
joke album title about their genre being dead,
and then filled it up with more joy -funk than
the first record. They recorded at Zac Brown's
Nashville studio, they shared stages with Umphrey's
McGee, Blues Travelers, The Wellers, and Colonel
Bruce Hampton, and they never told anyone what
their name stands for. Start with Slow Foxes,
then find the Fame EP, then let Out of Lines
show you what they became when the muscle shows
walls got inside of them. And if CBDB is playing
anywhere near you, they tour the southeast constantly
and they've been pushing further into the Midwest.
Go stand in the room. Let the saxophone find
you. Let the joy funk happen. You'll know it
when it does. That's CBDB. That's Shecky's Jam
Bands. Thank you for listening and I'll see you
next time.