Acoustic folk, and west African palm wine music come together to make up the mellow rhythmic sound of the Palm Wine Boys. With their intertwining guitars, simple catchy rhythms, and harmonizing voices, this group brings the audience something to sit back and enjoy while letting their feet tap on the floor.
They sing songs about life's challenges and triumphs, and of the simple pleasures the world has to offer.
Based in the SF Bay Area, the Palm Wine Boys have spent the last two years playing around California, including appearing at the Strawberry Festival, the Wild Iris Festival in Sonoma, the California World Fest in Grass Valley, and numerous radio appearances including West Coast Live.
The group is an offshoot of an 8 piece world beat dance band that played around northern California for five years. They eventually realized that at the heart of the massive sound they were creating were simple songs that were being swallowed up by the desire to make people dance. "We wanted to let the audience hear the songs." So the group disbanded and the key players formed the Palm Wine Boys, bringing with them the sensibilities of highlife, soukous, and township jive, to a more mellow format.
"listening to their music is like taking a tropical vacation"
San Jose Mercury News
"The rich vocal harmonizing, combined with intricate guitar interplay and lilting rhythms make Palm Wine Boys a fresh, warm breeze in the increasingly stale "world music" atmosphere."
Larry Kelp-KPFA radio
Richard Linley...guitar/vocals:
Born and raised in the heartland of the U.S.A., Richard's musical tastes were eclectic from and early age. At age 10, he wanted to play the sax like Charlie Parker, and by age 15 he wanted to write songs like Bob Dylan. His lifelong musical journey led him through many phases, and included playing in numerous folk and country bands, rock bands and world beat bands. He studied Indian classical music for 5 years, composed film scores, played in a middle eastern dance group, performed as a singer/songwriter, was co-director of the South African choir Vukani Mawethu, and tried to learn the shakuhachi (Japanese flute). He even went through an avant-garde phase, and composed unlistenable "new" music.
But it was folk and African music that he loved the most, and that seemed at odds with each other until he met and played with the late, great S.E. Rogie, who introduced him to palm wine music. It was this music that fused his favorite styles in a perfect, organic way. Richard was finally at peace.
Q.B. Williams,,,percussion/vocals:
QB Williams is a self-taught musician who has written music for seven stage plays, a PacBell training film, an Oakland Film Commission promotional video, The Vukani Mawethu Choir of which he was musical director for five years, and his own group, Williams & McKennie. He continues to study a variety of music styles and music theory to broaden his musical skills.
He and his songwriting and business partner, Thomas McKennie, have released a CD entitled, The Songs of Kwanzaa, which highlights each of the seven principles of the Kwanzaa holiday.
He was a founding member of the popular a cappella group, Street Sounds, led by Sweet Honey In The Rock founding member, Louise Robinson, who has since rejoined Sweet Honey. QB is also a music instructor at Peralta Elementary School and has formed a non-profit organization, The Williams & McKennie Music Academy, which offers instruction in voice, percussion, piano, songwriting, the music business, and creative movement.
Matthew Lax,,,guitar/vocals:
Matt began playing guitar at age nine, and spent his teen years between Los Angeles, Houston, and Austin playing electric blues, country and jazz amongst his many musically-inclined siblings. In '83 Matt moved to the Bay Area, was smitten by the sound of African guitar, and joined the South African world beat group Zulu Spear. After a decade of touring and recording (Matt penned the title track for Zulu Spear's 1991 Capital Nashville release Welcome to the USA). Matt has released two albums of original music with Matt Lax and Nearly Beloved: the 1998 Wanderer's Dream, and the 2003 release Hurricane and a Tumbleweed which explores the "Afro-Billy" side of Matt's country jazz-meets-Soweto-jive guitar style.
Ariane Cap...bass/vocals:
Born and raised in Innsbruck, Austria, Ariane has been musically active since a very early age. Formal Jazz Bass studies at several Universities brought her to the US in 1998 as she received a scholarship from the University of Vienna in Austria to the University of Miami. She now lives in Northern California.
An Eden endorsed artist, Ariane has played in countless bands and projects in Europe and the US. preferring eclectic styles she particularly enjoyed playing with bands such as the 'Mozartband' (a fusion of funk, rock and Mozart feat. members of the Viennese Philharmonic) or the Celtic Rock Band Tempest, who she toured with for three years. She is working on a
bass solo project as well as her own album, which combines Celtic, African, Bluegrass and European Folk music with Rock and orchestral elements.
