Peanut Whitley ADD

A Day In The Life Of A Musician #93

08/20/2011 by Peanut

Greetings Brothers and Sisters, Peanut here once again.

Well the Culture summer USA tour featuring Kenyatta " Culture " Hill tour takes me down to St. Barths ( 8/19/11) in the Caribbean.

Well the show was part of there summer music festival. We left St. Louis at 6am for the first of 3 flights to reach. Got to Miami round 8:30am and took next flight to St. Maarten and one more into St. Barths.

I had mixed emotions of the show today being it was 5 years to date when Joseph Hill passed on while we was in Germany.
I was reasoning with original  Culture member Albert Walker and Miss P (Mamma P) we call her who us Joseph's wife about how time flies.

Man the last plane from St Maarten was a 8 seated plane. It flew low over the islands. It was little scary as always but beautiful cause of the scenery.

Reached St. Barths and we headed to the hotel and checked in and went straight to sound check.Reached the venue and the other band was still checking so we ate. We had fish,chicken,veg. And rice for everyone to choose from.

Soon after they where ready for us to check. As always Kenyatta loves to do his own sound check. We did a quick one so we would have time to go back to the hotel and change before show time which was at 9pm.

Got back to the venue and the place was packed full of people and eagerly waiting for us to start. I checked with the stage manager and crew, they gave the okay to start.

The MC introduced us as we started out the night with a instrumental version of Satta by the Abyssinians.
Then straight into the show overture into the first song which was The Message off Kenyatta's first album Pass The Torch which had the massive crowd up and dancing and ready for a fun filled, conscious, spiritual and high energy show. Like father like son.

The whole night Kenyatta kept feeling the vibes of the 5 year anniversary of his fathers death. I watched him maintain himself to get thru some songs as he spoke about his dad and why the night was so special.

The crowd was really in tuned with Kenyatta during the whole show. Some even just starring at him in awww listening to him sing his fathers songs.

Songs like Iron Sharpen Iron, Jah,Jah See Dem A Come, Jah Rastafari, Slice Of Mt. Zion, Tribal War, Fussing and Fighting, International Herb, Tell Me Where You Get It, Zion Gates, Two Sevens Clash and Behold was on the setlist tonight.

As you can see we was well into the Culture hits and the crowd was loving it.

I want to big up the band Yard Squad from St Louis. The Bredren them Art on bass, Thomas on drums,Terry on guitar and Matt on riddim keyboards and sitting in myself on lead keyboards and Musical Director.

The guys took on the task and journey to want and capture the Culture experience and display it at the level I had it for Joseph himself. He would have been pleased and gave his approval.

We ended the night with I'm Not Ashamed which brought the house down.

After the show we hungout for awhile and took pics and reasoned with the promoters and fans and headed back to the hotel.

Next show is Thursday in Little Rick Ark. At Sticky Fingers. We have a few days off for rehearsals with  Frankie Paul. Have shows coming up this weekend with him as well. So stay tuned, nuff works too talk about.

Until next time

Blessings Peanut