The Tom Rigney Band: Cajun, Zydeco, blues, boogie-woogie

These summer noon-time concerts at the Oakland City Center are great. I love Oakland, it’s like the younger, not-as-beautiful sister of hottie San Francisco. They have to try harder. The concerts are free, the area is surrounded by food and drink shops. Good vibes.

I’ve been following Tom Rigney for years. He plays a blazing electric violin. His website says: “Flambeau specializes in blazing Cajun and zydeco two-steps, low-down blues, funky New Orleans grooves, Boogie Woogie piano, and heartbreakingly beautiful ballads and waltzes. Most of the repertoire is composed by Rigney, but they also mix in a few classics from the Cajun/zydeco/New Orleans songbook.…” Caroline Dahl, the boogie-woogie keyboardist, rocks.

Above, Tom with a group of music students after the concert

I play the violin a bit, and when I get the urge, I play along with some of the slow tracks on his CDs. I do this in secret (with nobody listening) and pretend I’m playing with the band. Shhh!

About Lloyd Kahn

Lloyd Kahn started building his own home in the early '60s and went on to publish books showing homeowners how they could build their own homes with their own hands. He got his start in publishing by working as the shelter editor of the Whole Earth Catalog with Stewart Brand in the late '60s. He has since authored six highly-graphic books on homemade building, all of which are interrelated. The books, "The Shelter Library Of Building Books," include Shelter, Shelter II (1978), Home Work (2004), Builders of the Pacific Coast (2008), Tiny Homes (2012), and Tiny Homes on the Move (2014). Lloyd operates from Northern California studio built of recycled lumber, set in the midst of a vegetable garden, and hooked into the world via five Mac computers. You can check out videos (one with over 450,000 views) on Lloyd by doing a search on YouTube:

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