Biography
Royal Fingerbowl, a New Orleans trio, secured interest from a New York label after submitting a single low-cost demo. Since Better Than Ezra surfaced in the early 1990s, the group has been ranked among the city’s strongest new acts. Guitarist and vocalist Alex McMurray, drummer Kevin O’Day, and bassist-vocalist Andy Wolf fuse lilting blues and jazz that frequently settle into waltz time. McMurray, the primary songwriter, delivers vocals that blend the timbres of Tom Waits and Louis Armstrong. Having relocated from New Jersey, he draws heavily from the nocturnal scenes he observes locally, giving the band’s 1997 TVT debut, Happy Birthday Sabo!, a pronounced regional character. As with Waits, the figures who populate McMurray’s songs tend to inhabit society’s margins.
Although the members officially united in April 1995, each had already logged years performing with assorted groups throughout the Crescent City’s Faubourg Marigny venues. All three had originally moved to New Orleans to pursue studies—McMurray from New Jersey, O’Day from Lafayette, Louisiana, and Wolf from Michigan. Wolf previously played in the salsa ensemble Mas Mamones, O’Day performed with the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, and McMurray worked in a succession of funk, soul, reggae, and rock outfits along Bourbon Street.
Steady expansion of their audience at Frenchman Street’s Dragon’s Den followed, and a demo captured inside an otherwise vacant bar during daylight hours soon reached multiple record companies. One imprint nearly released that recording as the band’s first album. While a standard Royal Fingerbowl performance incorporates sharper rock textures, jazz and blues remain foundational; those underlying progressions and structures appear throughout the debut. Three years later the group issued Greyhound Afternoons.
Although the members officially united in April 1995, each had already logged years performing with assorted groups throughout the Crescent City’s Faubourg Marigny venues. All three had originally moved to New Orleans to pursue studies—McMurray from New Jersey, O’Day from Lafayette, Louisiana, and Wolf from Michigan. Wolf previously played in the salsa ensemble Mas Mamones, O’Day performed with the New Orleans Klezmer All-Stars, and McMurray worked in a succession of funk, soul, reggae, and rock outfits along Bourbon Street.
Steady expansion of their audience at Frenchman Street’s Dragon’s Den followed, and a demo captured inside an otherwise vacant bar during daylight hours soon reached multiple record companies. One imprint nearly released that recording as the band’s first album. While a standard Royal Fingerbowl performance incorporates sharper rock textures, jazz and blues remain foundational; those underlying progressions and structures appear throughout the debut. Three years later the group issued Greyhound Afternoons.
Albums
