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Jeff Slate and Friends playing at the Friday night concert series in Silver Bay. Photos by Jill Fisher.

It has been a while since I spent an evening at Wussow’s Concert Café out in West Duluth, so when I had an open evening this past week I decided to see what was on offer there. 

Owner Jason Wussow is good at bringing in folks from elsewhere who we have never heard of, often providing a surprisingly fine concert. In this instance it was an out-of-town musician with the moniker “Mean Mary,” whose enticing poster caught my eye. Plus I saw that our local musician, Kyle Orla, would open for her, which convinced me to take it in. The two solo performers were quite different. 

I have seen Orla, who teaches and repairs guitars, play on sporadic occasions with Clancy Ward in the group Field Birds. Although he plays banjo, this evening he played acoustic guitar. His set consisted of good ol’ timey tunes, that Orla provided interesting backgrounds on. 

These included Jelly Roll Morton’s “Don’t Leave Me,” “Trouble In Mind,” a banjo tune “CooCoo” (or possibly “Cuckoo”) that he adapted for guitar, “21 Summer” and “Old Joe’s Barroom” (generally known as “St. James Infirmary”). 

Kyle Orla

Orla’s voice has a somewhat thin and whiney quality that suits these tunes perfectly. He ended his set with an original composition, “Waitin’ On A Friend.”

Mean Mary, the stage name for Mary James, came on next like gangbusters. She played banjo (I hadn’t noticed this on the poster, so bringing the Curmudgeon along was pretty iffy), acoustic guitar and fiddle. She managed to accompany herself with a suitcase drum and a tambourine, both with her bare feet! Her set consisted of mostly original material, one tune of which was “Trumbull County Antique Tractor Show.” 

She began her public appearances at age six and has a confident stage presence and a full voice that reminded me of Claudia Schmidt and complemented her fast-picking banjo and fiddling. 

One of her tunes was about the New Orleans legend Marie Laveau – a rather dark song. She also entertained us with a sweet instrumental, “Blackberry Blossom.” 

Her repertoire was varied and included a medley of traditional Celtic tunes, an old English tune from the 1600s, “Flowers of the Dell” and a gospel-influenced number, “What About Today?” that was co-written with her mom. 

Mean Mary

She did her best to get the small audience to join her on “Tarzan” with the yodeling yell recognizable by all. It was a fun set that finished off with Jason leading a Conga line through the café.

On Friday, July 25, I took a solo run up to Silver Bay for the second of the 2025 Music in the Park series there that Nelson French organizes as Rocky Wall Productions. (I was disappointed to miss seeing Charlie Parr at the first concert the week before.) 

On this beautiful summer evening, albeit with hazy, smoky skies, Jeff Slate & Friends had flown in from New York City, close on the heels of their Café Wha? gig in Greenwich Village. (Café Wha? opened in 1959 and is legendary for the many famous 1960s acts that played there.) 

Both shows expressly commemorated the 60th anniversary of when Bob Dylan went electric at the Newport Folk Festival. Hence we got to hear quite a few Dylan tunes at this follow-up performance. They started the evening off with “Tonight I’ll Be Staying Here With You” from Dylan’s 1969 Nashville Skyline album.

The band’s leader Jeff Slate, who sings lead vocals and plays electric guitar, has a distinctly Dylanesque appearance with his tousled dark hair and sunglasses. He has been a part of the New York City music scene since the 1980s, has played with any number of notable rockers such as Pete Townshend and Sheryl Crow and founded the mod-influenced band The Badge. 

Jeff Slate & Friends

As a songwriter and solo artist he’s released several albums, the latest being The Last Day of Summer. He sang “Heartbreak” from that record. Not only a songwriter, Slate is a music journalist with book and album liner credits and, most impressively, one of the few music journalists who has interviewed Dylan. He was a headliner at the May 10, 2022, opening of the Bob Dylan Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2024 he toured as support for Jakob Dylan’s Wallflowers. As this Reader issue becomes available on July 31, Slate will be performing at The Spice of Life in London’s SoHo district. 

And just who are these “friends” that came along to accompanied Slate? 

Well, one was the revered and respected Mark Bosch on lead electric guitar. He has played with any number of nationally-known artists. He has been a long-time member of the Garland Jeffreys and Ian Hunter bands. 

Wow, he had some ferocious guitar licks throughout the evening, starting off with an unreleased Dylan tune “Duncan and Brady” from The Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Tell Tale Signs. Bosch also displayed some fine slide guitar playing on Dylan’s “If Not For You.”

The man on the keyboards, Charly Roth, is another player on the New York City music scene. Roth is actually a multi-instrumentalist who also plays bass but considers himself first and foremost to be a drummer. He plays keys with the band Garland Jeffreys. I was struck by his Andy Warholesque appearance. He jived and bopped behind the keys while adding smooth, sultry and sometimes punchy sounds to the band’s mix. Roth also contributed harmonies on several songs.

Bassist Johnny Pisano is a Brooklyn native who has an incredible resumé of his own. He’s played with the likes of Bruce Springsteen, Steven Van Zandt, Alice Cooper, Joan Jett and many others. His voice was absolutely wonderful and when he sang the Traveling Wilburys’ tune “Handle With Care,” it was as if Roy Orbison had joined the group. His harmonies were also quite nice and his bass licks weren’t half bad either.

Like Roth, drummer, Tom Curiano is a multi-instrumentalist who also played with the Garland Jeffreys band. In a kind of mutual admiration society Roth credits Tom with improving his drumming skills. 

One New York musician, Marc Farre, announced on Facebook that Tom was the best drummer in New York. Curiano certainly kept the beat going strong as the band ripped through Dylan covers including “You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere,” “Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door,” “Maggie’s Farm” and “Like a Rolling Stone.” 

But it wasn’t all Dylan either. They covered a couple Tom Petty tunes (“I Won’t Back Down” and “You Got Lucky”) plus a number of original compositions by Slate including “Forgive Me.”

The main reason I was hellbent to get to this concert is because I had seen Jeff Slate perform, together with Marc Bosch, at Sacred Heart Music Center during the 2023 Duluth Dylan Fest. (The opener for that show was Paul Metsa and Sonny Earl, both of whom joined Slate and Bosch for several numbers.) 

I am sorry to say it, but I was not impressed by that concert. And here’s why I think that was: Both the lyrics sung by Slate and the intricate guitar riffs by Bosch were muddied by the resonating acoustics in that space. I’ve written about this issue before, opining that rock ‘n’ roll bands are not best heard at SHMC. 

What a stark contrast the outdoor concert in Silver Bay was, with excellent crisp and clear sound. Slate’s voice with clearly enunciated lyrics was robust with great inflections and you could hear every note of Bosch’s complex guitar solos. I couldn’t have been more impressed.

 And while I am handing out kudos, we have Nelson French to thank for fundraising and snagging this band not only for the free concert, but an additional benefit house concert the following day. 

French, as the man responsible for Rocky Wall Productions, is now in his fifth year of organizing the Silver Bay Music in the Park series. He has managed to schedule top-notch bands for eight Friday evening concerts, with six still to come throughout the rest of August and into September. 

He also managed to arrange additional house concerts with several of the acts. You can get all the details on these upcoming concerts online at rockywallentertainment.org. 

I highly recommend Duluthians and other locals take the one-hour drive up to Silver Bay to enjoy some great music!  

UPCOMING: On Saturday, Aug. 2, Laurie BoeDee will play her incredible alt rock and blues at Wussow’s. Her set begins at 8 pm, after Nolen Sellwood opens for her. See you there!