MISTY BLUES IS BIGGER THAN EVER With their latest album catching fire Gina Colman and Misty Blues find themselves, “the oldest new kids on the block.”

Misty Blues band members Seth Fleischmann, Rob Tatten, Aaron Dean, Gina Coleman, Ben Kohn and Bill Patriquin.

PHOTO PROVIDED BY JANE FELDMAN

With their latest album catching fire, Gina Coleman and Misty Blues find themselves ‘THE OLDEST NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK’

BY MITCHELL CHAPMAN

With 11 albums released — the last of which was produced by U.K. record label Lunaria Records, regular airplay on the Sirius XM channel B.B. King’s Bluesville, and a U.K. tour slated for next year, Misty Blues has been bigger than they’ve ever been.

“It’s doing exceptionally well,” Misty Blues lead singer and lyricist and founder Gina Coleman said of their most recent album, “One Louder.” It has more than 600,000 plays on Spotify, more than what the band’s entire collection received before working with Lunaria.

“They’ve been super supportive,” she said of Lunaria. “We have garnered more reviews and chart placements with this last album than any of our previous works. It’s going well.”

According to Coleman, Lunaria has been critical in getting “One Louder” in front of music critics and DJs, which has translated into the band being able to secure more high-profile gigs.

“The key thing is that we’re being heard widely and it’s now translating into getting us asked to the dance — we’re getting asked to headline theaters; we’re being asked to be on major festivals,” she said.

Misty Blues have secured festival spots this year at FreshGrass in North Adams at the end of September, the Brimfield Blues Festival in Brimfield at the end of August and the StrangeCreek Music Festival in Greenfield at the end of May.

For theaters, they’ve been performing a show called “Queens of the Blues,” in which they pay tribute to and perform songs of female blues legends Bessi Smith, Big Mama Thornton, Ruth Brown and Koko Taylor, and Coleman tells stories about their lives in between songs. In

March, they performed the show at the Vergennes Opera House in Vermont and performed it May 28 at the Guthrie Center in Great Barrington.

They’ve also been the house band at Firefly Gastropub in Lenox for the last three years. You can catch them there every Friday night at 7.

“These are really big things, but [with] this last album, the biggest thing for us is that we’re getting a lot of airplay on Sirius XM Bluesville,” she said. “That’s huge, because any truly devoted blues fan listens to that on a very regular basis. My car radio system never leaves that channel.”

By her own recollection, Coleman says that Misty Blues has been getting “spun on that channel” two to three times a day, going back as far as last July, when they released their first single of their most recent album, “Take a Long Ride,” which they recorded with legendary blues musician Joe Louis Walker.

His involvement “kind of helped,” Coleman deadpanned.

“One Louder” is Misty Blues’ third pandemic album, and since 2018, the band has released a new album every year. Their next one isn’t far from completion.

“The 12th album is practically written already,” Coleman said. “I’m constantly writing.”

While COVID-19 shut down live performances, it made Misty Blues more productive creating music.

“Over the pandemic, when we were sequestered, that’s where we really started to get prolific, because we had the time,” she said. “We ended up reconverting our rehearsal space into studio space. So now we could do some pretty high-level recordings in our home. So that made it really easy to get down ideas and to share them with band members. Even though we weren’t playing as much because [of the pandemic], we were really producing a ton of music.” 

PHOTO PROVIDED

The cover art Michael Mongue created for “One Louder,” which is Misty Blues’ 11th album.

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Gina Coleman sings at The Music Room in Yarmouth in 2021.

The lack of live audiences helped the band focus more on producing music they personally enjoyed, and it gave them room to cross-pollinate their blues music with other genres.

“Sometimes you’re kind of lulled into presenting music in a way that the audience wants,” she said. “But when we were sequestered, we were our own audience. With blues at the core, we started to play on the fringe of that, and really started to highlight other genres that we really enjoy — that many of the musicians in the band are highly proficient in.”

According to Coleman, in their last three albums, there’s much more highlights of jazz and funk, noting that some listeners might classify their single “Freight Car” as blues rock, but their music still remains centered on blues.

The core members of Misty Blues are currently Coleman who, in addition to being the lead vocalist and lyricist, plays the cigar box guitar and does percussion; Bill Patriquin, a bassist who also plays trumpet; Ben Kohn, on keyboards; Rob Tatten, the drummer who also plays trumpet and trombone; saxophonist Aaron Dean; Seth Fleischmann, guitar; and Michael Mongue, who is Coleman’s husband and the cover artist for all their albums.

They also have an extensive “farm team” of musicians they call to fill in whenever a core band member can’t make a show. They include Jeff Dudziak, Wes Buckley, Dave Vittone, Dan Esko, Matt Berger, Derrick Rodgers, Ed Moran, Zen Reinhardt and Jon Berman. Coleman and Mongue’s son, Diego Mongue, also plays with the band.

Coleman says the farm team has been central to keeping the

band relevant for its 23 years of existence, as it means they don’t have to turn down gigs if a few members can’t make it. It also keeps the band fresh.

“It’s kind of cool that audiences can come out and may not see the same core faces,” she said. “Every time we have a farm team member, there’s a little something different. You’re never going to necessarily hear the same thing every time you see us.”

When Misty Blues started out in 1999, they were a blues cover band, playing songs from the CD “Men Are Like Street Cars,” which is a compilation album featuring hits from female blues singers from 1928 to 1969. It was gifted to Coleman by Ruben Santiago-Hudson, whom she performed with in Williamstown Theatre Festival’s 1999 production of “A Raisin in the Sun” and who convinced her to become a blues artist.

However, in the last decade, Misty Blues has been focusing mostly on creating their own original music.

“We’re squarely in contemporary blues — we’re not a traditional blues band,” she said.

With that shift to original music has come an international audience, with Misty Blues providing Spanish versions of some of their songs for their strong contingent of South American listeners. After the U.S., “One Louder” has gotten the most plays in Germany, Italy, France and the U.K. In 2023, the band has a U.K. tour slated for June 23 to July 4 of that year — it was supposed to happen this year, but it was delayed due to COVID-19.

As their latest album continues to spread, more people — from fans of the blues to established artists in the industry — are hearing the band for the first time and discovering their lengthy discography and asking themselves: Where have they been?

“We’ve been here for 23 years,” she said. “It’s funny being the oldest new kid on the block.” ■

PHOTO PROVIDED BY CHRISTOPHER CONRY

Misty Blues at the Colonial Theatre in Pittsfield after the album release concert of “One Louder”, their most recent album in February.

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