Friday’s Live@5 at the Arts and Science Center for Southeast Arkansas was originally scheduled to feature the Jacksonville-based three-piece band Neighbors.
However, a scheduling conflict required the first Friday musical offering to book an alternate band. The trio was replaced by one of Pine Bluff and southeast Arkansas’ most popular sextets, the Port City Blues Players.
With the Catherine M. Bellamy Theater stage backdropped by the set of the current theatrical production, PCBP filled the foreground with three guitars, bass, drums and keyboard. The high-ceiling room’s perfect acoustics proved ideal for the full sound of the iconic blues band.
The powerful blend of musicians is made up of Pops Cooper on his Roland Juno G keyboard, Ben Arrington on a PB Siros five-string bass, Lex Capraitalia on drums and three masterful guitarists, Mark Morgan playing a Gibson SG, Jerry McCoy on his PRS and Dave Sadler on a Gibson hollow body.
Trading lead vocals between Sadler, McCoy and Morgan, the group covered a broad gambit of blues standards such as Black Cadillac, Crosscut Saw, Built for Comfort and Drivin’ South. Heads down in deep concentration, the same three front men also traded guitar solos, each one showing off their extraordinary talents.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Near the end of the first hour, they spiced up the mix with some syncopated funk on the Bill Withers’ number, “Use Me.”
With the early-evening beginning of the monthly musical offering program at 5 p.m., audience members typically drifted in over the course of the show until some 50 patrons occupied the comfortable padded rocking chair seats of the spacious room.
As usual, complimentary refreshments were generously provided by MK Distributors.
Other upcoming events on the Port City Blues Players schedule include “A Night of Blues” Port City Blues Society annual membership drive in RJ’s Grill & Bar at 128 S. Main St. on Oct. 19, the Pine Bluff Regional Chamber of Commerce Fish Fry at Hestand Stadium on Oct. 24 and the “Bobby Rush 91st Birthday Bash” celebration, featuring three time Grammy winner Bobby Rush at 300 Main St. in Fordyce on Nov. 10.