The Holmes Brothers

KENNY MATHIESON explains why you should check out THE HOLMES BROTHERS when they embark on a short Highland Tour later this month.

THE HOLMES BROTHERS made their Highland debut 5 years ago at the first ever Highland Festival, and have been back three times since with their distinctive blend of blues, gospel, R&B, soul, and country. The New York-based trio launch on their most extensive Highland tour thus far later this month. 

The band became an overnight success with the release of their debut album, In The Spirit, in 1989, and a string of increasingly prestigious engagements followed. The only irony was that these guys had been around for the best part of three decades before that ‘overnight’ success kicked in.

The actual Holmes brothers, Sherman and Wendell, hail from Christchurch, Virginia. Sherman first made his way to New York in 1959, and began picking up gigs on bass. He fetched his kid brother a couple of years later, and they played in various bands in the next couple of decades, sometimes with drummer and falsetto vocalist Willie ‘Popsy’ Dixon, another transplanted Virginian brought up in Brooklyn. 

The trio began gigging as The Holmes Brothers in 1980, while still holding down day jobs to take care of these niggling little necessities like paying the rent and putting the kids through school. In the process, they evolved a unique blend of canonical American musical forms, moving easily through blues, gospel, rhythm and blues, soul and country within any given set. 

“We didn’t have no record player at home,” Sherman recalled, “but we heard all kinds of music every time it came on the radio, and that’s where that comes from. Sometimes some of the parts and stuff didn’t quite meld in our minds because you didn’t really hear them right with the radio reception, so we sort of developed our own way of playing them.” 

The band built up a reputation by sheer hard work, until they came to the attention of producer Andy Breslau at Rounder Records, who helped to launch them onto a new level after a couple of decades of paying dues.

“We never really looked for that kind of recognition,” Sherman said. “We were just happy to be playing, period!” When success did arrive, though, they were more than happy to jump on board – and to quit those day jobs. 

The combination of the trio’s powerful, inspirational vocal harmonies  and Wendell’s superb guitar work have ensured that they have remained at that higher level ever since. They cut a number of albums for Rounder in the 1990s, and more recently signed to another famous label, the blues-oriented Alligator Records.

The Holmes Brothers will play at:

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