Look’ee Here! has been dazzling local stages since the summer of 2021 when Archtop Eddy was asked to play a Celebration of Life for a close friend of his, Colorado Springs artist and educator Chip Shaw.
With only three days before the event, Eddy put together a three-piece lineup with himself on guitars, vocals and kazoos, Brian Hofflander on upright slap bass and Manitou Springs artist Ken Riesterer on harmonicas, washboard, trumpet, cornet and vocals.
“(One) of the things I like to do is to create something and see what happens to it,” said Eddy (real name: Ed Parsons).
Look’ee Here! plays music ranging from 1920s Delta blues to 1930s vintage jazz, to 1940s jump blues and much more. The band’s first album, “Piedmont,” touts the claim to “rag, blues, jazz, and mo’,” to which Eddy jokingly added, “You know, and that kind of captures it but then it doesn’t, you know … the mo’ captures it.”
Ultimately, their unique music selections and intriguing instruments allow the three-piece to sound much larger than they are, and encourage audiences to get out of their seats with toe-tapping enthusiasm.
“To quote a friend of mine, Martyn Roper, who plays in a London band called the Washboard Resonators, ‘Anybody playing music based on hokum, ragtime, early jazz and blues is mining a rich vein of history and music’ … that’s what we like to think we are doing,” Eddy said.
Archtop Eddy is no stranger to the music scene in Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs. A local since 1968, he has forged his musical path here with a collection of distinctive and niche bands, each one cultivating a specific style with contagious energy.
His first project in the 1980s, Raku, played reggae and opened for the likes of The Wailers and Yellowman. Other projects took liberties with different genres, including Hellzaboppin’ (jump blues), Mango Fan Django (Gypsy jazz), Surfin’ Djangos (surf rock-style Django Reinhardt tunes) and Supertone (dance and variety).
Look’ee Here! is Eddy’s most current and active passion project, and he takes his inspiration from a multitude of sources.
“I’ve always liked jump swing from the ’40s: Louis Jordan, Louis Prima … but I also liked what they call novelty bands, like Cats in the Fiddle … and paralleling with the concept of novelty bands … more in the blues arena, is what’s called hokum. ‘Hokum’ basically means goofy songs.”
I almost become an educator. – Archtop Eddy
The mixture of serious and silly certainly shows at a live performance through the group’s variety of instruments and unmatched energy. Eddy is even known to break out a megaphone on occasion.
Currently, Eddy plays a 1929 national Tiolian resonator guitar, as well as a 1927-style Fraulini guitar. He acquired these during COVID-19 and leading into the summer that Look’ee Here! was born.
“One of the things I do is, when I buy these old guitars, like from the ’20s, or ’30s or ’40s, I’d like to know what kind of music was played on it,” Eddy explained.
“I … take on not only just the music, but I enjoy the culture that’s behind whatever that particular music is. And so consequentially, I almost become an educator of it through my own enthusiasm about it.”
Eddy certainly has found his niche in a unique playing style and musical era. When asked what draws him to this particular era of blues, his eyes lit up.
“The original old blues is … the foundation of the entire singer-songwriter scenario we have today. Because it was themselves and one instrument having to create the music. Each person then puts themselves into that instrument, and into the voice that they have and the thoughts that come out of their head. And so consequentially, each person is a very unique, individual sound (and) musical statement …
“These guys are writing their own stuff, singing their own stuff, telling their own story. Now, you can see very clearly where the roots of that comes right back to rock and roll.”
Eddy and Look’ee Here! will honor traditional blues and jazz tunes with a new spin all summer long. The bandmates are working on a second album, “Sumthin’ Like Dat!”
Locals can find Look’ee Here at the upcoming Meadowgrass Music Festival, as well as Hillside Gardens, Armadillo Ranch, Tokki, Mama Pearl’s Cajun Kitchen, Avenue 19 and, at the end of this summer, the Commonwheel Art Festival.
To book Look’ee Here: 719-290-0157 or archtopeddy@hotmail.com.