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Issue date: 3/7/08 Section: Features

Media Credit: Jerry Englehart Jr. Mark Hodgson & the Florida Blues All-Stars, play a charity show at DBC's Theater Center. proceeds go to the Duke Brown Spirit of the Blues Scholarship.

With harmonica a'wailin and feet a'stampin, Mark Hodgson and the Florida Blues All-Stars jammed the house at the DBC Auditorium in February.

Hodgson, or "Muddyharp" as he is also referred to, has been performing for around 40 years and paid tribute to longtime friends and colleagues Nobel "Thin Man" Watts and Bob Greenlee in support of the Watts/Greenlee scholarship fund.

Admission proceeds went to, "Help these kids play a little music and keep them out of trouble," according to Jake Niceley, fellow performer and country musician.

There was a mixture of blues, folk, jazz and old Southern country that just flowed from the nine-member band as easily and as beautifully as water caressing cobblestones in a babbling brook.

The band members, whose ages and styles varied as much as their instruments, serenaded the audience with harmonicas, guitars, bass, saxophone, drums and keyboard. Several members sang, giving a different persona to each song.

The auditorium was three quarters of the way full and during some parts of the show you could spot a few women dancing by the side doors. The crew kept the audience going with jokes and stories, some leading right in to songs, others just laughter. Hodgson gave a Rodney Dangerfield impression and all of his band mates had no trouble heckling him.

This was more than a concert, this was like being in someone's home. They played set songs as well as songs they came up with on the spot and through all of them, one thing was apparent; they were having a good time and so was their audience. "Music is what I've become, who I am, its hybrid, it's very green," Hodgson said.

And with influences such as Harry Belafonte and Jack Kerouac, his love for music is easily felt by even those not familiar with such genre. Jake Niceley described it in a more humorous way.

"Blues and country have their roots in the same dirt, you know it all comes from the same place," he said, calling it "organic."

Filling the stage with Hodgson were such members as Jake Niceley, Mike Kaye, Danny Weaver, Chad Dance, Steve Hutter, Jeff Fedora, Chris Pappas and Bob Thames. All of them can be found at various restaurants and coffee houses around town. For more information on the Watts/Greenlee scholarship at www.muddyharp49.com.

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