Hoo Doo you love?

11-piece band keeps Rumba Cafe rockin'

By John Benson

Posted February 25, 2009

Special to Metromix

School is in session whenever The Hoo Doo Soul Band takes the stage.

The students are the wise and open-minded populace seeking a greater understanding of unique rhythms, diverse sounds and amalgamated styles that blend into a general goodtime vibe. For the last 14 years, this edification process has been relegated to Sunday nights around the Columbus area.

First in the German Village, later at Oldfield’s and now at the Rumba Café, the 11-piece act began as a local wait-staff oasis. After two nights of serving the thirsty Columbus partiers, Sunday night was a time to let the hair down, drink a few cold ones and allow The Hoo Doo Soul Band to blow their mind.

“Cover-wise, our repertoire is we’re more of a dance party band,” said founding member and percussionist Mark Henderson, who owns the Rumba Café. “They might not have heard Tower of Power or Earth, Wind & Fire before, but once they hear it they’re really turned on by it. And there aren’t too many bands around that can pull that off.

“The tunes we’re executing, it’s hard to find a group of musicians to play the stuff that we do. And it’s not all soul and R&B. We do some (Rolling) Stones, Neville Brothers, Johnny Cash, even some Hank Williams Sr. It’s pretty diverse. You can hear Dwight Yoakum to James Brown.”

While predominantly a cover band, The Hoo Doo Soul Band possesses an incredible amount of credibility within the music scene. This led to a few career defining and unbelievable amazing experiences, including earlier in the decade opening up for both Ray Charles and James Brown before their deaths.

“We opened up for James Brown at the PromoWest Pavilion (now Lifestyle Communities Center), that was a really big honor,” Henderson said. “He’s a big influence for most of the musicians in the group. He actually was standing in the balcony when we were performing, and his manager came out and said, ‘James Brown approved.’ "

With a four-piece horn section, two guitar players, percussionist, drummer, bass guitar player, keyboardist and lead singer, The Hoo Doo Soul Band often finds crowds lining up around the block to hear the act’s wall of sound. 

The band members, who are in various other local acts around the area (Henderson was a founding member of salsa band Yum Bam De), often play their own songs. There are also a few fan favorite originals, such as the NRBQ-sounding “Reasons” which is found on the act’s sole release, 1997 concert album “Live at Oldfield’s.”

In terms of musicality and approach, The Hoo Doo Soul Band isn’t afraid to mash-up the old with the new.

“We take Miles Davis’ tune ‘So What’ and we call it a drive-by version by putting a semi-hip-hop groove to it,” Henderson said. “It’s a slower groove, and a lot of the stuff we do can be considered jazz sounding too. So there is a diverse mixture of what we do.”

It’s this unique approach that cuts straight to the heart of the band’s lasting appeal. 

“I think everyone that comes to see The Hoo Doo Soul Band feels like they’re going to church,” Henderson said. “They’re getting schooled on music and moved by the groove and there are some people who won’t miss a Sunday night.”