The Duke & The King are a glam-soul-folk trio from New York featuring three singing drummers who kind of play other instruments too cause they have no choice: Simone Felice, Bobbie Bird Burke, and Nowell Haskins. Named after the traveling Shakespeare hustlers in ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ these curious blood-brothers have found a home together, a traveling Church of Harmony and Sin where its OK to french kiss your cousin and all strays are welcome to come out of the cold and sing along to these songs of love, loss, pathos, and hope. The D & The K will be touring all corners of the globe in support of their internationally acclaimed debut album ‘Nothing Gold Can Stay’, so come on down and shake your country ass!
You may recognise the name Simone Felice in amongst that rather nice but quaintly romantic blurb. He’s the bonkers drummer in The Felice Brothers and has now turned his hand to a bit of soulful country songwriting. For the second week running I’m writing a preview about a band that I’m putting out on the label I co-own, Diverse Records. I’m literally putting my money where my mouth is. If you don’t believe my recommendation then here’s some more:
“Exquisite – already one of my favourite albums of the year” – Uncut (Allan Jones)
“Songs so perfectly formed they might have been around forever”
The Daily Telegraph (Neil McCormick)
“A wondrous album” CD Of The Week – The Sunday Times (Mark Edwards)
“The kind of record that cults are made of” – The Word (James Medd)
“They have pulled off a quite remarkable feat on Nothing Gold Can Stay – one of my favourite albums of the year. Each song somehow sounding like a classic, each live performance suggesting we are in the presence of a rare, fiery brilliance.”
The Guardian (Laura Barton)
“Nothing Gold Can Stay already has hovering not so very far above it the status of a classic” The Sunday Times (Dan Cairns)
“Haunted but rapturous. Treasure it.” – The Mirror (Gavin Martin)
“Simply has to be the must-have album of the year so far.” – Maverick Magazine
“In a word, superb” 9/10 – Americana UK
“A beautiful sound. I’ve had some great live music on the show over the years but I dont think we’ve had any better this, that was just beautiful, so so good!” Robert Elms / BBC Radio London
“Shows the power of music to lift your spirits and make your heart full – absolutely fantastic.” Johnnie Walker / BBC Radio 2
Enough? Good. The support act is class too. Cardiff’s Jimi Alexander & The Satellites. Read a review of their new album HERE. I’ve banged on about their Heartbreakeresque tunes often enough. You can wait for the review for me to do it some more.
Tickets may well have sold out for this as The Chattery is tiny but it’s always worth checking for cancellations.
