by Danny Coleman
originally published on Rock On! This Week’s Sound Bites…Oct 29, 2026 (NewJerseyStage.com)
“I heard you’re coming to The December 6 Christmas party only because I’m playing,” laughed Dave Keyes as he discussed his upcoming gigs at The Lizzie Rose Music Room on October 24, Jamey’s House of Music in Lansdowne, PA on Halloween and the Jersey Shore Jazz & Blues Foundation’s holiday party on the aforementioned December 6 at McCloone’s Supper Club in Asbury Park, NJ. “It’s gonna be a hell of a band, Bernard (Purdie) is playing drums and Mike Merritt from Conan O’Brien’s show is playing bass and Arthur Nielson from Shemekia’s (Copeland) band is gonna play guitar so it should be a fun soiree as they say and then I have a gig with Benny Turner down at Jamey’s so I’ve got some interesting stuff coming up.”
To say Keyes is seasoned would be an understatement. A veteran musician, performer and songwriter whose resume lists like a virtual who’s who of Blues music has graced stages with many of the biggest names in music all over the world.
A reliable and incredibly talented keyboard and piano player, fantastic human and tireless performer, Keyes will be bringing his band to the previously mentioned venues with dates on another continent mixed in between. He is still touring on the strength of his latest release, “Two Trains,” an extremely personal record for various reasons.
“I’m still pushing the record; it seems like I do a record every other year but this year there has been a lot going on,” he began slowly. “The last record was; I went through a lot. I lost my wife who I’d been married to for 33 years, she passed away at the end of ’23 and I was processing that and the bass player in my band passed away; a guy named Jeff Anderson. So, there was a bunch of stuff going on and I was sort of in that frame of kind of just trying to come to some peace about life in general and mortality I guess is the bway to put it. “Two Trains,” the title, was basically about, even in the worst of situations you’ll find something positive. In the cas of my wife’s passing, she had ALS and it was difficult but we also had a lot of time to sit and talk about things and enjoy each other’s company. I had a great relationship with her and a wonderful marriage and that was the overall concept of “Two Trains.” There was bad stuff going on, there was good stuff going on; it was trying to find the good in the bad basically and that’s what the album kind of focused on. So, I was writing with a buddy of mine that I knew from way back who was a hit Nashville writer in the ’80s and then got disgusted with the scene down there and he became a rabbi of all things. So, we co-wrote nine of the 10 tunes and it was really a wonderful collaboration.”
“So, that was the overriding thing, it’s basically; what I said in the label notes, album notes, I don’t know what we even call them anymore, CD notes? Good, bad, love lost, duality, call it whatever you want but even in the darkest moments there is light,” he went on. “So, like I say, that was sort of the overriding theme and it was interesting because I recorded tracks with Bernard in ’23 actually and then as my wife got progressively sicker, I really just kind of put everything on the shelf and had to take care of her and there was just a lt going on obviously. Then I came back to it in early ’25 because it took me a bit to just kind of get back in the groove. So, there are two different rhythm sections, Frank Pagano is a great drummer who has played with me forever and Mike Merritt and John Putnam played on half the tracks and Bernard, Jeff Anderson the bass player who passed and Putnam played on the other tracks and it just worked out really well. Alexis P Suter is on it and Vicki Bell from Alexis’ band and they added some great vocal work and Rob Popparozzi played some absolutely killer harmonica on nfive of the tracks; Chris Bergson played on a track too. So, it’s a swell bunch of people and I’m pleased with how it came about; the longer you stick around the more experiences you have (Laughs).”
In death, the surviving members, be they family or friends, tend to grieve not only in individual ways but in varying stages. So, with his wife’s illness putting much on hold and her unfortunate passing, did he find himself with the time once again to return to whatever was now considered “Normal” and did it affect him creatively?
“Yeah, I do,” he started deliberately. “First of all, I have more time and I think emotionally, I have more space which I think is a big part of playing music too especially when you’re your own artist so to speak and you’re writing tunes; the answer is definitely yes but that’s part of adapting to what happens in life too. It has taken me a while to kind of grab that space back but I feel like I’m getting back to it now, which is good. I haven’t been writing that much, I’ve been playing a lot but I haven’t been writing that much. So, yes, it does affect your writing and one of the things about “Two Trains” is; I lost the bass player, lost my wife and also lost a very dear friend of mine, Woody Mann who was a wonderful acoustic player who plays on one of the tracks on the record. I do a duo with him of an old Bill Broonzy tune and he kind of; this is kind of a philosophical discussion but when I did the record, I wanted to do the grieving and resolve it and move on to whatever is next and the songs that I’m writing now are just more focused on playing good music, being a decent person and enjoying life.”
Anyone who knows Dave Keyes will tell you that he is beyond a decent person. This relatively soft spoken man with the gutsy blues voice is one of the best in a profession that doesn’t always bring out the best and as he spoke of his upcoming gigs, he relayed who he thinks als falls into the same category.
“We had the gig at The Lizzie Rose on October 24 and this Saturday, Halloween night, I am at Jamey’s with Benny Turner, Freddie King’s brother. I think he is 84 and he is still at the top of his game, he is incredible. He sings great, plays a great bass and you talk about nice people, he is one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet and a good old style entertainer. I say that in a very loving way, he just knows what he’s doing (Laughs).”
“The second week of November, I’m going to Czechoslovakia with Jimmy Carpenter who is a terrific sax player, singer, songwriter and also the musical director of The Blues Bender in Vegas. I do about two or three tours with Jimmy every year and we’re going to a festival called Blues Alive in Prague which is a great fest and I’m looking forward to that, it’ll take up about 10 days in November. I’ve done a couple of tours with Chris O’Leary. We just did a show in Chicago, we did a mid-west tour last month. We played at Buddy Guy’s and Bruce Iglauer of Alligator Records came down and it’s always a treat to see him; he had a great time and stayed the whole night.”
Again, Dave has toured the globe bringing blues music to many enthusiastic audiences and when asked if he favored any certain type of event or area, he was very diplomatic.
“I play in Clarksdale, Mississippi every year at the Pinetop thing that benefits his camp, usually the Saturday right after the BMAs at Ground Zero. That’s quite a scene down there, it’s a special place. There are so many great festivals and places. I mean, the Bender is a fun hit from a musician’s standpoint because you get to see everybody, you get to see other people. The blues cruises are always fun, Roger Naber’s thing is always fun when you get out on that; the piano bar is always fun on those things. Buddy Guy’s place is special, Legends is a special club just because he may be near and in the deep South, a place like Clarksdale, there is something magical about that. Playing overseas is great too, the French, they love the blues. The Cognac Blues Festival is a great festival over there, I played there with Odetta once, I did a solo show over there once; there is a lot of different stuff in different places. I played a great festival over in Switzerland for 20 years every year that I love to play and I bring over an artist every year. I brought over Eddie Kirkland, Eddy Clearwater, the Brooks Brothers Lonnie and Wayne and all kinds of people. So, those places are great because you develop relationships over a period of time which is important to me too. There’s something about the blues though, to me the best blues are when people in the band are looking at each other and they’re smiling and feeding off of each other. There’s an improvisational aspect that I think is special to the blues and the connection to the people; it’s the music of the people and that’s what music should do, it should take you somewhere else. I think that’s why people come to see it because it gets them out of their head and into a little bit of a different space or whatever and that’s part of the entertainment value and the joyful part of it and you know as a drummer, there is a certain feeling when you play that is really special and I think people can appreciate that too”
The December 6 gig in Asbury Park will be one of the remaining few for calendar year 2026; any plans for ’27? Well, of course there are!
“I’m always writing tunes and I’m hoping to have something out by April of next year; that’s the plan,” he laughed. “I have my rhythm section, working with Bernard is always a trip, he just elevates everything. So, I’ll use him on some tracks, I’d like to use Mike Merritt and John Putnam are rock solid, Frank Pagano the drummer; we’ve been playing together for 40 years and then I bring in guys that I know as a little extra spice like Popparozzi, put anything in front of Rob and he makes magic with it. So, that’s the way it’s been and I’m very happy with the way I’ve been making records. I thought this last one was the best one by far; “Dae” Bennett, who in addition to being Tony Bennett’s son and who mixed a lot of Tony’s stuff and he did a lot of pop stuff; Peter Karp introduced me to him as he’s mixed Peter’s records and he just really got what I was doing and I think he made it sound really good. I like to record at this place called Teaneck Sound in Teaneck, New Jersey, it’s owned by a drummer named Andrea Valentini who is a terrific drummer and he has got probably 40 snare drums there and great drum kits and that keeps Bernard happy and Frank happy. They have a really good Yamaha Grand which I like to play, it’s just an easy place to play, when I go into the studio, I just want to go in and play. I don’t want to experiment that much. I know what I want to do when I go in and the way I want to get that stuff onto tape or whatever without interference is the best way to make the music for me.”
To discover more about Dave Keyes or purchase tickets to any of his remaining shows, please visit https://www.davekeyes.com/
To hear this entire interview in its entirety, please visit “Danny Coleman’s Rock On Podcast” here.
That’s it for this week! Please continue to support live and original music and until next week….ROCK ON!