Daddy Long Legs at the Bowery Electric

Daddy Long Legs is an arachnid similar to a spider and a plant. It was also the name of a 1918 novel by Jean Webster that became a stage musical and several films. It is the name of a thoroughbred race horse. It is the name of a record company. Lastly, Daddy Long Legs has been the name of several rock artists. There was a California band around 1970 that relocated to England, another London-based pop trio, an acoustic/indie/soul duo from New Hampshire, a German folk/celtic band, and a four-piece blues band from Canada. It is the name of one of the co-founders of the hip-hop Bloodhound Gang. The newest musical act named Daddy Long Legs is a blues trio based out of Brooklyn, New York; Daddy Long Legs is also the name of this band's tall vocalist and harmonica player. Daddy the man moved from his native St. Louis, Missouri, to Brooklyn, New York, and learned to play the harmonica like an old blues man. He first collaborated with guitarist Murat Aktürk (from Ankara, Turkey) and stomped the beat, but later they recruited New York drummer Josh Styles. The band's second album is Blood from a Stone.

Opening for Black Oak Arkansas at the Bowery Electric tonight, the new Daddy Long Legs was a colorful trio. Daddy himself was a tall, imposing figure with bushy hair all over the stage as he threw himself into his howling harmonica. He sang his blues songs into a foggy-sounding vintage microphone. Aktürk similarly threw himself into slide and country blues guitar, and Styles played a simple drum kit with no cymbals, using a maraca in his right hand and some short of stick in his left. They had no bassist to hold down the bottom. The result was crude, harsh, punky, electrifying, stomping, blues-bellowing, soulful rock.

Daddy Long Legs returns to the Bowery Electric on August 25 opening for Eddie & the Hot Rods. In the meantime, visit Daddy Long Legs at www.officialdaddylonglegs.com.