by erin thursby scopes1925@msn.com
What: Donna the Buffalo
When: January 4th @ 8:30 PM
Where: Café 11
Cost: $18
The socially and politically charged eclectic grassroots blend of Donna the Buffalo catches the ear and takes the listener through Cajun stylings, reggae-rock, folk, zydeco and country with a distinctive sound that is hard to characterize but easy to listen to.
Donna the Buffalo was unnamed when they first started jamming together, and it wasn’t until they were on stage for the first time that they gained their name, and it was a surprise even to them. One of the band’s founders, Jeb Puryear, told EU the story: “We had a gig so we needed a name and then a friend of ours was sort of toying with different ideas around the buffalo theme and so his original idea was ‘Dawn of the Buffalo’ [and they] mispronounced it as Donna the Buffalo…For some reason that struck more of chord with us…I think ‘Dawn of the Buffalo’ sounded a little pretentious to us, especially for a band that had never even played a gig.” That was over 17 years ago. Since then, Donna the Buffalo has sold more than a hundred thousand albums, organized a major Grassroots festival and have played consistently.
The band experienced a shake-up in 2005 when founding member Tim Miller left the band because his marriage to Tara Nevins dissolved, but Jeb says that they’ve “been very lucky replacing people.” The last of Miller’s stamp on the group came in 2005 when the group released Life’s a Ride. Miller played guitar and backup vocals for the album.
Founding members Jeb Puryear and Tara Nevins met playing old time fiddle music. “There’s this great subculture in fiddle playing…” says Puryear, “and Tara was the first person I knew that wrote songs.” The two have been writing songs for Donna the Buffalo since it formed. Puryear says that “I basically write[s] the songs I sing and [Tara] writes the songs she sings. We kind of don’t practice near enough like we ought to but we never really have. Somebody directs the song and we usually just kind of throw it out there…we’ll go over it on the bus so we’ll know what it sounds like or if we sound check we’ll run over it in sound check.” At most live performances, the band is busily trying something new. “It’s just kind of exciting for the band. Things don’t stay new very long because of the Internet…We have fans that record our concerts and post them online, so it’s hard to surprise people.”
In 1990, the group got the idea to start a Grassroots Festival. Because they found out at the time that a friend had died of AIDS, they decided to make it a benefit. “Now it’s been 15 years. I think that the most outstanding thing it does…we develop a great bond with all these interesting people and people from other countries…In general, it’s a very exciting event that makes people feel great…it makes human beings feel very relevant…If people aren’t interested in creating something for the right reason usually…it transfers; like the 90’s Woodstock.”
Jeb and Tara are fond of writing songs with socially progressive themes. Says Jeb: “Lately, I’ve been thinking sure… [society’s] pretty bad, but we’re not that bad, and we can do better. This thing with the war and the Bush administration, it feels like its finally showing its true colors…and unfortunately, in a way you feel good, because everybody in my community was saying that was going to be a disaster, you’re gonna cause more problems than you’re gonna solve…Certain songs will go through these really fresh times, songs you’ve been playing for a long time, they’ll come back and be like new again. It’s kinda like you have this relationship with all the songs…We do a song called ‘Conscious Evolution’ that’s been very good lately, it’s a reoccurring theme of hopeful progression for human mentality.”
Be part of the “herd” that follows Donna the Buffalo, and listen to their old-time rockin’ sound at Café 11 Thursday, January 4th. Whatever you believe about the state of the world, Jeb says there’s one thing that the members of Donna the Buffalo will always believe in: “There’s something that happens when music comes alive and that’s pretty much our religion.”
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