AN EXTRA CONCERT! Hobo and the Budapest Blues Band
AN EXTRA CONCERT! Hobo and the Budapest Blues Band
This programme is held in Hungarian.
László Földes, also known as Hobo, is one of the outstanding figures of Hungarian music. Over his career of more than five decades, he has created lasting works with the Hobo Blues Band, as a solo artist, with poetry albums and through his theatrical work. And now, past the age of eighty, he has formed yet another new band, which will debut at the House of Music. Among the members of the Budapest Blues Band are such legendary Hungarian blues musicians as Jenő Fekete, Zoltán Nemes and Laca Varga. We recommend the concert in Hobo’s own words, in which he also tells the story of how the band was formed.
“If someone starts a new band at the age of 80, they should be required to get a psychiatric permit for it. Yet despite all prejudice, I went ahead and did it, and recently brought the Budapest Blues Band together. I feel that despite my long career I have not managed to establish Hungarian-language blues, so before I step off the stage, I wanted to leave some kind of mark that is not tied exclusively to my own name.
Sadly, several of my former Hobo Blues Band mates are no longer alive, or are walking a different path, like Gyula Deák Bill, who today describes himself as a rock singer as well. But most of his repertoire is still what we wrote for him with Egon Póka before he left the band in 1985, forty years ago. Although he is not a songwriter, in this way he preserves the old tradition.
So I called together the much younger-than-me Jenő Fekete and Zoltán Nemes, who have been singing the blues in English for decades, and asked them to try doing it in Hungarian as well. To justify their fear of death, I wrote enough lyrics for a full album and asked each of them to pick the ones they liked, set them to music, and then sing them. After that I pointed a machine gun at them and told them that I’m not going to take all the flak alone, we’re all going to sing, and I’ll just be one among them.
The House of Music took us in, and we will make our debut here with a new album and quite a few blues songs translated into Hungarian.”
The members of the Budapest Blues Band:
Jenő Fekete – vocals, guitar
József Adamecz – drums
Laca Varga – bass guitar
Zsolt Magda – saxophones
Zoltán Nemes – vocals, keyboards
Hobo – vocals, dance
Dear Visitor, We kindly inform you that during the event, photographs, audio recordings, and/or video recordings may be taken. By attending the event, you consent to the recording of such materials through your implied conduct.
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