Widespread Panic's Sunny Ortiz Calls On His Day Off
Posted: Apr 11, 2011Widespread Panic Percussionist Calls From Home
Today Widespread Panic's Sunny Ortiz called on me on his day off from Athens, Georgia. Panic played Asheville this weekend, and will hit the states of Florida, South Carolina and Alabama in the next week. In this interview excerpt Sunny and I discuss the group's Silver Anniversary, Charlie Daniels and these upcoming southern shows.
James Calemine:Todd and I talked about this Friday, you guys seem to be dusting off some of the obscure gems in the songbook.
Sunny Ortiz: We thought we'd really mix it up this year since it's our 25th anniversary. It was one of those things where there were so many songs that were yet to be tapped into. This year we decided to hit on a few of those high-ended songs that we haven't done in a while. A lot of people started requesting that we go deep into the songbook.
JC: It's also great that folks can download and stream the songs soon after the show.
SO: Yeah, the great thing about these streaming sites is you don't have to be there. We have people streaming us as far away as India, Japan and South America. So, it's another asset and facet to the whole Widespread Panic livelihood.
JC: Tomorrow you guys play Columbia, South Carolina...
SO: Yeah, sold out show from what I hear. It's a smaller venue. It's one of those places in our early years after we got out of playing Green Streets in Columbia. We got good feedback there, so we decided to throw in a show before the Wanee Festival.
JC: It's great that Charlie Daniels will open the first night in Pelham.
SO: Yeah, he sat in with us last fall at the Ryman and that's where we all hooked up originally. The fans really connected with him so when we started this tour we threw out some feelers who might be interested in doing some shows with us. Charlie was in the area and he took the invitation, so we're real excited about that. Just to go show our faces in Pelham is a big deal for us...
More Panic soon...
James Calemine
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Comments
billypanic says...
Nice one !
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