Lore ~

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Christy Ann Welty    
Singer and Songwriter (plus flutist and tambourinist) for Burnt Sugar Blues since 2008 

I first listened to blues when I met Patrick Hazell and went to his gigs as a friend and fellow libertarian.   Tried piano lessons for a half-year and found that my left hand gravitated toward boogie-woogie.

When I started writing songs, they showed up mostly as blues.   Friends have been supportive and encouraging as I experiment with many different sounds, and some songs are versatile enough to be played in a few genres.   Some musical influences are Stevie Wonder and Carlos Santana, plus Tina Turner for phenomenal authentic shakti on-stage and off-stage.  I feel the deepest personal influence and inspiration from the people closest to me, of course.   Beyond that, I gather personal inspiration from many sources.   The two most famous are the Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) and Dolly Parton.


Songs show up in other styles, too: Celtic ballad, country western, rock-a-belle, anthem, and one whose genre I don't know ~ maybe "night jungle".

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Russ England  
Bassist for Burnt Sugar Blues from October 2009 to July 2015  

Teenage bassist Russ England started the band MoonFire, the "biggest little three-piece band from the Black Hills of South Dakota."   His younger brother joined to play guitar and his best friend Stephen Croes joined with drums and vocals.   MoonFire played and toured with legendary bands of the late '60s and early '70s including Van Morrison and Them; The MC5; Zephyr and Tommy Bolin; Alice Cooper; and Free.

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Mike Scanlon    
Guitarist for Burnt Sugar Blues from May 2011 to August 2015

Long-time veteran of the Boogie Shack, Mike says, "I enjoy playing with as many different musicians as possible to listen and learn."   His other band is the locally popular Blue Cat Alley, and before that he played with the first incarnation of Van and the Movers and Blu Stu.

"My first and most lasting influence is Jimi Hendrix.   I also greatly admire Steve Cropper, Duane Allman and Django Reinhardt."

His first band, Axe, got stiffed by the Girl Scouts who hired them to play for the county fair in Newton, Kansas, when he was 17.   Through high school and college, whether or not he was in a band, Mike says, "I always had my electric guitar under my bed."

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Ken J Ross  

Drummer for Burnt Sugar Blues from May 2011 to March 2012

Coming from a large extended family steeped in the arts and music (his uncle Nat played alongside Benny Goodman), Ken began drumming when he was 13.   Growing up in New York, he went off to college at the U of Wisconsin in Madison, center of a great music scene (home to Boz Skaggs, Steve Miller, Tracey Nelson and Mother Earth, the drummer for the Doobie Brothers, to name a few).   Ken began playing with bands his sophomore year, starting with a soul band called Portia and the Soul Lids, playing with an all-original-music band called the Tayles in his junior year, and finishing with a nine-piece horn band called Firehouse in his senior year (e.g., Chicago; Blood, Sweat and Tears).   The Tayles became well-known throughout the Upper Midwest and played at rock festivals alongside bands like the Grateful Dead and Rush.   In 1972 the Tayles recorded the album Who Are These Guys? and in 2011 it was named one of the Top 25 Madison Pop Albums of All Time.  

After graduating from UW, Ken hung up his sticks for about 25 years.   He took them down to play in Fairfield, jamming for fun, playing benefits or, occasionally, playing real gigs.  

Ken grew up with a lot of jazz (Dave Brubeck, Cannonball Adderly, Miles Davis) and Latin music (Stan Getz, bossa nova) around the house -- his parents were championship ballroom dancers -- and, of course, he was also deeply influenced by the rock-and-roll bands of the time: the Beatles, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix, all of the Motown groups, ...   He says his time in college, 1967-1971, was probably the time of the greatest musical burst of creativity the world has ever seen with dozens of seminal groups releasing new and exciting music nearly every week.

Ken recalls, "There was nothing more pleasurable than browsing through a record store (what is a "record" store?), looking at the covers, reading the lyrics, buying some new album, and discovering a great new band.   Bands like Cream, CSNY, Jefferson Airplane, the Doors, Hendrix, the Mothers of Invention, ...   Best of all, you could see most of these bands live in smaller clubs and theatres before it got crazy with bands playing at stadiums."

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