The New Mastersounds KUVO Session | July 18

The New Mastersounds will be on the air on KUVO 89.3 FM, on KUVO’s YouTube and Twitch channels Thursday night, July 18 at 7 p.m., recorded recently in our Bonfils-Stanton Performance Studio.

The New Mastersounds are Eddie Roberts (guitar), Simon Allen (drums), Joe Tatton (organ), and Pete Shand (bass). This performance was captured at KUVO during their current U.S. tour.

The back story. In the late 1990s, guitarist and producer Eddie Roberts was promoting a club night in Leeds, England called “The Cooker.” When The Cooker moved into a new venue with a second floor in 1999, there was space and the opportunity to put a live band together to complement the DJ sets. Simon Allen and Eddie had previously played together as The Mastersounds, though with a different bassist and no organ. Through friends and the intimate nature of the Leeds music scene, Pete Shand and Bob Birch were added on bass and Hammond respectively, and The New Mastersounds were born. Though it was raw, and more of a boogaloo sound at first, it was powerful from the start. Their first rehearsal was hot enough for Blow it Hard Records to release two limited-edition 7” singles in 2000.

By 2018 the band’s recorded catalogue boasted 24 more 7” singles, 12 studio albums, three live albums, one remix album, and three compilation albums, released variously in the UK, Japan, and USA – where they continue to tour extensively. Joe Tatton, another veteran of the Leeds scene, joined back in 2007, replacing Bob Birch on organ and piano.

Time to drop some names. As a band and as individuals, they have collaborated with an impressive array of musicians, DJs, and producers, including Lou Donaldson, Corinne Bailey Rae, Quantic, Carleen Anderson, Keb Darge, Kenny Dope, Mr Scruff, LSK, Lack of Afro, Page McConnell, Grace Potter, Karl Denson, Melvin Sparks, Idris Muhammad, Fred Wesley, Pee-Wee Ellis, Maceo Parker, Bernard Purdie, George Porter Jr, Zigaboo Modeliste, Art Neville, Ernest Ranglin and others.

During a 2018 US tour, a sit-in by Atlanta-based vocalist Lamar Williams Jr. turned heads, and the fit with NMS was so right that they pledged to make a record together. The resulting album was written and recorded in Denver, CO in December of that year and was released in Fall 2019 on Eddie Roberts’ own Color Red label. In 2021 Williams joined the band at Floki Studios in Iceland to record the album “The Deplar Effect.” Lamar has toured with the band in the USA, Japan, Spain, and at sea on Jam Cruise (February 2024).

Their new album “Old School” (Color Red Records, 2024) features the core band of Eddie, Simon, Pete, and Joe, and they’re touring the U.S. for the first time in four years to show it off.

What he said. Peter Wermelinger – DJ, collector, and author of the crate-diggers’ bible The Funky & Groovy Music Lexicon – places the 2001 NMS track “Turn This Thing Around” in his all-time top-ten tunes, along with the likes of Eddie Harris, Funkadelic, and Herbie Hancock. The New Mastersounds are at the very top of an elite selection of acts that bring the true soul out of funk.

Hear The New Mastersounds on air, on stream, KUVO’s YouTube and Twitch channels, Thursday, July 18 at 7 p.m.!

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