CYCROPIA 2020
4 pm Acoplados (Latin jazz)
5 pm Booty Froot (a reunion of Madison’s punk, funk, ragged reggae scenesters)
6 pm Back to the Country Revue with Bill & Bobbie Malone (classic country music)
7 pm Chuck Prophet & the Mission Express (roots rock from Chicago)
8 pm JC Brooks & The Uptown Sound (R & B, soul and more from Chicago)
9 pm Clyde Stubblefield All Stars (Madison’s funky drummer’s all-star backup band)
Madison favorite Acoplados Latin Jazz Project explores the nuances of Latin American and Caribbean folk and popular music by using voices, the cajon, and the guitar to reinvent melody, harmony and rhythm. Like the Orton crowds back in 2018, you will be transported to the “llanos” of Venezuela, the “solaressolares” of Cuba, and the “callejones” of Peru, leaving you in a place completely different and unexpected.
The punk-funk-ragga-hiphop beast Booty Froot kicked off Orton 2015. A collaboration of many key players from the Madison music scene of the early 80s through 90s (including the Tar Babies), Booty Froot put on a high-energy show that brought the crowds out on a drizzly Friday evening.
WORT’s very own “Back to the Country” host Bill Malone and his talented wife Bobbie Malone serenaded Orton with a daytime program of classic country and folk songs with the Back to the Country Revue. Bill and Bobbie recently packed up and moved back to Texas, leaving a legacy of wonderful music and radio programming in the community. Bill is the author of the critically-acclaimed definitive history of American country music “Country Music USA” and was recently interviewed extensively for Ken Burns’ documentary series on PBS, “Country Music.” Bill and Bobbie are joined in this 2014 set by a handful of notable Madison musicians, including Richard Wiegel and Kristy Larson.
Next up, Chuck Prophet and The Mission Express. Prophet hit the road straight out of high school in the ’80s with the psychedelic roots band Green on Red, and never looked back. He has worked as a singer/songwriter, guitarist, bandleader, and collaborator with artists as diverse as Cake, Kim Carnes, Solomon Burke, and Alejandro Escovedo, who declared on stage at his Orton Park headlining gig the previous year, “This looks like the kind of audience that would dig Chuck Prophet!” We took Alejandro’s advice and booked Chuck Prophet for Orton 2018 and the show was phenomenal.
We loved this 2014 performance of JC Brooks and The Uptown Sound. Brooks trained as an actor, and even by soul man standards he’s an outsized showman (with an equally outsized pompadour), shimmying, swiveling, sliding and jumping around the stage, his singing ranging from Otis Redding raspiness to Curtis Mayfield falsetto sweetness. Orton was mesmerized.
To close Orton In Place, we look back at a stellar 2018 performance of the Clyde Stubblefield All Stars (now known as Funkee JBeez), the Clyde Stubblefield tribute band based out of Madison, led by musical director and Grammy-nominated drummer Joey B. Banks, and featuring Kevin Willmott II on vocals. Enjoy Stubblefield hits along with favorites from James Brown and The JB’s, including songs from “The Original” and “Revenge of the Funky Drummer” albums.