The Grievous Angel - Jill Jack Connection

Aug. 25, 2004

Fans of Detroit-area acoustic rocker Jill Jack will be pleased to savor the double-shot musical cocktail with a twist planned this weekend as well as Labor Day.
On Aug. 27-28, Jill Jack’s band does their own thing as Grievous Angel band at City Park Grill in Petoskey. The following weekend, Sept 3-4, the band rejoins the songstress for an annual blowout at The Villager Pub in Charlevoix as the Jill Jack Band.
“We’re Jill Jack’s band, but we started Grievous Angel a year ago in order to keep paying the bills because Jill sometimes has other obligations,” notes guitarist/vocalist Billy Brandt.
He says that Grievous Angel takes its name from a Gram Parsons album, indicating their affinity for “cosmic American music.” The genre includes songs by the likes of the Grateful Dead, Hank Williams, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Little Feat, Tim Buckley and Fred Neil along with the band’s own originals.
“We call it ‘cracker funk’, meaning it’s got a lazy backbeat,” Brandt says. “It’s really funky music, but we’re all former hippies too, so it combines folk and funk.”
Brandt, who has recorded four Jill Jack albums at his Drum Dancer Records label in Ferndale, says that Grievous Angel revels in the history of American music. The band’s sense of Americana includes influences such as Was (Not Was), Phil Ochs, Marshall Crenshaw, Kelly Donohoe, Joan Baez, Matthew Sweet, High Flyin’ Bird, Wilson Pickett, Kate MacKenzie, The Supremes, Raisin Pickers, Kelly Willis and Earl Klugh. In short, a mixed bag of musical outriders.
Other members of Grievous Angel include Nolan Mendenhall on bass; David Mosher on guitar, mandolin and fiddle; and Ron Pangborn on drums, with all members of the band performing on vocals.
Mosher’s roots lie in bluegrass and folk. He is a successful children’s performer and bluegrass instrumentalist, with two solo albums under his belt. Pangborn is a composer and producer for TV (“Backstage Pass”) as well as one of the best drummers on the Detroit scene, including stints with Thornetta Davis and Was (Not Was). Mendenhall has played with just about every Motown and R & B great on the so-called “Chitlin Circuit”; he’s won Producer of the Year at the Detroit Music Awards and has zigzagged from folk to reggae to jazz and back again. Brandt, whose alt-country-Americana-rock roots go deep, has been a mainstay of the Detroit music scene through his Drum Dancer Records. He’s been involved in such acts as Red C, Spank, Jill Jack, High Flyin’ Bird and more.
No one can fault these guys as musicians. Although they’re working on a new CD, their rough-cut demo EP offers plenty of the muscular acoustic dance-pop that’s popular in Northern Michigan at present, complete with deftly-plucked bluegrass mandolin and fiddle leads.
“We’re currently 15 tracks into making our first funk-grass album,” Brandt says, adding that he expects to release Grievous Angel’s CD early this winter. If you miss their upcoming shows in Petoskey/Charlevoix, look for the band’s return to promote its first CD later this year.