In February 2022, I launched Local Talent Spotlight, a recurring series blending interviews and show reviews to highlight standout artists and bands from the Denver metro area. The first installment featured a blues harmonica player I had met a few months earlier when he sat in with Tommy Castro & The Painkillers at the Oriental Theater. That bluesman was Jimmy Junior, then fronting a band called Jimmy Junior and the Roaring Elephants.
Fast forward to last Friday night: Jimmy Junior, now leading The Jimmy Junior Blues Band, was playing a four-hour gig at Lincoln’s Roadhouse, my favorite dive bar in the Denver metro area. The band has weathered fits and starts over the past four years, retooling through several personnel changes. Drummer Mike Rossi and keyboardist Greg Rice are the only remaining members from the original Roaring Elephants, though Rice left for a time before returning after the name change. The current lineup also includes Ken Cornell on bass and vocals and Joel Dusek on guitar and vocals. Cornell joined in late 2022; Dusek came aboard earlier this year.
A few days before covering the Lincoln’s Roadhouse gig, I spent a little over an hour on Zoom with Jimmy. If you’ve met him, you know he’s perpetually in motion. In that hour, we covered plenty of ground and chased more than a few blues-related rabbit holes. That’s easy to do with Jimmy, whose blues DNA seems to have been set on the ride home from the hospital after his birth, when his parents introduced him to Stevie Ray Vaughan’s iconic live version of Buddy Guy’s “Mary Had A Little Lamb.”
Jimmy Junior is actually Jimmy Sengenberger, a Denver-area media personality, KOA radio fill-in talk show host, and host of the Blues Business podcast. Recent Blues Business guests include Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Jimmie Vaughan, Kim Wilson, Larry McCray, and Joanne Shaw Taylor. His onstage Jimmy Junior persona pays tribute to his harmonica hero, Junior Wells.
Jimmy is a walking, talking, harmonica-playing student of the blues. For proof, look no further than the Lincoln’s Roadhouse playlist. The band took the stage at 8:00 and played until midnight, delivering two sets: the first lasting two hours and the second about an hour and a half. Together, they included 34 songs – though two from the first set returned at the end of the second – plus a second-set intro jam featuring only drums, bass, and Jimmy roaming the crowd with his new wireless mic adapter.
The two sets included three original tunes. The rest of the songs reflect Jimmy’s love of the history of American blues music (plus a sprinkling of classic rock), with covers from such artists as Aretha Franklin, Buddy Guy, Etta James, Chris Stapleton, Freddie King, Jimi Hendrix, Junior Wells, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Little Walter, Muddy Waters, The Ozark Mountain Daredevils, Robert Johnson, The Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Savoy Brown, Slim Harpo, Stevie Ray Vaughan, T. Bone Walker, Taj Mahal, The Allman Brothers Band, The Grateful Dead, Tommy Castro & The Painkillers, Tommy Petty & The Heartbreakers, Wilson Pickett, and ZZ Top. Crowd pleaser after crowd pleaser after crowd pleaser.
Delivering such a diverse set of songs offers particular challenges for a band that focuses so heavily on the harmonica. Says Jimmy, “Most of that list are actually songs that are not originally known for having harmonica at all, but we bring it in. I’m not seeking out songs that are specifically harmonica driven. It’s much broader than that, and I think we have some cool arrangements. Like on “Tell Mama” – I’m looking forward to you hearing that Savoy Brown song. I really like what we do with the harp in that, particularly during this part that I call the breakdown. I think this is something that might be a little bit unique about our band… that we have a lot of songs that are not harmonica based songs, but we bring it in, and people really seem to enjoy what we do with them.”
Based on the reaction of the Lincoln’s Roadhouse crowd last Saturday, “seem to enjoy” is a significant understatement. It’s one of the things Jimmy loves most about playing that venue… “We played there a couple of months back, and we got a great response. One of the things I love about Lincoln’s is the generational diversity of the audience. All too often we, as a blues band, will play at shows and venues where the audience skews 50 plus. At Lincoln’s you see a lot more diversity, age wise, ranging from people in their 20s to their 70s, with everybody enjoying the music, dancing, enjoying the vibe of the place. I think it’s a very enriching experience, and it adds something that I think makes Lincoln’s even more unique, because it is a noted blues bar, and you have people dancing like it’s a country bar. When people are dancing, I feed off the energy of the crowd. And that means they’re going to feed off my energy even more. And as you know, I’m a very animated player.”
Ha! Now we’re talking gross understatement! On more than one occasion I’ve told Jimmy that he’s an audience member’s dream, but a photographer’s nightmare. Just when I think I have his next move figured out, and I’ve got the shot all lined up and ready to go, he’s zigging when I thought he was going to be zagging (shoutout to Tommy Castro).
Enter the wireless mic adapter I mentioned earlier. Jimmy hinted he had something up his sleeve when we talked earlier in the week. “I saw Bobby Rush in San Francisco a couple weeks ago. He had his acoustic guitar, and he did more guitar than harmonica, and he walked around like a lot of blues guys do. He was intentional about going into the audience and interacting and stopping and kind of having some fun and playing and talking with people. Now, I’m not going to capture Bobby Rush, but it inspired me with a couple of ideas that I already sort of had in mind, so I’m going to start experimenting with some things that might be a little bit more unique or fun for the show. We’ll see how it goes.”
In a word, it worked. Spectacularly. Jimmy made his way into the crowd several times during both sets, and each trip drew a huge response. Everyone seemed to want him stopping by their table to jam. People danced with him, smiles stretched wide, and the whoops and hollers were loud. (Adult beverages may have helped a little, but we’ll give Jimmy the credit.)
The bottom line is that the evening was a tremendous amount of fun. Everybody had a great time. Credit Jimmy for knowing it was going to be that way, days ahead of the show… “I love that there’s an engaged and active crowd (at Lincoln’s) that wants to participate, and that you have this wide array of people from different backgrounds and age groups. Lincoln’s is known as Denver’s Blues Bar and Cajun Cafe, which means there’s that emphasis on the blues. People come in knowing what to expect. They come to see a blues shows like ours, and they’re a ready-made crowd that’s there to have a good time. We’re there to have a good time. What could be better than that?”
What could, indeed.
(Oh, and I loved “Tell Mama.” Pretty sure it was my favorite song of the night. Or maybe “Blue On Black”? “Mary Jane’s Last Dance”? “One Way Out”? Dang you, Jimmy Junior!)
Denver is home to many terrific blues bands, and I’ve heard plenty of them. In my opinion, none captures the spirit of the blues – past and present – better than the Jimmy Junior Blues Band. And none does it with more pure, straight-up fun. If you catch one of their shows, they’re all but guaranteed to show you a good time.
The Jimmy Junior Blues Band has a number of shows scheduled for the Denver area this summer – you can check out their show schedule at https://www.jimmyjuniormusic.com/. The band is available for private parties and events – you can reach out to them through the website.
Story and photos by Rick Witt www.rickwittphotography.com
