Norman Sylvester Bio ( Long)
Since Norman Sylvester first began to perform both in church and commercial venues with his friend and guitar teacher Isaac Scott in 1963, Norman has constantly honed his guitar playing, singing and song writing skills. Norman formed the band Rated-X in 1969 and led it for several years until the time management stress of a young father with a growing family and a demanding day job as a teamster employed by trucking firm Pacific Intermountain Express forced him to cut back his performance time. Frequently sitting-in at jam sessions and occasional pick-up jobs kept his musical skills sharp. By the late seventies, he had sat in with Buddy Guy and Albert Collins, both of whom encouraged him to devote himself to a full time career in music. The Norman Sylvester Band was formed in 1984, with bass player Rob Shoemaker, and has been going strong ever since. When PIE filed for bankruptcy in 1990, Norman lost his teamster’s job along with 8,000 others, and became a full-time musician.
Norman was born in Bonita, Louisiana in 1945, and his earliest musical influence came from hearing gospel singing in church, and blues sung by itinerant performers in the community. His father Mack Sylvester sang in a gospel quartet that broadcast on the radio every week in Monroe, Louisiana. While blues was frowned on at home, Norman heard enough on the jukeboxes in cafes in Bonita and Bastrop to get hooked from a young age. He grew up hearing and learning to love the blues of Muddy Waters, Albert King, Freddie King, Bobby Bland, Little Milton, B. B. King and Albert Collins. When the Sylvester family left the south for Portland Oregon, Norman began hearing the great soul singers Sam Cooke, Johnny Taylor, Tyrone Davis, and Otis Redding along with the more modern funk sounds of James Brown, Sly Stone, Parliament, Lakeside, the Gap Band, Johnny Watson, Z.Z. Hill and Bobby Rush. His father agreed to buy Norman his first guitar, and with teaching from Isaac Scott, he was ready to begin playing professionally by the time he graduated from Jefferson High School in 1963. As Norman grew as a musician, he came to have a clear vision of what his band should sound like. Norman is committed to playing music that can only be called blues, but not limited to any particular narrow style defined by purists, always incorporating his own wide range of influences. To Norman’s way of thinking, being part of the blues tradition requires obtaining a deep understanding and appreciation for the previous and contemporary blues masters, and then adding his own contribution to the always evolving art form. This is blues music for everyone to enjoy.
Over 4000 gigs in more than thirty years of the Norman Sylvester Band’s history have included major festivals such as Portland’s Rose Festival, the Mount Hood Jazz Festival, The Rose City (now Waterfront) Blues Festival (nearly every year since 1987), Good In The Hood, and Seattle’s Bumbershoot; hundreds of nightclubs, schools, appearances with the Oregon Symphony, wedding receptions, corporate events, prisons, state and county fairs, and private parties of every kind. Entertaining so many diverse audiences in so many different settings has made the band better than ever. The Norman Sylvester Band has opened for BB King, James Cotton, Mavis Staples, Little Ed and the Blues Imperials, Tower of Power, the Five Blind Boys, and many others.
For the last few years the band has included in addition to Norman and Rob, drummer Paul Shoemaker and keyboard player Jeff Otto. The Norman Sylvester Band often incorporates one or more female vocalists, notably Norman’s oldest daughter Lenanne, or sometimes Sarah Billings, a popular singer and radio personality who fronts her own band. Another of Portland’s popular woman bandleaders, LaRhonda Steele, also performs with Norman from time to time as a featured vocalist. LaRhonda’s instantly recognizable style is well known to Portland blues fans. With two generations of Sylvesters and two generations of Shoemakers, the band truly is a family affair.
Horn players Pete Moss, Patrick Lamb, and RenatoCaranto have written arrangements for many of the songs on Norman’s list, and when a gig calls for a bigger band, they add a special dimension to the sound.
Norman’s songwriting deserves close attention. His gift for coming up with an original melody and a strong rhythmic groove is coupled with a knack for putting into words ideas that many people share but few can express. While some of his numbers are strictly dance floor celebrations, most of his songs examine personal relationships; love and loss; studies of social and political issues, and the ways individuals can strive to bring about change. The beauty of the language in the songs is that it all sounds like the speech of real people. Norman made his first recording, a 45 on Vanco Records with Rated X. More than four dozen of Norman’s original songs have been recorded on his albums: On The Right Track, Live at the Candlelight, A Family Affair, and his newest CD, Blues Stains On My Hands, recorded late in 2012. A new album is in progress, with seven songs having rhythm tracks laid down, and other new songs in various stages of completion. Release of this next album will be bittersweet, since it includes the last keyboard playing recorded with us by our dear friend, the late Janice Scroggins. All of Norman’s CDs are available at Music Millennium and other record stores, online from CDbaby.com and for download at iTunes, and of course they can be purchased at any Norman Sylvester Band performance.
The year 2008 began with Norman undergoing his fourth hip replacement surgery. Although the surgery necessitated several months out of work for recovery and rehabilitation, he put the time away from the stage to good use, working on new material that found it’s way onto the band songlist and his next recording projects. Just how is the Norman Sylvester Band doing in 2015? Better than ever.