in conversation with brother sal

I love this story Sal told me: a young Brother Sal in the pew of a Black Church in Indiana. Wide eyes watching a Gospel singer in the pulpit, tugging on his father’s shirt sleeve to say, “I want to sing like that when I grow up.” Sal says his father laughed and said, “Good luck!”

I was there again Sunday night for the madhouse that descended on the Piano Bar to see Brother Sal and his band do their thing and I can honestly say I don’t think Sal needs any luck to sound like a gospel singer.



I had the pleasure of having a conversation with Sal after his Sunday night show and learned a little more about the man behind the piano. Warning - I wouldn’t try to do this while he’s at the piano, I’ve seen a couple drunk fans learn this the hard way.

Sal told me his father was in the Navy so while he was born in Norfolk, Virginia, he spent a large portion of his life in Naples, Italy with other sporadic years in places in the northeastern part of the U.S. - i.e. Jersey and Indiana.

At some point in the laundry list of cities he grew up in, I was expecting something like South Carolina, Georgia, or New Orleans but no southern cities were named, which prompted me to ask where he picked up that soul that drips from the piano every time he plays. He explained that he never lived in the south but his grandmother was his first piano teacher and taught him to play using gospel music. On top of that, he credits his parents as having discerning taste in music which he feels distinctly influences his sound today. His father, for example, loved “old, black women singers” on records, and his mother loved Motown and introduced him to his favorite band to this day, The Band.

Sal says he listened to music along the way and picked up on the things he liked and just kept them.

When I asked about what things he’s listening to, being inspired by, and potentially keeping these days Sal had lots to tell me about what he’s reading. First on his list is his re-read of Last of the Mohicans. He explained to me his fascination with the intense amount of history the United States has gone through in its relatively young 400 years of existence. Further, he talked to me about how inspiring he finds it when artists take the “terrible tragic places they [are/were] in” and make something beautiful out of it. Whether it’s the French and Indian War in Last of the Mohicans or the music of Hank Williams and Steven Foster (which he says are two of the first people he would pay to see perform if he could see anyone dead or alive).

I was also curious about his plan to return to The Hotel Cafe on Saturdays in June. What was special about this space when compared to other places he plays in LA? What I got was a list of names. Not in an icky LA name dropping way. Not even close. In a, “I’m Brother Sal. This is my Family Shield. And all of these people belong under and are protected by my Family Shield.” Overwhelmingly what came across in listening to Sal talk about The Hotel Cafe was how much the community felt like a family of artists all there to support each other and participate in the love of music. Sal told me The Hotel Cafe is where he met almost all of his best friends as well as where he met most of the musicians he’s played with.

For some artists the thought of a close-knit community of musicians might scare them away. But law of attraction works its magic again, for Sal is nothing if not one to cultivate a feeling of community and family. Watching him walk through the crowd at the Piano Bar is like watching the host at a family reunion walking around giving hugs to brothers, aunts, and distant cousins alike. I’m sure seeing him at his Hotel Cafe Home will be no different.

What speaks even louder about Sal than anything he can tell me is the way that his band mates talk about him. I hung out with these guys too and the deep rooted love each of them has for Sal is palpable. I haven’t known Sal for very long and have only had a few passing conversations with him, but I can see why these guys feel that way. Sal is a generous, kind soul and I am so happy to get to support an artist who cultivates love through his words, his actions, and his art.

Yes, at this point I’m going to sound like a groupie but I’m kind of okay with that. I’ll be at The Hotel Cafe this Saturday at midnight to see Sal and his band throw down for their first Saturday (June 4th) in their Saturday residency there in June. If anybody wants to buy me a gin martini while I’m dancing, I won’t complain. :)


Scenes On Sunset

Brother SAL | Myspace Music Videos

See You At the Saloon, Ms. Ram

I suppose it makes sense that people would want to be transported on a Sunday evening. Something about watching the sun go down on Sunday night is like begging your playmate not to go home when you were little. With the end of the weekend and the beginning of the traditional work week at hand, some LA music lovers find their salvation in escaping to a different era. They might escape to the feeling of Elvis’ hips or Donna Summer on a dance floor or 80’s dancing to Pat Benatar.

I’ve experienced this LA tradition for Sunday generation transportation once before when I saw Vintage Trouble at The Tar Pit. These guys rocked me until I felt wild. As the blog says, I was dancing all night and I felt utterly alive as I pelvis pushed and twisted down low with the other Sunday escapees. This past Sunday I found a similar way to transport away to a different generation, but this time I was sent back to the days of renegade cowboys in whorehouses and saloons somewhere down south.

The Piano Bar in Hollywood hosts Brother Sal and his gang every Sunday night and what a perfect setting for this group. Dimly lit lamps light small circles in the exposed brick interior and the bar hosts liquors separated into sections with chalkboards from behind announcing their categories in fancy chalk lettering. Unassuming and quiet (in a calm before the storm way), the piano sits toward the back with a small space for the other band members. Just stepping inside, I already felt like it wasn’t entirely out of the realm of possibility that some of the customers had hitched their horse to a post outside.

I did some reading about Brother Sal after seeing him and a blog I found did an excellent job of summing up his style in two words: “Whorehouse Gospel.”

After reading it, I couldn’t “unsee” how amazingly “Whorehouse Gospel” fits Brother Sal and seemingly everything about him. There is a rawness and passion to his expression, both in his voice and on the piano, that would definitely not be out of place in a whorehouse. I haven’t seen anybody ride the piano (pun intended people) the way Brother Sal does - like he has the reigns of a horse and he’s telling it which way to go dammit! This strength, represented more in attitude and confidence than in actual physical force, makes him a hypnotizing piano player to watch.

Check out the piano playing in this song, “Broke/Busted.”



Then there’s that voice. I grew up in the south and have vivid memories of one of my third grade teachers singing the National Anthem every morning. She was a voluptuous black woman who was known among her colleagues for singing in her church gospel choir. Anyone who has ever heard a woman like this sing knows I don’t have any way of explaining the pure, from the gut, “if you could bottle that I’d sell it” soul that comes out of people like this.

Brother Sal sings from the same place in his gut and his heart that amounts to the thickness I can only call soul. It’s that soul that makes it possible for the band to cover songs from people like The Black Keys and Curtis Mayfield. You can watch Brother Sal’s cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” on youtube.



With a niche genre like Whorehouse Gospel, a guy has to have some serious musicians to back him up. Here again, Brother Sal doesn’t fail us. With the combination of Deacon on Drums, Johnny Flaugher on bass guitar, and Shiben Bhattacharya on guitar and banjo (yeah, that’s right...banjo), the layers of music translate naturally and combine to create one big, body moving, soul shaking sound.

These are a lot of words that really add up to one thing: I’ll be back to see Brother Sal on another Sunday night. In fact, I’ll likely be back on Monday night for Brianna Rettig’s residency - she’s lent her spectacular voice to Brother Sal for a few songs the other night and just happens to be his beautiful woman.

For now I’ll tip my hat and reckon I’ll be seeing you all ‘round.