Some of Auburn’s best-known and most experienced musicians will be doing what they do best this Sunday at Suzy’s Tavern.The band is Diana Jacobs and Groove Theory, and most local music fans will recognize the players. Jacobs and her husband, Mettis, front the group and sing lead vocals. They’ve been performing together for more than two decades, bouncing among blues, gospel, funk and rhythm and blues. “People will be able to dance all night long,” Jacobs said. “There are a lot of duets, it’s fun music and it’s a very funky kind of blues.”
The core of the group played together 15 years ago as the Southspoon Blues Band. They had garnered a gathering playing traditional blues before life intervened. “We were all raising our children and following them to football games and basketball games and those kinds of things,” Jacobs said. “It’s fun to be (playing together) again. ... It’s a reunion of sorts.”
The current group also includes bassist Mike Burns, drummer Mark Murray, singer Sue Ferlenda and saxophonist Marty Klueber. They’re frequent favorites at local venues like Big Kahuna’s and Hoopes Park, but this will be their first time at Suzy’s. Jim Van Arsdale, the lead guitarist, said that having such an experienced group of musicians makes it easier to keep things together on stage. “It’s a joy to be at that place with another musician where you can say so much with eye contact or a certain guitar phrase,” he said. “It’s that unspoken language that you can really only develop with stage time together.”
The band plays a mix of blues and R&B, including some older songs and some newer ones along with a handful of originals. For example, they recently started incorporating an Alicia Keys song into their set lists, Jacobs said. “There’s always something new,” she said. “That soulful part of the music, someone always does something new with it, so it always fits.”
“Not every song you’ll have heard before — most of them you haven’t,” Van Arsdale added. “But it’s always a fun time.”