Widespread Panic On Bonnaroo

NEW YORK (WP Official Website) - Though this year's been a tough one for veteran jam-rock band Widespread Panic, what with the death of founding guitarist Mike Houser in August, bassist Dave Schools is excited about the group's contribution to a two-disc CD set, Bonnaroo Music Festival 2002, recorded at the Bonnaroo festival in Tennessee this June.

The band's track on the disk (due Sept. 24 on Sanctuary Records, with a DVD coming Oct. 22) is "Tall Boy," a deep-south collaboration with gospel singer Dottie Peoples. Schools tells allstar, "We had done the 'Tall Boy' thing [with Dottie] before, once, and we knew that it was an earth-shattering event. [The Bonnaroo version] was something special -� it was pulled off with aplomb, and the crowd really enjoyed it. When we were approached with 'pick a track or two' for this album, we all said 'Duh! The one with Dottie!'"

Though the Bonnaroo album contains songs from jam band heavyweights like Phish's Trey Anastasio and former Grateful Dead bassist Phil Lesh, Schools' favorite festival moment came during simultaneous sets from two of the other artists on the collection. "I was standing around the production area [in between the two main stages] and Ben Harper was playing a very quiet set on the main stage, but over the trees, I could hear [pedal steel guitarist] Robert Randolph going nuts. Even though it was something I wasn't really witnessing, it struck me: these are two amazing performers, and I'm hearing both of them at the same time!"

The Bonnaroo festival was recently called the best of the summer in Spin, a surprising announcement for the mainstream-leaning magazine. Does this mean that jam-rock's poised to break through commercially? "I don't worry about it going mainstream," Schools says. "It's not pop music."

He continues, "It's nice to see this thing getting some coverage, because it's a major musical movement. The basic precept of trying to create something spontaneous in the moment, onstage -� that's been around forever."

Despite Houser's passing, Widespread Panic will be starting a tour this fall on Halloween in New Orleans, with guitarist George McConnell and multi-instrumentalist Randall Bramblatt filling in the gap while the band is on the road. And, Houser's solo album, Door Harp, is still being released, on Sept. 24.

"This is a whole new chapter for us," Schools says. "The one thing that we all do know is that it's important for us to keep the band rolling, and to keep making music that's important to us."