Worcester, MA – Not since the days of the Kit Kat Club has Worcester seen anything like this. Sonny Knight and the Lakers invade Club Symply Fargone at Viva Bene on Saturday, May 16 at 8PM. This funk-blues outfit from Minneapolis is making waves across the country with a style that marries a tight Tower of Power-like horn section with the soul power of James Brown.
Sonny Knight was born in Jackson, Mississippi in 1948, moved to St. Paul as a youngster, and took to music. Little Sonny Knight & The Cymbols recorded their debut 45 for New Teenage Records in 1965, when he was 17. Then music took a backseat to a three year call of duty in the army. A few more years in the Bay Area followed before Sonny returned to Minnesota in the mid-1970s and joined the band Haze. Like many other groups, opportunities dried up in the 1980s and Sonny found a full time job as a truck driver. Musical work came again in the 1990s when former Valdons vocalists Monroe Wright and Maurice Young extended an invitation to join their new group, The Bachelors. In 2012, The Valdons were featured in Secret Stash Records’ compilation Twin Cities Funk & Soul. The record spawned multiple concerts which reunited musicians and singers from the era to perform for new generations; it also revived The Valdons, for which Wright and Young tapped Knight as a new member. After six months of working together in soul revue shows, Sonny and Secret Stash’s Eric Foss formed the group Sonny Knight & The Lakers.
Nearly fifty years have passed since Knight’s first recording, but for the first time he feels like the center of attention. He says, “Sometimes I wonder, why me? Why are all these great things happening now? All I can say is thanks. These are dreams that I had forgotten. Only now that they are starting to come true do I remember that I had them at all.”
Tickets for Sonny Knight and the Lakers are on sale now at www.symplyfargone.com. Worcester may never be the same!
