Rosewood Thieves steal songs from an old soul

By John Benson

In a nutshell, the entire British Invasion and subsequent ’60s rock movement stemmed from the notion of then-young musicians (The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Eric Clapton) carrying the torch of relatively obscure American blues acts (Muddy Waters, Robert Johnson, et al).

It’s this exact same idea that New York City rock act The Rosewood Thieves was hoping to achieve with the release of its new EP, “Heartaches By The Pound: The Rosewood Thieves Sing Solomon Burke.”

“I kind of discovered Solomon Burke five years ago,” said singer-guitarist Erick Jordan. “I was always amazed this soul singer, who was on tours with James Brown and Otis Redding, kind of never was the same [level of success] like he should. I kind of liked him better than James Brown, and it was just amazing I never heard of him, or anyone I asked from my generation also never heard of him.

“So I just kind of fell in love with all of these songs he had, and when we wanted to get back into the studio, I kind of threw the idea out of like, we should just learn some of his songs. So it was kind of fun to work on other people’s music and try to make it work for ourselves and pull it off. It was kind of a spur-of-the-moment idea, and it was just super-easy to do and a lot of fun, so we just went with it.”

Something else that was recently super-easy and fun was a cover of The Turtles’ classic “Happy Together,” which was spotlighted in a nationwide LG advertising campaign last year.

So what we’re learning about The Rosewood Thieves’ true sound is it lies somewhere between The Turtles and Solomon Burke?

“Actually, that is like my whole childhood,” Jordan said. “I grew up listening to a lot of bubblegum music when I was a little kid, so it’s kind of funny that we now have all of these random acts associated with us.”

Whether it’s random or calculated, any attention was worthwhile for The Rosewood Thieves, which formed in 2006 and was quickly signed to V2 Records. Unfortunately, the label folded before the band broke. The entire experience left a bad taste in Jordan’s mouth regarding the record-label business in general and the marketing of bands in particular. This is why the outfit is currently an independent artist, releasing its self-titled debut full-length “Rise & Shine” last year.

Now, the group is concentrating on expanding its audience with a 25-city fall tour. You can see The Rosewood Thieves make their Youngstown debut Friday at Cedars Lounge.

“Our music is not completely throwback, but it has a lot of older sounds, and lyrically it’s in the moment,” Jordan said. “So it’s not completely about falling in love and [expletive] like that, but I think people who like older music to late ’70s stuff will enjoy it. It goes across a lot of genres.”

He added, “And I hope our show is not contrived or anything. We play a lot of new music, and a lot of the older songs have new arrangements that we’re always kind of working on every song at all times. So I think if you have the record, then it’s like it’s just not us playing verbatim. We’re excited to go on this tour. We’re hoping it translates.”

If you go

Who: The Rosewood Thieves

When: 10 p.m. Friday

Where: Cedars Lounge, 23 N. Hazel St., Youngstown; call (724) 743-6560