Blues Therapy

Every time we play, bandleader Johnnie Riles reminds us of why we call ourselves “The Doctors of Rhythm & Blues.”

“Music has been known to be a healing force in the universe,” he tells the crowd. “As we go along tonight, you will feel that healing start to take place.”

And they do. There's something about R&B, about the blues, about jazz, about party music, about all music, that makes people smile a little and feel a little better about life.

Maybe that's healing. Maybe that's just having a good time. Either way, it has been working for a decade of blues therapy.

Johnnie started the band in the early 1990s in an Opa-locka storage unit, and has cultivated it into a tight, professional, six-man entity with an abundance of experience, versatility, musicianship and most of all, energy.

No lackluster, clock-watching performances for us. We come out smoking, and we don't stop. We have a good time among ourselves, and the audience can't help but do the same.

The core of the today's lineup has played together for years of steady, uninterrupted gigging from Miami to West Palm Beach. Even the newest member has been with us for two years. We can read each other moves in advance, so we can play together as a unit.

Maybe because of that, we have been fortunate enough to land regular, recurring gigs at local clubs, plus higher profile concert events such as at Miami Dolphins games, the FedEx Orange Bowl, the City of Fort Lauderdale SunTrust Jazz Brunch and many festivals.

We played every Friday for 10 months at Sax On the Beach in Miami. We did Fridays for more than six months at Porter's in Sunrise. And now, we've been playing every Saturday since March 2003 at the Downtowner Saloon in Fort Lauderdale.

We've got the chops to play everything from dirty blues to thumpin' soul to smooth saxophone jazz to complex bebop -- and back to ballads and standards.

If you want, we can play any of those styles for an entire night. Typically, though, we like to mix up so the audience gets to hear a sample of everything.

That's what we call Blues Therapy.