Banty Rooster

Banty Rooster is the name of a Utrecht (The Netherlands) country blues group, mainly formed around the musicians Ruben Poncia and Ivo Garritsen. Phons Bakx met with them in 1996 during a performance at Café Averechts (Utrecht). There the plan came to involve the mouth harp in the future music of Banty Rooster. Performances with mouth harpist Phons Bakx took place in De Mug (Middelburg, 1996), 't Ledige Erf (Utrecht, 1998) and in the Zeeuwse Bibliotheek (Middelburg, 1999). In the first week of June 1997, Banty Rooster recorded a gramophone record in Fort De Klop (Utrecht) with five songs, on which a variety of American traditional playing techniques such as 'slide & fingerpicking' on banjo and guitar, harmonica, tuba, washboard, snare- drums, mouth harp and vocals can be heard. Phons Bakx participated in two pieces: "When Death Comes Creeping" and "Steel Driving Man", the latter a variant from Colorado on the theme of the mythological railway worker John Henry late 19th century. This version was placed on the vinyl EP with mouth harp sound, together with three other musical performances. Side A: Banty Rooster Blues - Diddy Wah Diddy Side B: Steel Drivin 'Man - Pony Blues. Only a small edition of 250 copies of the unique EP has been published. Banty Rooster consists of: Ivo Garritsen - vocals, guitar (videophoto) Ruben Poncia - harmonica (photo street artist) Henk Raven - tuba René van Leeuwen - percussion Phons Bakx (guest) - mouth harp