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Keep it on the hush-hush, but there’s a show you might want to check out on Thursday at Teddy Roe’s Speakeasy (3222 Central Ave. SE). Burning Moonlight, a local trio of old-school, bluesy storytellers, will hit the small stage at the exclusive watering hole Feb. 27. If you follow the rules and don’t sass the bartenders or the regulars, you’ll be just fine.
Richard Malcolm sings and plays guitar and harmonica for Burning Moonlight, a band he co-created in 2005. On Thursday he’ll share the stage with bassist Greg Gould and drummer Cyrus Moses, a Burning Moonlight lineup that has existed since 2019. Malcolm says the band is in the “neighborhood of the blues,” but they have a broader repertoire, drawing inspiration from jazz, soul, funk and other genres. They play a mix of original music and covers that Malcom says you might not recognize right away.
“In most cases you wouldn’t expect a blues-oriented trio to be doing a Nora Jones song, but it’s a song that I fucking love,” he says. “There might be one thing or another about a song that really resonates with me, that compels me to do the work to learn it and come up with a way of presenting it.”
Teddy Roe’s Speakeasy is named after Theodore Roe, a Louisiana-born African American organized crime boss who ran a gambling operation in the South Side of Chicago in the ‘40s and ‘50s. Roe earned the nickname “Robin Hood” by pumping his earnings back into the Black community, paying hospital bills and funeral tabs for those who couldn’t afford them and handing out 50 dollar bills to folks he encountered on the street in needy neighborhoods.
Malcolm says the band can relate to Roe’s gangster-philanthropist mythos, and they dig the club’s old-school speakeasy atmosphere. You don’t just waltz into Teddy Roe’s — there’s a bit of song and dance to get in — and if you need to talk on your cell phone, use the antique telephone booth so you don’t bug the nice folks trying to enjoy their drink in peace. Malcom says it’s a nice change of pace from the industrial environment in a lot of the brewery gigs he plays. And if you’re polite and give the bartenders a couple of parameters, they’ll whip up something tasty in the spur of the moment.
“Those aren’t even the recipes that they developed and refined over time, that’s just what they can do off the top of their head, and everybody I’ve taken there or seen there has been really happy with the beverages,” Malcolm says. “When I’m not ‘working’ I go to sit at the bar. I’ve had great conversations with strangers there, and it’s just a whole different vibe. It’s a great hang.”
Malcolm says the band feels like they’ve found a niche at Teddy Roe’s. A lot of that has to do with the connection they share with the South in general — Malcolm writes on the road, and many of Burning Moonlight’s songs are “true stories” about traveling through Louisiana and Mississippi — and a lot of it has to do with the intimate space they share with the audience at the club. Malcolm says the stage is “literally a little nook about five feet by five feet.”
“Our joke is we’ve become closer as a band because we had to find three different configurations so that nobody was poking anybody with the neck of their guitar and everybody had literal elbow room,” he says.
This is Malcolm’s last show before he heads out on his next adventure. He’s traveling to Europe and circling back through jazz and blues country in the southern U.S. on his way home.
“I never know what’s gonna happen on the road, but I look forward to bringing back more stories,” he says. “Sometimes I hear great songs that belong in New Orleans or Mississippi. Then sometimes I’m cruising along, a song comes into my head and I try to grab it.”
They won’t let you into Teddy Roe’s without a reservation on their website, and they don’t play games.
Burning Moonlight
Feb 27, 7 p.m.
Teddy Roe’s Speakeasy
3222 Central Ave. SE
Reservation Only