United States

Joe Coughlin, The Noise

“I put this on during a miserable midnight downpour, and promptly felt the sun on my back, caught whiffs of tall grass and clean air, felt the creaky comfort of a front-porch swing, and settled in for the ride. If you need comparisons, the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack would not be unfair. It’s a nice balance of covers and originals, delivered at just the right temperance, never shy but never overbearing, between which being where so many roots acts fall into the cracks: trying too hard not to try too hard. This one has all the confidence and none of the false bravado, one of those extremely rare jobs that sounds like it’s been here all along. It’s a beaut.” (Joe Coughlin)

Rick Massimo, The Providence Journal

American roots outfit The Mystix play Chan’s in Woonsocket Saturday night.

The Mystix have been together for three years, but the members have been getting around for the past few decades at least…

…And they do it with the relaxed, no-nonsense groove and grace of seasoned pros who know their way around the music; you can hear it in the authoritative swamp-pop groove of “Good Deal Lucille,” the sweet slide guitar on the original “Roll of the Dice,” the minor-key foreboding of “Gamblin’ Man” and more.

The Mystix have been together for three years, but the members have been getting around for the past few decades at least.

Keyboardist Tom West has played with Susan Tedeschi and Peter Wolf; bassist Marty Ballou has been with John Hammond, Edgar Winter and Duke Robillard; drummer Marty Richards has played with Robillard, Gary Burton and The J. Geils Band; guitarist Bobby Keyes has had a long session career, including records with such seemingly unlikely names as Robin Thicke, Mary J. Blige, Lil’ Wayne and Jerry Lee Lewis; and singer and guitarist Jo Lily was with the Boston-area R&B legends Duke and the Drivers.

And on their third disc, Down to the Shore, which comes out April 1, the band revives some of the better known and lesser known names in the American roots firmament, such as Pops Staples, Porter Waggoner and Georgie Riddle, along with some traditionals (“We Are Almost Down to the Shore”) and some originals by Lily and Keyes.

And they do it with the relaxed, no-nonsense groove and grace of seasoned pros who know their way around the music; you can hear it in the authoritative swamp-pop groove of “Good Deal Lucille,” the sweet slide guitar on the original “Roll of the Dice,” the minor-key foreboding of “Gamblin’ Man” and more.

Ballou says it’s a mixture of “every damn thing,” and if by that he means electric roots music he’s right. “It’s just American. Roots American is where it comes from. … We just put everything in we can think of.”

So where in this day and age does Lily find this stuff? A variety of places. “I’m really into that,” he explains, “like a stamp collector.” He lives in Newburyport, Mass., and plugs the local record store, Dyno Records, “where the guy really knows his [stuff]. And I’ve always got my ears up.”

As well as old-fashioned record-store trolling, the Internet is a source of material, Lily says. Once he discovered the Dust to Digital series, for example, “I got the box set, and I was gone for two months on that stuff.”

While the commercial sphere for this kind of music may be shrinking, in some ways it’s healthier than ever, Lily says. “The catalogs are out there, amazingly enough. Even though people in the music business only seem to be interested in who’s going to win American Idol, there are ears that are still there.”

Lily says that he and Keyes had known each other and played together for years before Keyes moved to Los Angeles. When Keyes returned, Lily took songwriting lessons from him and began sitting in with Keyes’ band.

Lily, referring to the rest of the band, says he “knew of them, but I didn’t know them,” and calls them “a pretty top crew of the local talent,” though he adds that it’s a fully integrated band now: “It isn’t just a sideman jam thing anymore; we don’t just hand people charts.”

The future of the band is a combination of local shows and international record sales. “We sell as well internationally as nationally,” Lily says. “I haven’t been to Europe, but I want to hear the radio shows!”

As for live playing, Ballou says they’re heading for “listening rooms” in the region. Lily adds that they’ll take the occasional festival if it looks like a good time, but “To go across the country and do the bars? I did it already in Duke and the Drivers 40 years ago. It’s over!”

Ted Drozdowski , The Boston Phoenix

The Mystix want you to know they’re not fortune tellers. If you Googled their band a year ago, that wasn’t so obvious. “You’d have to wade through 15 pages of Nostradamus before you got to us,” says singer Jo Lily.

Rob Johnson, Hittin’ the Note

“This record is a truly timeless collection of music, a rootsy odyssey that sounds ancient and brand new at the same time. Everything from Alan Lomax field recordings to The Mystix’ own original songs are combined into a whole item that is utterly unclassifiable, other than to say it is just good music. One of the best compliments you can give a band is to say they don’t sound like anybody else, and The Mystix’ Down to the Shore has a unique vibe.”

Lead singer and main songwriter Jo Lily has a captivating voice, rich and worn like aged leather, and he has a way of drawing you into a song. The other members of the band are seasoned veterans of the Boston music scene who have played with everyone form Jerry Lee Lewis to Susan Tedeschi. Marty Richards on drums and Mary Ballou on bass always keep each tune firmly in the pocket, and guitarist Bobby Keyes and keyboardist Tom West have the perfect riff for every song.

And what songs they are! The old gospel number “We Are almost Down to the Shore” drips with world-weary soul. “Gamblin’ Man” has a broken-down, Tom Waits-like charm to it, and “Get Right” gets everything right, from the up-tempo groove to the barrelhouse piano break.

There is a lot of melancholy and longing on this record, but the music never gives into despair. Down to the Shore is the perfect soundtrack to a rainy day, or any day when you crave music with that soulful sound.

Christopher Blagg, The Boston Herald

Some of the best musicians in rock ‘n’ roll never see the light of day.

They toil away in obscurity as studio session players or as underappreciated touring sidemen. But the time has come for a few of Boston’s best roots players to get out of the shadows and into the spotlight.

Meet the Mystix, who get Somerville Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone’s weeklong Joe’s Jazz & Blues Fest rolling Saturday with a free show at Powderhouse Park.

The quintet, founded by singer Jo Lily, wants to be known as a real band, not just a group of hired guns. Though Lily handpicked his favorite sidemen and session players, all five members have a say in the direction of the sound.

“It’s absolutely a band,” Lily said by phone from his Newburyport home earlier this week. “That’s the whole difference between us and all the other mercenary crews that run around. We’ve been together three years. We’ve got three albums out now.”

The other Mystix are guitarist Bobby Keyes (played with Mary J. Blige, Lil Wayne), keyboardist Tom West (Susan Tedeschi, Peter Wolf), bassist Marty Ballou (John Hammond, Edgar Winter) and drummer MartyRichards (Gary Burton, J. Geils Band).

Lily’s credentials include fronting Boston’s beloved r & b party band Duke & the Drivers under the name Sam Deluxe.

“Duke & the Drivers was a show band,” Lily said, “a lot of costume changes, different crazy characters. The Mystix don’t do any of that. We did all that stuff before. We’re looking for something a little more mystical, something a little more magical and something that reflects where we are now.”

Where they are now is a good place to be. The group plunges into the heart and soul of American roots music, unearthing rare blues gems and classic country nuggets. Not quite a blues band or a country band, the Mystix bounce wherever the muse takes them.

“At our age, why the hell shouldn’t we,” Lily said. “We’re not shooting for ‘American Idol.’ If we like something, we’ll do it. I’m heavily into country and I’m heavily into blues. I’m one of these nuts that believe country and blues came from the same place.”

As tight as the band is, it’s Lily’s raspy baritone that grabs your attention. As his thick growl of a speaking voice makes evident, his gravelly singing is no affectation.

“It’s just the result of a long relationship with Jack Daniel’s, Rebel Yell and Camel cigarettes, only the latter of which I still indulge in,” Lily said. “People think I’m trying to sound like Dylan or Tom Waits, but believe me, that’s the last thing I’m trying to do. That’s just how it comes out.”

And folks are responding to Lily’s whiskey-and-tobacco-marinated vocals and the band’s stellar musicianship. The Mystix’s new album, “Down to the Shore,” has made it to No. 19 on the Americana charts and No. 5 on the EuroAmericana charts. For these local heroes, their days of being unsung may be at an end.

The Mystix at Joe’s Jazz & Blues Fest, Powderhouse Park, Somerville, Saturday at 8 p.m. Free.Rain date: Sunday.

Don Wilcock, Blues Revue

Blues fans live for the magic moments when a once-in-a-lifetime confluence puts great musicians together, such as Martin Scorsese’s “Last Waltz” and Bob Margolin’s late-night jams at the Rum Boogie on Beale Street at two in the morning during the weekend of the Blues Music Awards. Ever wonder what it would sound like if such a supergroup could sustain for three years instead of one set?

It would be a stretch to suggest that Boston’s Mystix is such a supergroup, but the five members do have résumés that include time with such heavyweights as Jerry Lee Lewis, the J. Geils Band, and Duke Robillard. Bandleader Jo Lily sounds like Omar Dykes on a three-pack-a-day Camel habit; he co-wrote, with guitarist Bobby Keyes, four of the 12 songs on the band’s third release in as many years. Lily was lead singer of one of Boston’s best-loved party bands, Duke & the Drivers, under the moniker “Sam Deluxe.” Keyes has worked with Mary J. Blige and Lewis.

From this description you might expect Down to the Shore to rip a crater in your speakers, but, probably because these musicians have performed long enough as a real band, the sound is much subtler than that. Soul patriarch Pops Staples’ “I’ve Been Scorned” snuggles up to Grand Ole Opry legend Porter Wagoner’s “Nothing Between.” The disc’s title is taken from its opening out, “We Are Almost Down to the Shore,” written by Jiie Strothers, a blind medicine show entertainer who was recorded by Alan Lomax while in prison for killing his wife with an axe. “Good Deal Lucille” finds Tom West (Susan Tedeschi and Peter Wolf) doing his best Professor Longhair keyboard strut.

The band calls its sound “music of rural America,” and inadequate title for a mix that blends genres into a sound this tasty. Boston has always had a knack for creating bands that blend old and new, folk and rock, blues and funk. Put The Mystix at the top of that list.