Classically trained cellist Rebecca Roudman rocks out with Dirty Cello
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Besides playing cello with Oakland Symphony and the Santa Rosa Symphony, Rebecca Roudman likes to rock out with her acclaimed San Francisco-based band Dirty Cello.
Bringing Dirty Cello back to the ProArts Playhouse on June 26, Roudman has been called "the Jimi Hendrix of the cello." Pacific Sun praised her as a "crossover cello-rock star," and Good Day Sacramento reported "cello has never been this cool."
Playing with professional orchestras for years, she recalls being "kind of sick of doing the classical thing.
"I wanted to do something else," she said. "When I was 7 years old, my mom said, 'You want to play the harp?' I said yes. Turned out we didn't have a big enough car. Then she said, 'Would you like to learn the cello instead?' I had no idea what it was, but I took to it anyway. So, I guess the moral of the story is, if we had a big enough car, you'd be talking to someone from Dirty Harp instead of Dirty Cello."
Branching out for Roudman, who was raised in a musical family, initially meant "playing with blues bands, performing these boring lines behind them." She said she "didn't get to do any of the fun stuff."
So she began collaborating with her boyfriend -- now husband -- and playing in local cafes "to see if people would be interested in us trying out blues and rock music."
"And before long, people were interested, and they wanted to hear more," she said. "We started booking bigger shows, which meant we needed a band that was more than just guitar and cello. We added bass and keyboard, and I had to learn how to sing, and I picked up the fiddle. Now our band's been together about 14 years."
Basically playing rock and blues with a touch of American and bluegrass, they mix originals and covers. "Dirty Cello's music is all over the map: funky, carnival, romantic, sexy, tangled, electric, fiercely rhythmic, and textured, and only occasionally classical," Oakland Magazine noted.
Their album, "Dirty Cello Smokes the '60s," includes covers of Hendrix's "Purple Haze," the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter," Jefferson Airplane's "White Rabbit" and Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth."
"We have a bunch of originals that we play, but we also listen to our fans, and our fans love music from the '60s, and these are direct requests that fans have said, 'Hey, can you learn this and play it?' And we said, 'Alright, give us about a year. We’ll put it together.'"
Another of their albums, "By Request," ranged from "Crossroads" and Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog" to the Beatles' "Come Together," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Bad Moon Rising" and "Summertime."
The unique quartet has played all over the world from a whale watching boat off Iceland to a hippie commune in Israel's Negev Desert and a castle in the Scottish highlands.
Roudman has come to love the freedom that Dirty Cello provides.
"I'm used to an audience as a classical player, sitting there politely, not clapping during a solo," she said. "And then being on stage, doing the kind of music I love with people yelling in your face and clapping whenever they want to, I just fell in love with it. There's nothing like it."
What should the audience expect at their show?
"We are fun, and we are high energy, and we primarily play blues and rock," she said. "When you come to our concert, we're not like a normal band that has a predetermined set list with a bunch of songs and this one comes after that. We have about 60 to 70 songs memorized, and we just kind of pick them on the spot, depending on what the audience is digging. So, let's say they're liking blues more than rock. Well, we're going to play more blues for them. In a lot of ways, the audience determines what we're going to play."
Dirty Cello will perform at 7:30 p.m. June 26 at the ProArts Playhouse. Tickets are $20 to $35.