The Blues Project Returns to Saratoga Springs Oct. 8

SARATOGA SPRINGS — Original Blues Project member Roy Blumenfeld (drums/vocals), will be staging a concert at Caffe Lena Oct. 8 with new lineup members Jesse Williams (bass), Mark Newman (guitar/vocals), Chris Bergson (guitar/vocals), and Ken Clark (keys/vocals).  

The band is celebrating its first new album in 42 years, entitled Evolution.  

One of the first album-oriented, “underground” groups in the United States, the Blues Project offered an eclectic brew of rock, blues, folk, pop, and even some jazz, classical, and psychedelia during their heyday in the mid-’60s.

The Blues Project was formed in Greenwich Village in the mid-’60s by guitarist Danny Kalb (who had played sessions for various Elektra folk and folk-rock albums), Steve Katz (a guitarist with Elektra’s Even Dozen Jug Band), flutist/bassist Andy Kulberg, drummer Roy Blumenfeld, and singer Tommy Flanders. Al Kooper, in his early twenties a seasoned vet of rock sessions, joined after sitting in on the band’s Columbia Records audition.