Low Society Live at the Blues Hall on Beale Street
During a trip to the Memphis area that included Clarksdale and Avalon, Mississippi and further afield, I saw Sturgis Nikides play with his band Low Society at Blues Hall on Beale Street. I was impressed with his guitar playing and Low Society, which is fronted by Mandy Lemons, Sturgis’ wife and a force of nature on blues queen styled vocals. I got to know Sturgis a little bit through the seriously legit slide guitar group on Facebook and when I decided that I was going to start doing interviews on my blog, he was an obvious first choice.
Sturgis is known for playing slide but ironically, when I saw Low Society, Sturgis was in standard guitar mode for that set, which was mainly a tight, riffing and rhythmical supportive style. I later saw and heard his slide work, which impressed me further. Sturgis hails from Brooklyn, NY and he escaped the notoriously difficult NYC music scene to find something that is perfect for him. As he tells it…
“We left NYC in January of 2012 right after New Year’s. Mandy and I were 100% committed to Low Society and I needed somewhere where we could afford to do that successfully. We figured going south was our best option. She’s originally from Texas. We went to Houston. I was having a problem finding simpatico band members, ie the rhythm section which is what I needed. By happy coincidence we ended up in Memphis in April 2012. We went to play the Juke Joint Festival in Clarksdale, MS. Our manager at the time suggested that we go visit Memphis.
Sturgis' Justin Sain guitar
“He brought us to Memphis and put us up in a bed and breakfast. My idea of site seeing is to go on to CL and find out where the local blues jam is. We went to a blues jam at a place called Kudzus. We got onstage and there were people coming on to the stage to shake our hands and say, ‘Welcome to Memphis.’ It blew my mind. We took an apartment and drove back to Texas that week and got our stuff and came back up and we’ve been in the same spot ever since. It’s been a great experience.”
Sturgis says that he was “attracted to the sound of the slide guitar by around age twelve.” He uses a flat pick to play slide, eschewing the Duane school and approach that includes Derek Trucks and his many followers who play strictly with bare fingers. “I tried going the Johnny Winter route, obviously, thumb pick and I never successfully made the transition. I felt very clumsy doing that. My observation has been that guys who do that Travis picking thing are the most fluent and I’m jealous of that.
“One of my favorite roots guitar players if that’s what you want to call these guys is a gentleman from Texas named Mance Lipscomb and he’s famous for a style of guitar playing known as ‘dead thumb.’ Lightning Hopkins – same thing where they’re able to have their thumb play on the four while their index finger and middle finger are playing something entirely opposite and I have had a devil of a time making that happen.
Sturgis hits it with a blue sparkle Strat
“But I’m able to pull off a very convincing rendition of that with the flat pick. I developed a really fast technique so I can play the thumb part and go back and forth to the top strings. The king of that style is Blind Blake. I’ve been trying lately as part of my practice routine to learn Blind Blake numbers.” Asked further about his practice routine he elaborates that he likes “straight up improvising for hours on end, you know, variations on a theme type of thing, I can really get into that.”
Sturgis plays mainly Strats and Teles and a Justin Sain model is his main slide guitar. He favors a glass slide and he wears it on his pinky, using D’addario 11-49 for slide and 10-46 for standard guitar. His main amp the last two years is a 1961 Fender Bandmaster with three ten-inch speakers. Found in North Miami in the early ‘90s, he describes it as a transitional model with a tweed sound in one channel and a magical blackface vibrato sound in the other, a “Jimi Hendrix/Robin Trower Univibe” sound. He adds that he loves the Lewis Electric Danny Gatton amp for its “bell like piano lows and really creamy top,” and calls it a “super clean, beautiful sounding amplifier.”
Gear onstage and ready to go in Little Rock, Arkansas
Although he has recently been including a wah-wah pedal on his board for the many live gigs that he does, he is not a pedal junkie, stating, “I definitely go for a cleaner sound these days than I have in years.” His overdrive pedals of choice include the Clark Gainster, which he describes as “more of a boost,” the Clone Kline, and some original Tube Screamers from the ‘80s that he owns.He emphatically replies to my last equipment inquiry that he “doesn’t use compression,” unlike many slide guitar kings, including Bonnie Raitt, Lowell George and Sonny Landreth. He favors open A and E for his slide excursions.
Low Society recently returned from a tour of the Netherlands and Belgium and I hear that they’ll be heading back into the studio soon. You’ll definitely want to check out the title cut of their latest album, You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down. To hear Sturgis work out in standard guitar mode on a Strat, check out "This Heart of Mine," which features a beautiful vocal performance from Mandy, as well. But if you happen to be in the Memphis area, the best thing you can do is to see a local performance by Low Society or Sturgis in one of his side gigs, which are happening all the time. As he says proudly, “I feel honored to be here. Every time I step on a stage on Beale Street with a guitar in my hands, I feel like I’m participating in a legacy that goes back a hundred years.”
To sturgis. Spoke Ira Bauman who told me how successful you you have decome . Really happy to hear that . You may remember me from Whittier oaks Good friends with your parents . I think you went school with my daughters randy or Karen. Told Ira I was going to try learning guitar . That’s how your name came up . How’s jimmy doing. I know your parents are gone. Sorry! I’ll keep in touch to let you know how I am doing. I’m 86 now ,don’t think I will become as good as you. Wish you continued good fortune. Stay happy and safe... herbie schlesinger
Posted by: Herb schlesinger | 12/02/2020 at 07:31 AM