White Buffalo Woman

“White Buffalo Woman is carving a niche for itself in the Northeast Ohio scene, with a sound that can veer from ’60s garage-rock to soul, blues to punk, R&B to psychedelic in the space of a single bar set. –About Magazine – July 2016 - About Magazine

“The Canton-area band has created a record that’s full of soulful tunes like the R&B-infused tearjerker “Always on My Mind” and latest single “Find My Love,” an organ and rhythm guitar driven rocker that sounds like a lost J. Geils Band hit. In short, White Buffalo Woman has the chops to propel the band into the same rare air that produced fellow Northeast Ohio acts like Boz Scaggs, Chrissie Hynde, the O’Jays, Devo and Dave Grohl. – Kevin Wierzbicki – AXS – January 2016 - AXS.com

“The band performs with plenty of swagger on the album. A plodding ballad like “Baby Please” features woozy vocals that would make Mick Jagger proud, and “You Will See” features a nasty mid-song guitar solo that nicely accompanies Rutledge’s enthusiastic yelps. Though retro-leaning, the songs sound as contemporary as anything by Cage the Elephant or the Black Keys.” -Jeff Niesel – Cleveland Scene – July 2016 - Cleveland Scene

“Fans of blues-centered rock and roll will immediately catch the grooves White Buffalo Woman are laying down. They throw some vintage soul and r&b into the mix and even sprinkle on a bit of power pop for your sweet tooth. There’s never been a gimmick with WBW. They write rock and roll songs and they’re pretty damn good at it. Hop on the train now before you’re left in the dust.” –David Hampton – slyvinyl.com – May 2016 - slyvinyl.com

Wed 3/13 @ 7:30PM

White Buffalo Woman, a quartet from the Canton-Massillon area, recently released a self-titled four-song EP that sounds like it emerged from a place much farther south than Stark County and a time much further in the past than 2013 — about 1973.

The plaintive, bluesy “Because of Your Love” could be a long forgotten track by a contemporary of the early Allman Brothers, while “Baby Please” is drenched in old-school soul, with singer Evan Rutledge sounding a lot older, blacker and world-worn than he is. “You Will See” sounds like it actually IS the Allman Brothers, back before Duane died. And that takes them back to 1971. The band is at the Grog Shop tonight with two area bands, roots rockers Oldboy and dreamy ambient instrumental trio Nomads, opening. The three bands couldn’t be more different. Admission is $5.

http://whitebuffalowoman.bandcamp.com - Cool Cleveland

"On the basis of its new EP and previous vinyl 45 — rootsy meldings of garage rock, blues and
Memphis-style soul — the band is the Canton area’s answer to Kings of Leon." - Canton Repository

White Buffalo Woman
"My Days" b/w "This Town"
Grimtale
7" 45-RPM single in picture sleeve, white vinyl

White Buffalo Woman, a four piece from Ohio, gives "My Days" a simmering blues-rock reading where singer Evan Rutledge moans out a requiem for a shattered love affair while guitarist Adam Murphy ladles on additional hurt. Rutledge has a voice that recalls Peter Wolf and the arrangement of the song indicates that WBW might be fans of pre-hit single era J. Geils Band. "This Town" on the other hand is more of a garage rocker, tinged with psychedelia where Murphy's guitar parts are aimed more at the mind than the gut shots he takes on the flip side. Good beer drinking, turn-it-up-loud music that no doubt sounds even better live. - AntiMusic

“I was just in the crowd with everyone else,” Mark Walker, owner of North Carolina-based Grimtale Records, said of the first time he heard White Buffalo Woman. “They seemed to be a diamond in the rough.” He’s not the first, and likely won’t be the last, to describe the gritty, heart-peeling sounds of White Buffalo Woman in such flattering terms.
The “diamond” that makes White Buffalo Woman — a quartet originally from Minerva — is their blues-soaked sound that formed underground like a precious stone “in Joe’s [drummer Joe Gotschall] dad’s funeral home’s basement.” From that house of ritualized death was birthed the four-member band. Self-described “former skate rats,” who use the home’s hearse to transport equipment to shows when there aren’t bodies in it, White Buffalo Woman is a young, howling mess crouching on all fours, readying itself to pounce on the world of rock ’n’ roll.

Walker first heard the band play at a performance in Nashville as part of an “ad-hoc” show associated with elements of The Vault, Jack White’s label. Indicating talents lying within, the performance that garnered their first label deal was their first performing original songs. Or, as front man Evan Rutledge described it: “We ended up getting a gig, and we were like, ‘Oh, shit, we better starting writing some songs.’”

Their sound isn’t necessarily unfamiliar, if you spend most of your time listening to the best of late-’60s and early-’70s blues-rock. For a band sprouting within 40 miles of Akron, home of the now-famous blues-rock duo The Black Keys, an opportunity arises and a shadow is cast. “The Black Keys brought the essence of blues back into the mainstream these last few years,” said Grimatle’s Walker. Which is hard to argue, but for a band organically bleeding blues-rock in Northeast Ohio, it also presents a challenge.

On their first Nashville gig, said Rutledge, “We also did a Black Keys cover, which is kind of embarrassing for us. But if you’re far enough away from Akron . . .” He tilted back his glass, managing to get beer through a big smile.

Sitting in the back room of The Neighborhood Inn in Alliance at 1 a.m., Rutledge was dressed in slim-fitting jeans and an army-green jacket that Jimi Hendrix would’ve been proud to wear on a heavy dose of acid — a rock star-inwaiting.
His looks are still soft around the edges, fitting his early-20s age, but the voice is entirely another matter. Like Jim Morrison of The Doors, which White Buffalo Woman sought to play on the bar’s jukebox despite universally despised and potentially unjustified price increases, Rutledge’s voice is tender yet deep. It’s just beginning to take on the haunting howl of Morrison. And while his hair is not quite long enough yet, the lead singer is a classic-rock deity waiting for the spotlight to shine. Onstage, he romances the microphone like a pro, thumping his chest as he feels soulful lyrics inspired by “older blues stuff, or soul stuff — so heartbreak songs.”

While Rutledge fronts the group and appropriately is the most extroverted member, the other three more than carry their weight. Drummer Gotschall wears the lengthy locks and quiet, artistic confidence of someone who has decided to make music his life. Arriving late from Cleveland, he wore jeans and a white T-shirt, which, like his stubbled face, was decorated with dark smudges. “I’m not actually dirty,” he said. “I have makeup on because I died today.” Gotschall is currently moonlighting as a professional actor, shooting a film in Cleveland, which draws the respectful ribbing of his bandmates — respectful because acting is better than a “real job.” Appropriately, his character dies, having fathered a child who becomes a rock star.

Guitarist Adam Murphy and bassist Ben Stimmel form the songwriting core of the group. Both wear glasses and are relatively quiet, seeming at ease letting Rutledge and Murphy largely speak for the group. Murphy wears his hair long — the better to rock out with — and Stimmel works the bass strings as he bounces back and forth on bent knee. The songwriting duo have been playing in bands together since they were 15 years old, when Murphy encouraged Stimmel to pick up the bass. You’d never guess by the blistering guitar licks that sound like a cross between Hendrix and John Frusciante, but before White Buffalo Woman, Murphy had only played drums in every band he’d been in. Neither reads music fluently, but both see it as an advantage helping to “keep [White Buffalo Woman] original.”

The band takes its name from an old Native American story that [Gotschall] was told growing up, a legend of a sacred, prophet-like woman who appeared to the Lakota tribe and introduced a sacred pipe. Grimtale Records, which released the band’s debut EP, “My Days/This Town,” on special vinyl, sees White Buffalo Woman’s music as sacred. So do fans across the country, who in February helped the limited release sell out in 28 minutes. “We have kind of an online following,” Rutledge said.

This spring, the band is reaching a true crossroads where collectively the members have decided to take a leap and seek the path of rock ’n’ roll stardom. Rutledge cast off the job search he briefly pursued following college graduation in December. “I don’t want to be going to work every day and wearing a suit, I want to be touring and writing music,” he said. Gotschall graduated with an engineering degree last month, only to ignore the job market and pursue his dreams, because when it comes to rock ’n’ roll, “it’s do or die.”

The band is playing shows across Northeast Ohio and rehearsing heavily. They’re writing and even playing live new material with the aim of heading into the studio to record their first full-length LP this summer. “It’s looking to be a little bit different,” Rutledge said. “We’re really into soul right now, and we wrote, like, a bluesy riff with a harmonica solo in it, which is going to be sweet. We’ve been going all over the place, but it’s going to sound like White Buffalo Woman. It’s going have that classic sound.”

Even in the currently rock-rich Cleveland Akron-Canton region, the “funeral home rock” of White Buffalo Woman is a gem waiting to be discovered. Do yourself and the band a favor: Check out their music. If you don’t, four young musicians practically bursting with talent might have to get “real jobs.” Once you take a listen, you’ll realize why nobody wants that. - Buzzbin Magazine

“Part of the New Freshmen class with a nerdy edgy delivery; this was definitely not your dad’s classic rock collection”
— BRAD HARDISTY, Pefromer - Performer

“This sublime debut album from hungry young Minerva band White Buffalo Woman got them airplay on Little Steven’s “Underground Garage” on SiriusXM and a thumbs-up from J. Geils frontman singer Peter Wolf. Contents veer from organ-laced garage rock to Southern-fried soul to uncannily Stonesy, all great fun.” –Dan Kane – Canton Repository – December 2015 - Canton Repository