Live at Lakeview’s colorful opener: Raymond Victor Band

Raymond Victor’s storied career will soon include opening the fourth season of the Live at Lakeview series Thursday in South Lake Tahoe.

What can concertgoers expect?

“I have no idea,” Victor told Tahoe Onstage. “I never use a set list. I have to look at the people and then I say, ‘OK, here we go.’ ”

Raymond Victor Band
The Raymond Victor Band, from left, Raymond Victor, Marcus David and Diane Dutra.

The 65-year-old Victor is a piano player who lived in Chicago during the city’s blues heyday in the 1950s and ’60s.

“I didn’t play blues then because everybody was doing it,” said Victor, who has since changed his tune and will add blues to Lake Tahoe and its sky.

Victor spent many years working as a sideman with blues and jazz legends. He also wrote for CBS and lived in Hollywood working as a studio musician. Now a resident of Vallejo in the north Bay Area, Victor has been a band leader for 26 years.

He also plays with the Used Blues Band, a one-time finalist at the International Blues Challenge in Memphis, where he said a relaxed attitude may have contributed to his band’s success. “We were happy to be a part of it and being in Memphis,” he said. “If we knew we were going to advance we wouldn’t have stayed up until 4 in the morning.”

Victor has plenty of great stories to tell, and he did so as he played piano during a telephone interview with Tahoe Onstage.

“I played with Buddy Miles on his prison tour,” he said. “I don’t know what he had been in jail for.” Nonetheless, Miles must have been happier playing in bars then behind them.

Victor also performed with Big Mama Thornton, who had her biggest hit, “Hound Dog,” in 1952, before Elvis Presley made his own release of the song.

Raymond Victor
Raymond Victor said his beard was much longer when he shared the stage with Big Mama Thornton.

“She had a reputation but when I was with her she was clean as a whistle,” Victor said. “She wasn’t a big talker. She did her talking on stage. I played with my back to her and I watched in a mirror for her hand signals. She goes by whatever she feels like and it keeps every performance fresh and alive and real. She called the mirror my ‘shaving glass,’ which was funny with my long beard.”

Victor said he also played with Bobby “Blue” Bland, and they performed at a birthday party for Joni Mitchell on the Sunset Strip along with Bo Diddley, who played his homemade “diddley bow” cigar box guitar.

“He tunes his instrument from outer fucking space,” Victor said. “He would tune it to whatever sounded good to him. Bobby just rolled his eyes. But everybody was smiling and having a good time.”

The interview ended after Victor said he was headed to a rehearsal.

“My idea of rehearsal is not to sit around and talk about how a song goes,” he said. “We have a downtown club where we rehearse live.”

Live at Lakeview’s parking not only is free this summer, the city has agreed to a five-year contract with the music promoters On Course, waiving $6,500 in rental fees each season. It also will provide a $5,000 cash sponsorship this year and $2,500 each of the following four years. A city official also estimated $30,000 is spent on park, streets and public safety services.

Citations will be given to concertgoers with dogs and cigarettes, and beer is only allowed in a beer garden, which will donate a substantial portion of its revenue to the effort to build a BMX track at Bijou Community Park.

On Course provides a free bike valet and motorists are encouraged to carpool.

  • Live at Lakeview
    Lakeview Commons, South Lake Tahoe
    4:30-8:30 p.m. Thursdays
    Date                Headliner, opener
    June 25            Raymond Victor Band, Johnny Gold Trio
    July 2               Tubaluba, Patrick Walsh
    July 9               World’s Finest, MerryGold
    July 16             Fish Out of Water, Taking Root
    July 23             Rian Basilio & the Roosters, Weapon
    July 30             Dad’s LPs, Worn Out Welcome
    Aug. 6             The Lil’ Smokies, Musical Charis
    Aug. 13           Polyrhythmics, Big Sticky Mess
    Aug. 20           Scott Pemberton, 4 Piece Puzzle
    Aug. 27           Lavish Green, Black Star Safari
    Free Bike Valet, Beer Garden, Food and Art Vendors

ABOUT Tim Parsons

Tim Parsons
Tim Parsons is the editor of Tahoe Onstage who first moved to Lake Tahoe in 1992. Before starting Tahoe Onstage in 2013, he worked for 29 years at newspapers, including the Tahoe Daily Tribune, Eureka Times-Standard and Contra Costa Times. He was the recipient of the 2011 Keeping the Blues Alive award for Journalism.

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