Guitarist, singer and record producer Steve Katz is coming to the Great Neck Arts Center, where he will take audience members through his decades-long musical career in an evening of acoustic songs and storytelling.
Katz, who cut his teeth in the 1960’s Greenwich Village music scene with groups including the Blues Project and Blood, Sweat & Tears, is producing the show as a companion piece to his memoirs, which will be released late next year with Lyons Press.
“I tell stories all through the show,” Katz said in an interview. “Every song has a story and there’s a reason for it.”
The Nov. 9 show and Katz’ upcoming book, which he is in the process of writing, are the latest chapters of Katz’ wide-ranging music career, following a recent reunion of the seminal jazz-rock outfit Blood, Sweat & Tears.
“I [finished the reunion] and I said to myself ‘oh, what am I going to do now?’” Katz said. “I said it’s the time in my life I should write my memoirs.”
Katz, who described the show as a “living memoir,” developed his diverse music style – a changing blend of blues, psychedelia, jazz, bluegrass and rock and roll – in Greenwich Village’s thriving music scene during the 1960s, where he formed the Even Dozen Jug Band and the Blues Project.
“New York City was an eclectic place to be. The musical influences were all over the place,” Katz said. “It was like an amalgam of every influence around that time.”
It was there that Katz met Velvet Underground singer Lou Reed. Katz would later produce two of Reed’s solo albums, though at the time Katz occupied a different musical space than the Velvet Underground’s art-damaged, narcotized rock.
“The Velvet Underground was kind of like the East Village junkie band, we were like the West Village pot band,” Katz said. “The thing that Lou and I had in common was we were both New Yorkers and we were both influenced by Rock and Roll.”
Katz also worked in the late 1970s as the East Coast Director of A&R for Mercury Record, taking part in what he termed the “dark side” of the music industry.
Corporate life wasn’t for him, Katz said, and he spent much of his time producing records for the Irish music group Horslips.
“I didn’t really like it,” Katz said. “I spent as much time as I could in the studio and away from my office.”
The performance will take Katz back to Great Neck, where he said he used to visit Frederick’s soda shop – now the site of the Great Neck Diner – and pick up the Sunday New York Times while living in Roslyn Heights.
Katz will perform at the Great Neck Arts Center on Nov. 9 at 8 p.m., as part of the Gold Coast Acoustic Series. Tickets are available at BrownPaperTickets.com.
