How much does the Roy Jay Band love the Grateful Dead? Enough for the Florida band to emulate the Dead's sound and to have David Gans, host of the syndicated radio show "The Grateful Dead Hour," on tour with them.
Jay and Gans, who also is a performing musician, will be at the Cabooze Thursday.
Jay has enough clout and connections to get bassist Rob Wasserman, guitarist Doug Pettibone and drummer Don Heffington to play on his latest CD, "Joy Ray."
The final track on the disc is certain to be on the Cabooze set list: It's called "Minnesota." It's a band-on-the-road song, all laidback like something out of the Dan Fogelberg catalog, sweetened with pedal steel guitar. Dylan and 4th Street are mentioned in the lyrics. The refrain goes: "It's all Minnesota/ Get on the bus and go/ 'Cause the next step/ is Chicago."'
Got that — rhyming "go" with "Chicago."
