Kings and Strings Meditate on Morrison

When the home-grown classic rock band Doublewide Kings plays the Granada Theatre on November 11, it will mark a lot of firsts for the group. It will be the debut at Santa Barbara’s grandest venue for the band founded by Montecito’s Palmer Jackson, Jr., who also happens to be the Executive Chairman and Chairman of the Board at the Granada. It will be the first time the Kings, who have previously performed tributes to the Allman Brothers, Grateful Dead, Neil Young, and others, take on an evening-length tribute to Celtic rock icon Van Morrison. Most importantly, though, it will also represent the debut for the Kings to play with the live accompaniment of a symphony orchestra, as well as the Santa Barbara Symphony’s first-ever time playing with a full rock band. 

As a side note, it will also be the first chance in a while to hear Morrison’s most famous songs in successions – “Brown Eyed Girl,” “Moondance,” “Domino,” “Wild Night,” and “Tupelo Honey,” and many more – as Van the Man performed a particularly obscure program in his appearance just last month at the Santa Barbara Bowl. 

The Kings-Symphony collaboration came about through a conversation between Nir Kabaretti, artistic director of the Symphony, and Jackson, who also serves on the orchestra’s board. 

“So many great rock bands used symphony orchestras on their biggest hits,” Kabaretti explained. “The Beatles recorded their albums using the best musicians from the London Philharmonic. I can’t hear ‘When I’m 64’ and not think about the trio of the clarinet, harp, and piccolo trumpet. So it seemed like a natural way for the music to evolve for us.” 

It was Jackson who suggested Morrison’s music as the Kings wanted to return to a single-focus show again after concentrating on originals in 2022. “So many of his songs either have horns or strings on them,” he said. “We thought it would be a blast to play them with an orchestra.” 

Having brand new orchestral arrangements created for the 40-member strong contingent of the Symphony gives the projects an even deeper original flair. San Francisco-based Brett Strader created charts for more than a dozen songs and will serve as musical director and pianist for the concert. 

Most of the members of the Santa Barbara Symphony are seasoned veterans of studio work for Hollywood film scores, soundtracks and more, but for the five members of the Doublewide Kings, who play everywhere from Fiesta mercados to the Avocado Festival to the Lobero Theatre, fronting a symphony seems almost a surreal experience. 

“We’re very excited and a little bit nervous,” Jackson said. “Even the rehearsal is going to be really wild to be up there playing with a symphony. I think it’s going to be amazing.” 

The toughest part, Jackson said, will be having to conform to what’s written in the charts, a first for the Kings.

“We’re something of a jam band. Our songs have a rough structure with lots of room for us to play, take another solo or whatever before we go back to the chorus. But this has to be locked down for the Symphony. On the other hand, the charts are amazing. When we got them a month ago, Nir was thrilled. We’re all really excited for the concert.” 

Kabaretti concurred.

“I’m imagining that maybe 90 percent of the people who come to the concert may never have seen the Symphony before,” he said. “Maybe it will entice them to say, hey, they’re cool. Let’s check out a regular concert.”

Classical Corner: More with the Symphony

While the subset of the Santa Barbara Symphony performs Saturday night at the Granada with the Doublewide Kings, the organization’s youth ensembles also hit local stages a few blocks away at the Lobero for their quarterly concerts over the weekend. The beginner and intermediate Camerata Ensemble and Philharmonia Orchestra share a bill playing orchestral favorites by Dvořák, Handel, and Tchaikovsky, plus spooky tunes, holiday classics, and fun arrangements of jazz and pop standards under the baton of Marisa McLeod on November 11 at First Presbyterian Church. The following afternoon, conductor Daniel Gee leads the more advanced Youth Symphony through a program featuring Bizet’s “L’Arlesienne Suite No. 2,” Vaughan Williams’ “Fantasia on Greensleeves,” the first movement of Mendelssohn’s “Piano Concerto No. 1 in G Minor” (with soloist Ellen Butler), Copland’s “Variations on a Shaker Melody,” and Arturo Márquez’s “Danzon No. 2” at the Lobero. Free admission. Info at https://thesymphony.org/education.