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A Christmas Swingin' Spectacular with Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
Experience world-class blues, dinner, and drinks — all in one intimate setting.
Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert built the Red Hot Skillet Lickers in San Francisco in 1989, taking the name from Gid Tanner's 1920s Skillet Lickers, and have kept an eight piece band with four horns together since 1996. Siebert arranges the book and leads from the piano. Smith grew up on Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday records in Long Beach, moved to Manila at twelve and sang there for American servicemen, then came back to California and landed in San Francisco. One Hour Mama came out on their own Fat Note label in 1996, and Everybody's Talkin' 'bout Miss Thing! hit number 24 on the Billboard jazz chart in 2000. Christmas Eve, two sets, 110 seats.
Learn more about Lavay Smith and Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers
The band scales from eight pieces to sixteen when the room allows, and Miss Smith to You! followed on Fat Note in 2009. Smith is the fourth of five children of a jazz obsessed father, which is how a kid in Long Beach ended up knowing Bessie Smith and Fats Waller records by heart before she knew what to do with them.