Welcome To The Roaring Twenties!

The Band

When Rag Doll was founded in 2012, singer Käthe von T. and pianist Amy Protscher concurred: it's Bessie Smith's fault that Rag Doll focuses on the 1920s era and its music. Both musicians have this rare mix of raw emotion and bawdy, down-to-earth humor that lets them travel back in time into the Gilded Age – which may have been a golden age for music, but not necessarily for Bessie and her contemporaries Ma Rainey, Ethel Waters, and Alberta Hunter.

Tanja Becker's extrovert, virtuoso style on trombone completes the classic Bessie Smith Trio line-up. Together, the three Berliners grab their public by their heartstrings and take them onto a trip back to the heyday of ragtime, boo­gie-woogie, Harlem Stride and barrelhouse. The spark lights immediately and the stage is transformed into a fabulous old juke joint in the American South of the 1920s. And rule number one is: Anything goes! You can just listen, groove along, or dance until you burn the house down. Welcome to the Roaring Twenties!

Personnel:

Käthe von T.: vocal
Tanja Becker: trombone/vocal
Amy Protscher: piano/vocal/percussion