Eric Shoutin’ Sheridan, the kinetic, limber-legged singer and bandleader of the Uptown Rhythm Kings, a Washington-based ensemble that toured widely and helped revitalize the jump-blues music style of the 1940s and ’50s, died April 29 at his home in Naperville, Ill. He was 72.
The cause was congestive heart failure, said his sister and only immediate survivor, Dorothy “Dot” Johnson.
The Uptown Rhythm Kings specialized in the horn-driven rhythm-and-blues that influenced early rock ‘n’ roll. Sheridan sang in the full-throated style of blues shouters such as Wynonie Harris and Tiny Bradshaw.
“In the old days, they didn’t have amplification, just big, loud voices,” Sheridan told the Bangor Daily News in 1995. “Fortunately, I’ve got vocal cords of steel. I just warm up a little before I go on. The hotter it is, the better.”
The jump-blues style, tailor-made for swing dancers, has been revived in recent decades by acts such as the Brian Setzer Orchestra and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. However, when the Uptown Rhythm Kings began performing in the 1980s, they were slightly ahead of the trend. Sheridan, nattily attired in vintage suits and ties, was an anomaly: a youthful Black man working in a largely forgotten genre.
“If anyone in the audience recognizes a third of our stuff, they’ve got to be rare record collectors like we are,” he once said.
A risk-taking showman, Sheridan swore onstage, poked fun at local culture and insulted the heavy drinkers in the house – always with a smile. He was, as one writer described him, “a perpetual motion machine” thrusting his pelvis in time with the music and jumping in front of the musicians to egg them on as they soloed.
During a show at Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, Fla., Sheridan jumped on the top of the bar and from there, swung on a harpoon suspended from the ceiling.
“He was just a completely uninhibited extrovert,” said guitarist Keith Grimes. “When the audience sees someone who looks like he doesn’t care about anything, it is liberating for them.”
He also performed songs with double entendre lyrics, such as “Keep on Churnin’ (Till the Butter Comes),” an R&B number popularized in 1952 by Harris.
The Uptown Rhythm Kings performed regularly at local swing dances and night clubs. “As they picked up an audience, they got better and better and it wasn’t just the music,” said Marc Gretschel, who booked the now-closed Twist & Shout nightclub in Bethesda, Md. “They always looked like they were having fun.”
The band served as an incubator for talent. Grimes became the band director for singer Eva Cassidy. Baritone saxophonist LeRoi Moore joined the Dave Matthews Band. And the band spun off two other D.C.-based jump bands, Big Joe & the Dynaflows, led by drummer Big Joe Maher, and the J Street Jumpers.
Touring the country in two vehicles with a U-Haul for the instruments, the band frequently logged more than 5o0 miles between gigs. By the late-1990s, Sheridan grew tired of the grind. Rock-inflected jump bands proliferated as swing dancing found a new popularity. Yet somehow, the Uptown Rhythm Kings, perhaps too bluesy and now middle-aged, were lost in the shuffle.
A Chicago-area promoter persuaded Sheridan to move to the Windy City in 1997, and he started an 11-piece band, the Big Swing. Though the band lasted only two years, it toured Europe and worked regularly at the Green Mill Cocktail Lounge, a former speakeasy once frequented by gangster Al Capone.
Sheridan also loved rockabilly music and dubbed himself the “King of Blackabilly.” His last band, the North Avenue Stompers, formed in 2013, mixed jump blues and rockabilly in equal measure. However, when he first joined the group, he warned his fans on Facebook that the new band performed in jeans.
Eric Stephen Sheridan was born in Washington on Jan. 22, 1951. His father was a driver for the Library of Congress, and his mother was a homemaker. Sheridan began drumming in high school, influenced by Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich.
His marriage to Robin Cunningham ended in divorce.
Sheridan recorded three albums, two with the Uptown Rhythm Kings, “Oooh Wow” (1990) and “Live Show” (1995), and one with the North Avenue Stompers, “Chicago Rock ‘n’ Roll” (2014).
When not performing, Sheridan, a bodybuilding enthusiast, worked as a bouncer and personal trainer.
No matter how dire the circumstances while touring, Sheridan and the Uptown Rhythm Kings soldiered on relentlessly.
During an early-morning drive from Omaha to an outdoor blues festival in New Ulm, Minn., their sleepy guitarist drove over a deer carcass. His van moved only another 1,000 feet before it stalled.
The musicians all piled into the other vehicle while Sheridan called to say the band would be running an hour late for the job. But four hours went by as they drove through torrential rains and heard tornado warnings on the CB radio.
When they got to their gig, they unloaded through a field of mud and performed – immediately.
Sheridan, always honoring the band’s commitments, had ensured that everyone got paid.
Comments are not available on this story.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
