Derek Bordeaux

Flights & Sounds of Summer

August 14, 2009, 8:00 PM
Free Admission, $8 Parking (Map)

Derek’s sultry, honey-sweet Motown voice is the heart of this tight-as-a-drum sextet, seen frequently in various Southern California and Las Vegas venues.

…And he has nothing but respect and awe for the soul singers who have come before him. Even so, on occasions when he’s shared the bill with legends like Al Green and Irma Thomas or has fronted the famed “Funk Brothers” Motown studio band, the music takes hold of Bordeaux, his remarkable voice goes into overdrive, and those legends wind up having to work a lot harder than usual to keep him from walking off with their audience. And those in the audience are left wondering, where did a voice like that—big, plaintive, honey-sweet and diamond-tough—come from?

The answer is Garden Grove. When Bordeaux was growing up in the OC town in the 1960s, he and his siblings stayed indoors a lot, because being the only black family in town then entailed facing frequent fights and taunts from their neighbors. So they stayed in, spent a lot of time playing music and dreamed of better days.

Those have long since arrived for Bordeaux. All that practice paid off, and for decades now he and his band have been one of the must-see acts on the local scene. As those who saw his Great Park dance party appearance last year can attest, he and his seasoned group make some of the most danceable and listenable music around. When familiar songs like “What’s Going On,” “Just My Imagination” and “Super Bad” emanate from Bordeaux’s throat, it’s like hearing them for the first time. Artist Website