A long time coming: Lansing celebrates Root Doctor Day with one-shot reunion concert

Some scary days are coming up on the calendar. Halloween? scary. Election Day? so scary. Thanksgiving? What’s scarier than rehashing the election with your relatives?

Fortunately, this year there’s a new, non-scary holiday in the mix: Nov. 2, aka Root Doctor Day. By the authority of the mayor and the City Council, it is now your civic duty to bask in the healing soul-shine of Lansing’s premier blues-jazz-R&B band.

The real fun comes on Root Doctor Day Eve, when a gala celebration of 30-plus years of music-making will take place at The Green Door. Original band member and vocalist Freddie Cunningham and original bassist James Williams will be joined by the rest of the band’s current lineup and a rotating panoply of past members in a once-in-a-lifetime reunion.

Cunningham professed to be “flabbergasted” by the honor. To ice the cake, Nov. 2 happens to be his 83^rd birthday.

“I was speechless, to tell the truth, kind of shell-shocked. It’s quite a tribute,” he said.

The idea for Root Doctor Day came from Shawn VanSteeland, owner of the Music Instrument Swap in Holt and longtime producer of summer concerts in Lansing, Grand Ledge, Delta Township and Mason. Over the past 17 years, he has marveled at the band’s ability to draw phenomenal crowds everywhere it goes.

“In Lansing, they will put 600 to 700 people in the park, and I’m lucky to get 100 or so for everybody else,” VanSteeland said. “The last two years, they have absolutely drawn the biggest crowd at the Sun Dried Music Festival in Mason. They’re one of the most underrated bands in this town.” 

VanSteeland successfully coaxed Root Doctor into appearing a few times each summer after its putative “retirement” year of 2021. 

Cunningham’s wife, Marge Mooney, spotted Lansing Mayor Andy Schor at one of the summer concerts and mentioned the idea.

“He said, ‘Absolutely. Just let me know what you need,’” Mooney recalled. The paperwork was filed, the requisite “whereas” statements were hammered out, and Schor said he would be “honored” to make the presentation.

Now, about that 2021 “retirement” tour. Cunningham was happy to clear up any misconceptions.

“It was the band retiring,” he said. “It was time for the band to retire. I never thought about retiring. I’ll be singing until I can’t do that anymore.”

Health-wise (and voice-wise), Cunningham is in fine form, although foot trouble forces him to sit a bit more than he’d like.

“That feedback from the audience cures a lot of your ills,” he said.

Gliding into his 80s, his voice mellowing like fine Scotch, Cunningham has kept up a regular schedule of work, co-hosting a monthly blues jam at Moriarty’s Pub with the Johnny D Blues Band (the next date is Nov. 29) and playing regular jazz shows with drummer Jeff Shoup and organist Jim Alfredson at Red Cedar Spirits (the next date is Dec. 18). 

Getting back with Root Doctor a couple of times a year brings almost as much comfort to Cunningham as it does to longtime fans of the band. 

“James was with me the whole 30 years,” he said of Williams. “Everybody else was with us at least 10 years or so, and I’m really proud of the longevity each of them put in.”

Many of the band’s most significant past stalwarts are expected to be on hand Sunday, beginning with its original leader, keyboardist Mike Skory, and first guitar player, Scott Allman.

Skory put together the Downtown Blues Band, Root Doctor’s first incarnation, for a 1989 gig at the long-defunct Tango’s club in the downtown Knapp’s Centre.

It wasn’t supposed to last 30 years, but Williams pushed the band to mix upbeat, danceable Top 40 material like The Commodores’ “Brick House” with heartfelt ballads and gutbucket blues, and the formula clicked with the public.

Unlike the music, the band’s name came off as a bit generic, so they picked a new one from a hat: Root Doctor, the title of a raunchy Roy Hytower tune.

Half a dozen guitarists and keyboard players have come and gone since then. But the heart of the band is unchanged. Cunningham’s yearning vocals still leap into the air on the springy substratum of Williams’ bass.

In the 2000s, Alfredson, who is still an on-and-off member of the band, and guitarist Greg Nagy joined to spark an era of touring and studio work that led to wider recognition, awards and several of the “whereas” clauses in the city’s proclamation. The band played gigs across the state and as far away as Manitoba, discovering that its winning blues formula was just as welcome in rural hinterlands as it was in big-city bars.

Cunningham expects to perform some of the band’s most crowd-pleasing songs on Sunday, like the ebullient “Soul Shine,” gritty “Last Two Dollars” and danceable “Walkin’ Out on You,” but another, less upbeat Root Doctor original has hit him extra hard in recent years.

In “Hold On,” a weary-walking blues track from the band’s CD “Been a Long Time Coming,” his leathery voice exudes quiet determination to get through life’s scary times: “If you need consolation, honey, I’ll be there.”

“It’s about holding on to your beliefs and not taking the easy way out,” Cunningham said. “It’s not as popular as some of our other songs, but it strikes a chord with me.”

Returning to the prospect of scary days ahead, Cunningham finds that music is more of a healing balm than it has ever been in his experience, and that makes Root Doctor Day a welcome ray of soul-shine.

“There’s so much nebulous stuff going around, so much negativity, and if you’re not 100% on your game, you can get caught up in that crap,” he said. “Music has got to be uplifting. It’s got to mean something.”