Donna the Buffalo’s old school purple tour bus was well known to The Herd across the country. After over a decade of service and after delivering the band safely to thousands of gigs, they decided it is time to retire their beloved purple Eagle tour bus and they just successfully funded a new tour bus through GoFundMe, raising more than $85,000 in just a few weeks!
Donna the Buffalo will arrive in that new bus for their gig at Floyd’s Sun Music Hall on March 18.
Known as one of the most dynamic and determined bands continuously touring America for over 25 years, Donna the Buffalo has created a community environment at their shows through their distinctive, groove-heavy, and danceable music. Donna the Buffalo is a band with roots in old time fiddle music that evolved into a soulful electric American mix infused with elements of cajun/zydeco, rock, folk, reggae, and country.
“This is what 21st century Americana sounds like, a little bit of this and that from anywhere wrapped up into a poignant, jamming dance reel, a place where the past and history meet easily in the immediate now and everybody feels like dancing,” writes All Music Guide.
Donna the Buffalo is Jeb Puryear (vocals, electric guitar) and Tara Nevins (vocals, guitar, fiddle, accordion, scrubboard) joined by David McCracken (Hammond organ, Hohner Clavinet and piano), Kyle Spark (bass) and Mark Raudabaugh (drums).
“It’s been really fun with this lineup,” Puryear says. “You get to the point where you’re playing on a really high level, things are clicking and it’s like turning on the key to a really good car. It just goes.”
“You have to do just what you want to do, and everyone likes different things,” Nevins says. “Both Jeb and I come from this background of old-time fiddle music, which is very natural, very real, very under-produced, and all about coming from the gut—flying by the seat of your pants. So we have that in us, too.”
Being on the road since 1989, the band spends nearly half the year on the bus and they put 1 million miles on the original engine traveling from coast to coast; from their home in Trumansburg on down to Suwannee, from MerleFest to Mcdowell Mountain, from Blue Heron to Grand Targhee, and every fine venue in between.
Over mountains, through valleys, across plains, and desert, their bus enables Donna the Buffalo to share their music with you all.
Jeb talks of his inspiration “rolling off all the great protest songs and the socially conscious music like Bob Marley and The Beatles and Bob Dylan – all of that stuff. So that, to me, is sort of like a tradition to write from that angle as a way of reflecting on what you feel about the world and how you feel it could be better and getting to a different place as a society. There’s also the strength that comes from music and gives you the feeling like you can change those things and make some progress, and then express some of the particulars about what you’d like to change.
Donna the Buffalo drew its original inspiration from a cherished part of the American heritage: the old-time music festivals of the south that drew entire towns and counties together. Not only was it playing music at these events, it was the vibe and the togetherness that bonded the people that attended.
“Those festivals were so explosive, and the community and the feeling of people being with each other, that’s the feeling we were shooting for in our music.” Puryear said. “Donna the Buffalo is an extension of the joy we’ve found.”
This type of bond is what Donna the Buffalo’s fans, self-titled The Herd, connect to and it’s why they say they travel around to see them at shows and festivals throughout the year, including a family of Grass Roots Festivals that DtB started and is still the driving force behind.
“It’s a great feeling to promote such a feeling of community, like you’re really part of something that’s happening, like a movement or a positive force…” Nevins says, “All those people that come and follow you and you recognize them and you become friends with them — you’re all moving along for the same purpose. It is powerful. It’s very powerful, actually.”
