
Jordan Valentine and The Sunday Saints
Jordan Valentine grew up in her parents’ restaurant kitchen, raised on her Great Grandma’s Alabama soul food recipes and her Mom’s love of Motown. She had her first gig at the age of 14, fronting a 20 piece jazz band featuring Wynton Marsalis; she’s since served as singer and occasional poker collateral for bands all over the country, most recently fronting Boston’s World’s Greatest Sinners. She won 2 WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll honors as Best R&B Act and was nominated for a Boston Music Award in 2007.
Her Sunday Saints represent the very best in R&B sidemen, having individually backed up a stunning cadre of R&B greats including Eddie Floyd, Roy Orbison, The Marvellettes, and more. Their drum-tight, sharp dressed soul review aptly reflects Valentine’s lifelong passion for the rhythm and blues music of the Delta, from Stax to Bourbon Street and every whistle stop in between. As the Boston Phoenix wrote, “Valentine… is a veteran of the Bucket of Blood circuit, where five or six sets of hard entertainment is what keeps bikers and other bar beasts from peeling each others’ skins off, and a good singer needs to be able to hold and bend a note in a firestorm of sound–just like she does.” The Saints’ show is part revivalist meeting, part Saturday night sin, and all soul satisfaction.