SPARE KINGS

Spare Kings started as a Sunday brunch gig at High Cotton and turned into something bigger. Three musicians with deep roots in the Southeast music scene — playing together because the music is too good not to. Jeff Kozelski (vocals, guitars) has two solo LPs, a Charleston City Paper profile, and over two decades on stages across the region with King Hippo, The Outervention, and a fill-in gig on bass for Darius Rucker, and Foot with members of Band of Horses. Stephen Jenkins (keyboards, vocals, acoustic guitar) came from New Bern, North Carolina by way of Raleigh's Traces of Morrow, bringing jazz piano training and a singer-songwriter ear. Fuller Condon (upright bass, vocals) studied music at Columbia University and spent years touring the US and Europe as one half of The Two Man Gentlemen Band — the vaudeville-jazz duo that opened for Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson and wrote the theme song for Disney's Wander Over Yonder. The trio holds a Saturday night residency at The Establishment on Broad Street, where they've been called "local legends" by the venue. Their sound pulls from piano jazz, blues, classic soul, and roots — three-part harmonies over hits spanning the 1950s through today, delivered with the kind of energy that keeps people in their seats way past last call. Spare Kings also perform benefit shows, including a scholarship fundraiser at the Craven Arts Council in New Bern covered by WNCT News. Recording plans are in the works.