Blue Beat Soul Music
Soul and roots songwriting
The origin story is almost too good to be true. A teenaged Quinn DeVeaux, raised on a healthy diet
of his mom’s 80s R&B favorites and dad’s classic rock leanings, left his hometown of Gary, Indiana,
and was driving across the country when he really heard Muddy Waters for the first time. He
recalls, “I couldn't believe it. Didn't seem real - that bone-raw emotion.”
Quinn was no stranger to the important legacy of American roots music; it was entwined with his
family’s heritage. His jazz singer grandmother mentored him on church songs and harmonies and
nudged him into piano lessons. His uncle booked shows in northern Indiana, coaxing the likes of
Chicago-based blues giant Howlin’ Wolf 30 miles south to Gary. By the time Quinn started digging
into Chess Records artists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, he was accepting a call to action.
And like any good legend, DeVeaux left home for the wider world: first to Kansas, then to Olympia,
Washington, to attend Evergreen State College, and a brief stint in Los Angeles (immortalized in his
2013 ebullient kiss-off “Left This Town”), before finding a spiritual home in San Francisco. By the
time he began sharpening his performance and songwriting chops through Bay-area cover bands,
Quinn had been baptized by Ray Charles, Al Green, and, most profoundly, the working man
storyteller Bill Withers.
After playing in a number of configurations that explored all corners of his musical passion, Quinn
DeVeaux assembled his Blue Beat Review, which merged his diverse tastes into a rollicking
itinerant house party, demolishing venues and releasing several acclaimed records featuring
Quinn’s ever-swelling writing and performing skills.
By the time DeVeaux dropped 2018’s This Could Be Yours, he craved a leap of faith and decamped to
Nashville to work on his follow-up, 2020’s confident classic Book of Soul. Featuring new spins on
modish 60s R&B (“All I Need”), simmering Al Green-inspired soul (“Come On Home”), Beale Street
swagger (“Good Times Roll”), and afterhours gutbucket blues (“Stay the Night”), DeVeaux’s
Nashville gambit paid off handsomely, solidifying his reputation as versatile and powerful artist.
Pausing briefly to work with old SF friends and bandmates The California Honeydrops on a stellar
2022 single, “Take You Back” / “Very Best Thang”, found Quinn building on Book of Soul’s
momentum and marked a particularly prolific period in his songwriting, seemingly plucking from
the air a wide variety of songs. Quinn explains, “I write everyday and it's a puzzle that gives me so
much joy to assemble. .”