Whether it’s Nikki D. and the Browns or Nikki D and the Sisters of Thunder, the D always stands for “Dynamite.”
As Nikki Brown explains this she lets fly with a long hearty laugh impossible to transcribe — and impossible to deny. Proof of the truth of that nickname.
Nikki D is no stranger to Bowling Green. The singer and steel guitar virtuoso has performed at the Black Swamp Arts Festival. Most recently last September, when she closed out the festival and before then with the Sisters of Thunder and as a guest with some of the legends of the sacred steel gospel style.
Nikki D returns with the Sisters of Thunder on Friday, Feb. 21 and Saturday, Feb. 22 at 8 p.m. to perform and record at Grounds for Thought, 174 S. Main St.
Kelly Wicks proprietor of Grounds for Thought and its record label, said he expects the LP will be released in fall.
This is the first live recording for the band. “I’m so excited,” Nikki D said in a recent telephone interview. She said recording in a studio has been more challenging with the more sterile set up. They never had a chance to just jam and capture that live sound.
“I hope I’m not so excited that I sound like I’m screaming,” Brown said.
The band is billed as the Sisters of Thunder, though it also performs under the name Nikki D and the Browns. The Browns put the focus on the vocals while the Sisters of Thunder put the leader’s steel guitar front and center.
Bowling Green fans, Brown said, are likely more familiar with the Sisters of Thunder. The Grounds show will include a mix of each group’s repertoire.
Brown grew up in Toledo in a musical family. Both her parents were members of gospel groups. The father was in the Pilgrim Wonders and her mother was in the Queens of Harmony.
The youngest of four sisters, Nikki D started out singing a cappella around the house. Then her mother added drums to the mix. The sisters would traipse around the trap set and play the cymbals and drums.
When she was 8 her family started attending the Soul City House of God, which is affiliated with The Church of the Living God. That’s when Brown started playing steel guitar. For the past 80 years, that denomination has used steel guitar as its lead worship instrument.
Many of the top musicians in the genre have appeared in Bowling Green, either at the Black Swamp Arts Festival or in concert at Grounds for Thought.
They include elders Calvin Cooke and Aubrey Ghent and jam band circuit phenom Robert Randolph. Brown first visited the festival to hear Calvin Cooke and was able to sit in with him. It was a career highlight.
These were the mentors who opened up the doors of music for her, she said.
(Emily Wittig photo)
Brown said she took a hiatus from the instrument after her father died, and she took over as the leader of the family band The Browns. Having the youngest out front was a novelty that helped set them apart, and the billing as Nikki D and the Browns gave them a more distinctive name than all the other Brown families in the gospel field.
Besides, she said, “I had that passion keep it going.”
Brown being out front of the band would take those who knew her in school as an introvert as a surprise.
About 12 years ago her former teacher Dale Grace encouraged her to get back to the steel guitar, and soon the Sisters of Thunder were born. It started as an all-female band, though one of her aunt’s sons has taken over for his mother drums.
Playing popular music “was frowned upon”in the church, Brown said. “We’re not a baby, baby, baby band,” she said.
But they draw on blues as well as gospel, joining the lineage that goes back 100 years to Thomas Dorsey, the pioneering gospel music composer, who was known as Georgia Tom early in his career.
In originals and covers, the band delves into the same real life concerns as the blues.
“We’re talking about divorce, sickness, being broke,” Brown said. “The way we cope is our faith in God, and we bring that out. That’s what makes it gospel blues.”
Brown said she used to feel like she had to explain more about the sacred steel style to secular audiences. She still talks about it a little, but she’s quicker to get to the music.
Whether in a church or a secular venue, she said, she’s true to what she believes. “What’s so amazing is I don’t have to change who I am.”
Now she and her musical sisters are ready to cut their identity into vinyl. Nikki D can be forgiven if she wants to scream.
