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Tour Bus Tunes (Playlists from Marco Benevento, Galactic, Zach Deputy…)

Since festival season and summer tours are underway, both fans and musicians will be putting lots of miles on their cars and tour buses. If you’re looking for musical inspiration while on wide-open road, check out these responses from some of our favorite, well-traveled musicians. Relix asked some artists what they like to listen to while they’re on the road – and we received a wide array of responses, from podcasts to dubstep and everything in between. Click here to check out part one with Bela Fleck, Keller Williams and others…

Marco Benevento

Marco’s daughter, ready for tour

Sleigh Bells “Infinity Guitars”
It’s just the best riff ever !! The tune is super uplifting and powerful and simple and danceable and badass – we’ve been covering it for the last couple of months and it’s a great tune to rock people.

Kris Kristofferson “Sunday Morning Coming Down”
Dave Dreiwitz, Andy Borger and I like to get our days started with Kris when we’re on the road. — the words are pure poetry – “and the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad so I had one more for dessert” — Kris is a personal hero for all of us — he’s a badass songwriter – an actor and a helicopter pilot – apparently he landed on Johnny Cash’s yard and brought him some music he was workin on .

Galt MacDermot “Coffee Cold”
Oh Galt – how long is the hair that comes out of your ears?? Dan Ramirez (our soundguy) turned us on to his stuff. Great piano rock from the 70’s – great production- super catchy too.

James Booker “Life”
I’ve been listening to Booker for over 10 years and I notice something more amazing about his playing everytime. He’s THE New Orleans pianist that I highly look up to.

Shel Silverstein – “Freakin’ At The Freakers Ball”
We’ve been listening to a lot of Shel lately. He wrote a bunch of great tunes, “Sylvia’s Mother,” “A Front Row To Hear Ole Johnny Sing,” “Daddy What If?” and my personal favorite “Queen Of The Silver Dollar.” I can hear (and feel) attitude and pure human emotion when I listen his words and music.

Robert Mercurio (Galactic)

Dr. John – Locked Down
Jack White – Blunderbuss
Lyrics Born – Variety Show Season 5
Allen Toussaint – Life, Love, Faith
Raphael Saadiq – Stone Rollin’

Jennifer Hartswick

I would say… let’s see… there are two things I constantly listen to: Snarky Puppy is one of them. They’re an incredible band originally from Texas, now in Brooklyn. I listen to a lot of Snarky Puppy really loud. Dawes is a really great band; we listened to them on the way [to Chicago]. I like to feel good! You just want to drive with the windows open and feel good.