By Mike Hughes
Lansing State Journal

(ROD SANFORD/Lansing State Journal) Key partnership: Bob Seeley and Bob Baldori open the Great Lakes Folk Festival at 6 p.m. today on the MAC Stage.

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Double boogie Bob Seeley and Bob Baldori: • Today: MAC stage, 6 p.m. • Saturday: Valley Court Park, 3:30 p.m. and 8:15 p.m. • Sunday: Valley Court Park, 3:15 p.m.

As soon as Bob Seeley attacked the keyboard with his boogie-woogie music, he had a new best friend.

"I saw him and said, 'I should know this guy,' " Bob Baldori said.

Seeley soon agreed. "We should've met 30 or 40 years ago," he said.

Now they're sometimes a duo. They're boogie Bobs, ready to give the Great Lakes Folk Festival a high-octane start.

At 6 p.m. today, they'll be on the M.A.C. stage in East Lansing, making the festival's first music. Then the action moves to the Dance Stage and to Valley Court Park.

Other music tonight will be Cuban and Cajun, Irish and Texan and Slovenian. With one exception - some poignant Portuguese ballads - the music will all be high-energy.

Still, nothing can be more energetic than boogie. Seeley recalls one of his favorites, Meade Lux Lewis.

"He came up to my chin and weighed 300 pounds," Seeley said. He played brilliantly, but pounded the keys vehemently. One club owner complained, "He's ruining my new piano."

Boogie music was meant to be played furiously. It emerged from bars, then reached Carnegie Hall in the late 1930s. It became semi-respectable, but kept its energy.

"Playing it is definitely an athletic event," Seeley said. "It's like jogging."

Or beyond. "I run three miles a day, and it's nothing like this," Baldori said, after one frenetic keyboard workout.

Seeley is 76 and looks sort of like James Garner would without hair dye; Baldori is only 62, but can follow the example of his dad - a Ford retiree who is a busy trumpeter at 87.

Both Bobs grew up in the Detroit area, studying classical music.

Seeley's first piano teacher started with the classics, but let him do occasional ragtime. "He said, 'That's the dessert!' "

As a teen, Seeley studied at a Detroit Institute of Arts annex, under a grande dame. "She had taught and studied in Paris," he said. "She was dripping culture."

That brought the most intimidating moment: "She said, 'Now Robert, I want to hear you play boogie woogie.' ...

"I started to and she's going like, 'Yea, yea, yea.' "

Boogie music has that effect. Seeley has seen it thrive in Detroit clubs and in informal house parties; he happily recalls driving jazz great Art Tatum to one such party. In addition, Seeley had a 32-year gig, playing boogie at Charley's Crab in Troy.

Baldori has detoured in many directions. He had a teen rock group, the Woolies, with a song ("Who Do You Love?") that went national. He produced and engineered records. He got a law degree. He's frequently been the pianist for rock great Chuck Berry.

Throughout it all, he's often returned to the sound he learned early. "Chuck loves boogie music," Baldori said.

It was only three or four years ago that he met Seeley and formed a duo. That isn't easy, because boogie guys are used to winging alone. "The notes on the page are not all there is," Seeley said.

The two men break in and out of solos, with Baldori sometimes adding blues harmonica. They rehearse together, within limits.

"The second time we do it, it might head off in a different direction," Baldori said. "It's like trying to catch lighting in a bottle."

It's lightning-like music that can't be bottled or contained. It's ready to launch the Great Lakes Folk Festival at a boogie-fast clip.

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