Professor Louie and the Crowmatix schooled in American music

Aaron Hurwitz is one of millions of musicians who can trace their inspiration to a music teacher. In his case, it was a man in his Peekskill, New York, high school who would take interested students to see acts like Count Basie when they’d swing through the area clubs, or invite some to back him up on jazz classics he’d be playing at his Friday night gig.

“Peekskill was a tremendous music town, with clubs for real working people. There was a lot of rock and blues,” says Hurwitz, frontman for the band Professor Louie and the Crowmatix.

While his first instrument was the piano, Hurwitz gradually moved to the accordion, in part because he says “the world’s greatest accordionist, Mario Tacca, lived in Peekskill.” Despite the polka sound the accordion is perhaps best known for, the instrument was very prevalent in the beginning of rock 'n' roll, as well as a prominent sound in blues and bluegrass music, Hurwitz says.

“The thing that interested me most is that when I was a keyboard player and we’d go to a place that had a bad piano, I’d be able to adapt the accordion enough to play the blues,” he explains, adding that, “then there’s the zydeco accordion, which is really like an organ.

“Plus, the accordionists looked like they were having the most fun when we’d go see the musicians in the clubs.”

This love of having fun while creating a mélange of Americana-styled music propelled Hurwitz into the music industry, cobbling together the Crowmatix to delve into the blues, gospel, roots, rock, country and New Orleans-style sounds for the past 30 years. The Grammy-nominated band puts on about 150 shows a year, with set lists drawing from traditional covers and original music written by Hurwitz and his songwriting partner and Crowmatix vocalist Miss Marie.

Professor Louie and the Crowmatix began as the studio backing band for The Band, a gig Hurwitz stumbled into after performing a session with Livingston Taylor in the early 1980s. He was tapped to produce a television show for The Band at the famed Cupertino’s in New Orleans. The show brought in famed musicians Bobby Charles and Allen Toussaint for the gig.

That segued into eight or nine years working on the album “Jericho” with The Band, and Hurwitz stayed with the group through the death of band member Rick Danko in 1999. The Crowmatix formed when he maintained contact with the local musicians who would be called upon to do backup in the studio.

“The next year, we decided to do our own thing,” Hurwitz remembers. “If it wasn’t for being part of a major act, it would have been harder to keep it going, but I feel most at home on the stage. The people who come to our shows are sort of like a big family of music lovers.”

Professor Louie and the Crowmatix shows are a blend of their own songs, Band music, blues, folk, gospel and American roots tunes — anything that doesn’t rely on big arrangements to entertain the audience.

“I like music you can play, and I like singing a lot,” he admits.

The group’s most recent venture is the 2016 album “Music from Hurley Mountain,” which is a collection of Americana music dedicated to the small farm country town in upstate New York where they have a recording studio.

“We wanted to thank the local people so we wrote songs and instrumentations that they would like — things like contra music and other sounds almost like those from the Delta,” he says.

They’re also focusing more on blues music since they’ll be performing on a blues cruise, and Hurwitz says he tends to “write for a purpose or a project.”

He does add that, “Anything I throw at the band, they can do and anything they throw at me, I’m trying to do!”

— Susan McDonald is a regular contributor to The Providence Journal. She can be reached at Sewsoo1@verizon.net.

If you go

What: Professor Louis and the Crowmatix, with Johnny Hoy and the Bluefish

Where: Narrows Center for the Arts, 16 Anawan St., Fall River

When: 8 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10

Tickets: $22 in advance, $25 day of the show

Information: narrowscenter.org; (508) 324-1926