The dB's return to Winston-Salem to mark landmark vinyl releases

Local favorites The dB’s return to Winston-Salem Wednesday for a show at the North Carolina Museum of Art Winston-Salem (formerly SECCA) as the band celebrates a milestone more than 40 years in the making.

The dB’s are a quartet featuring Chris Stamey and Peter Holsapple on guitars, Gene Holder on bass and Will Rigby on drums. All four grew up in Winston-Salem and went to R.J. Reynolds High School.

They had played together but didn’t form The dB’s until they all, in stages, relocated to New York City.

The band’s first two albums didn’t chart but were well-received by critics. Both their debut Stands for Decibels and the follow-up Repercussion made the Village Voice 1981 critics poll of the 40 best albums of the year.

U.S. record labels weren’t as sold on their stripped-down sound. For more than four decades, vinyl versions of The dB’s first two albums have only been available as imports. 

That changed last year, with reissues through Propeller Sound Recordings.

Holsapple, who along with Stamey handled most of the songwriting duties, says the band is grateful people are still listening to them more than 40 years later.

“It's really flattering," he says. "You make records, and it's basically like shouting into the void, and you don't know whether anybody will ever hear them, or whether you're just making them, or whether they're going to end up in the dollar bins.”

Holsapple says he’s encouraged by the range of people he sees in the audience

“I would say that we have a lot of people who were fans originally back in the day that the records came out," he says. "And then we've got other people who have sort of picked up on it years later. So that's really neat.”

The concert was originally planned for December but was rescheduled due to illness in the band.