Frankie Beverly

See the show

• Who: Maze and Frankie Beverly perform with special guests Chuck Brown and Doug E. Fresh
• When: 7:30 p.m., Saturday
• Where: Roanoke Civic Center
• Tickets: $30.50, $38 and $48
• To order: Call (888) 397-3100 or tickets.com

Go-Go godfather Chuck Brown

Correction: Doug E. Fresh did not appear at the Roanoke Civic Center on Saturday. Stories on Friday and Sunday incorrectly reported he was to have performed in concert.

Frankie Beverly is not retiring. Roame Lowry should know, he's played with the guy for nearly 40 years.

Beverly is the founder and lead singer of funk icon Maze, which includes Roame -- he only goes by his first name -- on percussion. The group comes to the Roanoke Civic Center on Saturday as part of a funkalicious old-school concert that includes "Go-Go Godfather" Chuck Brown and '80s beatbox motormouth Doug E. Fresh.

The rumor was going around that this might be a farewell tour for Beverly, 60, a Philadelphia musician who formed Maze from various groups he led in the 1960s and '70s. Roame said Beverly has no plans to hang up the microphone.

"Absolutely not," Roame said by telephone from Chicago. "He's never even thought about it. We've got another album to do. He's doing some writing right now, in fact. Hopefully, it'll be out next year. In seven months, he's going to Africa for inspiration."

That means Maze will live on into a fourth decade. The group's funk and soul cocktail scored big on R&B radio and charts, but the group never had the crossover appeal that made the band a household name. (Note: "Crossover" is code for "not as many white people bought their records as bought Prince and Michael Jackson records." The band was still a major player in funk and dance music.)

Beverly sang with doo-wop groups in the early '60s and even changed his name from Howard to Frankie in honor of Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers. He co-founded the soul group The Butlers and notched several R&B hits.

Inspired more by the large ensembles such as Sly and the Family Stone and Santana than by buttery Philly soul, Beverly relocated to Oakland, Calif., in 1971 and founded Raw Soul. The group changed its name in 1976 at the urging of Marvin Gaye.

"We were always under the radar," said Roame, who played flute when he hooked up with Beverly just before the transcontinental move. He came up with the name Maze.

"We've always had a fantastic fan base. Are we overlooked? You could say that. No major awards, no crossover airplay. We haven't had product out in 12 to 13 years, but we still sell out."

Saturday's concert probably won't be a sellout, but it won't be canceled like other performances by black singers scheduled at the civic center. In recent months, CeCe Winans, the Sisters in the Spirit tour and Wild Women Don't Get the Blues were all canceled due to low ticket sales, raising the question of whether Roanoke supported black artists. Maze, which canceled a Roanoke appearance in 1995, will go onstage as scheduled, civic center officials said.

The band's live shows yielded a couple of fantastic concert albums, "Live in New Orleans" and "Live in L.A.," which captured the band in peak form. Songs like "Travelin' Man," "Never Let You Down," "Lady of Magic" were huge club hits in the late '70s and early '80s.

For Roame, that era of soul and funk music is unsurpassed.

"I listen to the beats of hip-hop, but the lyrics are of no substance," he said. "It's not like the 1960s and '70s when everybody was serious about true music. The bands were big, there was no lip-synching. Today, the music sounds manufactured. It was a just a truer time."