We Are St. Louis’ Premier Jump Blues band!

Get ready for a total knockout as St. Louis heavy hitters Sweetie & The Toothaches give you ring side seats to the best Jump Blues in the midwest! Specializing in 1940’s through 1960’s R&B, jump blues and blues ballads, St. Louis’ premier jump blues band, Sweetie & The Toothaches will have you stomping your feet and shaking your hips when you hear powerhouse vocalist and band leader Emilie “Sweetie” Richard belt out tunes such as “Farewell Blues” and “Bigger Fool” alongside her phenomenal Toothaches. Be prepared to sink your teeth into this hot jump blues bands personal brand of fresh smoked rhythms, sweet & salty harmonies and lip sizzling solos. There’s no doubt that after you hear this bands monster swinging energy that you’ll be left with a permanent sweet tooth!

Who Are The Toothaches?

Our Story

I wanted to go swing dancing one night in the spring of 2015 and heard that there was a boogie woogie piano player in town that was playing at a local bar so I decided to check it out. I walked into this bar on Cherokee Street called Yaquis On Cherokee Street, how fitting right!? And Chase Garrett, now our incredible pianist, was playing piano. He was thinking about moving to St. Louis from Madison, WI as there were more opportunities for him to play and I thought he’d be a great addition to our music scene. We talked more about it on his breaks as the night went on and when he was playing I proceeded to dance my butt off lol!

At the time I was organizing my first ever blues dance event called “Dance St. Lou Blue” set for the fall of 2015 and wanted some live blues music for the late night dance. I thought Chase would be perfect for this, as he’s also an amazing blues pianist, so we talked about it during another one of his visits and after some great conversation about music he agreed to do it! I had also been sitting in and singing with local traditional jazz band Miss Jubilee around this same time and was interested in singing my own tunes so I naturally thought since I just hired Chase to play some blues piano that I’d learn a few tunes to sing with him during this late night dance. I didn’t really ask him so much as I told him that I was going to sing with him, but he loved the idea anyway so we began working on some tunes during his visits over the next few months.

When “Dance St. Lou Blue” finally arrived in September of 2015 I was nervous and excited, but mostly just ready to show my dancer friends what Chase and I had been working on. We played a total of three slow blues songs that night and everyone absolutely loved them! It was Chase’s first time playing for blues dancers and my first time singing for blues dancers and we just had a blast and a half! Afterwards we agreed that once Chase officially moved to St. Louis that we’d start working on more tunes. Chase eventually did move to St. Louis in November of 2015 and by the Spring of 2016 we had loosely formed a Boogie Woogie and Jazz band, but didn’t really have a specific style or dedicated members. It wasn’t until the early Summer of 2016 that we came up with the name “Sweetie & The Toothaches” after I literally had to have a root canal and then had to have surgery afterwards because the root canal got infected. Talk about a real toothache haha!

Over the next few years we began to hone in on our sound and style into specializing in 1940’s through 1060’s Jump Blues and found some truly dedicated and incredible musicians through trial and error. We also grew from what was originally a five-piece band into a seven piece monster! Today, we’re St. Louis’ Premier Jump Blues Band and are always working hard to develop our craft and maintain that title. It’s been a hell of a journey so far and we can’t wait to see what happens next!

………….Oh yeah, Chase and I also got married in the fall of 2018, but that’s a story for another time! =D