A lot of good things come out of Atlanta only to find their way into Council Bluffs.

Coca-Cola and CNN are just two.

A third option exciting music fans worldwide and one soon to rock the mic at Mile-A-Way Hall on North Broadway are King Johnson and Merl Saunders, bands that feature flavorful rhythms, an accessible blend of New Orleans funk, earthy jazz, down and dirty blues as well as the soul-shuffling boogie.

Based in Atlanta, King Johnson has a large following in the southeast and looks forward to wowing Council Bluffs blues fans as well as expanding its fan base.

Drummer Greg Baba said the band's current tour is hitting up many classic old roadhouses like the Mile-A-Way Hall, however, the group also will play some theaters.

"We have a circuit of clubs we play of about 200 people and more theater shows and things like that," he said. "We have a circuit around the southeast and occasionally branch out and go to Texas or the northeast coast. With those people it's more 'down home'. We tend to get along better with those kinds of crowds."

Baba said King Johnson sounds a lot like Little Feat or The Band so fans of those two outfits should have no problem getting their bearing at next week's shows on Feb. 20-21.

The key, according to Baba, is the infusion of a little something George Clinton liked to call funk.

"We definitely have a lot of funk like Little Feat," Baba said. "The main songwriters tend to write like The Band. We combine all that roots music, blues and rock with funk. Sometimes we have a tendency to take it out of bounds a little bit, but mostly it's roots blues funk."

Got it? It is what TV Guide's Bret Love called in June of 2001 "sweat-inducing blues funk throw-down" for a band that likes "grabbing hold of an audience and urging them to move, making newly devoted fans out of folks who'd never even heard of 'em before."

But a King Johnson show is not necessarily for everyone. Those who object to a good time on the dance floor all night long, for example, might find the band's style of gritty Southern blues roots funk too much to handle.

Luckily, Saunders will be on hand to level the playing field and make sure these boys don't get too out of control.

Baba said the tour is all about Saunders, who is well-known to jazz and blues fans for his work with such notables as Miles Davis, Bonnie Raitt and Jerry Garcia.

"It's been an honor for our band to join Merl for these shows," said King Johnson front man Oliver Wood (guitar/vocals). "Merl's been accompanied by some of the best, so it's a humbling experience for us. But most of all, it's fun. Merl likes to mix it up on stage like we do, improvising and drawing upon a range of styles."

The show will be about 50 percent Saunders with some Grateful Dead tunes and other covers Saunders has made a part of his repertoire, said Baba, with the other half made up of King Johnson.

"People are gonna enjoy it because they are gonna be able to dance all night long," Baba said. "We've had some really good crowds that stay all night and all the feedback we get is positive. It's a guaranteed good time."

Merl Saunders and King Johnson will perform Wednesday, Feb. 20 and Thursday, Feb. 21 at Mile-A-Way Hall.

They are sponsored by Acoustic Solutions.