Hey Blues Fans!
Hope you all had a good week! The best part of my week, was spending all day Friday in my mom’s yard. I pulled weeds, picked up leaves, and cleaned it all out. It’s ready for summer! Now, I just have to plant flowers and her garden… in my spare time!
My interns brought me into the 21st century – and we have our own spotify list! That’s right, click here, and you can hear songs from most of the artists playing this year!
Speaking of artists, I thought I would spend this newsletter talking about the incredible Tab Benoit.
Tab Benoit is a Cajun man who’s definitely got the blues. Born November 17, 1967, he grew up in Houma, Louisiana. A guitar player since his teenage years, he hung out at the Blues Box, a ramshackle music club and cultural center in nearby Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends.
The nightly impromptu gigs were enough to inspire Benoit to assemble his own band – a stripped down bass-and-drums unit propelled by his solid guitar skills and leathery, Cajun-spiced vocal attack. He took his show on the road in the early ‘90s and hasn’t stopped since.
Benoit released Whiskey Store, a collaborative recording with fellow axemaster and Telarc labelmate Jimmy Thackery. Also along for the ride on Whiskey Store are harpist Charlie Musselwhite and Double Trouble – the two-man rhythm section of bassist Tommy Shannon and drummer Chris Layton that backed Stevie Ray Vaughn on his brief but luminous blues career.
Benoit and Thackery took their dueling guitar show on the road and recorded a performance at the Unity Centre for Performing Arts in Unity, Maine. The result is Whiskey Store Live, a high-energy guitar fest released in February 2004.
Benoit returned in 2005 with Fever for the Bayou, a straight up Louisiana blues recording that seamlessly merges his own songcraft with that of Elmore James, Buddy Guy and other masters.
Benoit dug further into his roots in 2006 with the release of Brother to the Blues, a recording that encompasses not only his trademark Cajun blues but also traditional country and vintage R&B. Joining him on the project are members of the cult blues/R&B/rock combo Louisiaina LeRoux, veteran country songwriter Billy Joe Shaver, Americana pioneer Jim Lauderdale and Cajun fiddler Waylon Thibodeaux. Brother to the Blues received a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album.
Benoit’s Power of the Pontchartrain, released in June 2007, is in many ways a musical tribute to the natural beauty of his homeland and the dedication and perseverance of those who still live there.
In 2007, Benoit won the dual awards of B.B. King Entertainer of the Year and Best Contemporary Male Performer at the Blues Music Awards in Memphis.
You can catch Tab Friday Night, as our headliner, he should go on around 7 pm!
Tickets are selling fast… so don’t wait. Get yours today, tell your friends they need to grab theirs too!
Have a great week!
