Artist Category: Blues

Alma Vatya

ALMA VATYA is a twenty-one-year-old guitarist, singer, and banjo player who performs American vernacular music inspired and informed by a lifelong exploration of pre-war country blues, ballads, and spirituals. ALMA grew up in the high desert of Bisbee, Arizona. Her love for country blues began when a neighbor gave her a small handmade fretless banjo along with cassettes of Mance Lipscomb and Mississippi Fred McDowell. During formative travels to Mississippi, she learned the Bentonian blues style from Jimmy “Duck” Holmes at his Blue Front Cafe, and the trance blues of Robert Belfour in Clarksdale juke joints. Her polyrhythmic guitar and banjo stylings and nuanced vocals have been honed through hundreds of performances to national and international audiences.

In Death’s Little Black Train, ALMA VATYAs singularity as a performer of acoustic blues and Southern mountain music is on full display. Her intricate fingerpicking propels renditions of idiosyncratic 1920’s blues gems Cairo Blues and Down On Me; her virtuosic bottleneck slide animates soul-stirring recompositions of the Southern spirituals Death’s Little Black Train and Keep Your Lamp Trimmed and Burning. ALMA breathes new life into unreleased Southwestern field recordings encountered during her years of friendship and collaboration with Tucson folklorist and musician “Big Jim” Griffith, exemplified in a vibrant rendition of Gila River Valley tune Lonesome Live Oak. As a trans woman, ALMA foregrounds the brilliance of historically obscured black female blues and gospel musicians Geeshie Wiley, Sister O.M. Terrell, and Rosalie Hill.

Writes AV: “In Death’s Little Black Train, I hope to honor the radical creative legacy of black folk musicians who brought American music into being through beautifully intricate acts of cultural cross-pollination. In these thirteen songs, I synthesize geographically, historically, and culturally disparate traditions, with the hope that they reflect the necessity of American vernacular music in the 21st century as a living, vital, expression of the fundamental humanity that connects us all”

Eric Bibb

How does one measure a life? Success, awards, and wealth are conventional metrics, but for Eric Bibb the measure goes deeper—into the questions he poses through his music. With a career spanning five decades, over forty albums, three Grammy nominations, a multitude of Blues Foundation awards and countless more accolades, Bibb has secured his legacy as a legendary figure in the blues and roots genre.

Born into a lineage of activism, Eric’s father, the late Leon Bibb, was a key figure in the civil rights movement, marching alongside Dr. Martin Luther King. Immersed in the Village folk scene during his youth, Eric found inspiration in the visits of luminaries like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Pete Seeger. Influenced deeply by the sounds of Odetta, Richie Havens, and Taj Mahal, he synthesized these elements into a style uniquely his own.

Beyond conventional genres, Bibb is labeled a bluesman, but he defies categorization, seamlessly sliding between musical realms. Grounded in the folk and blues tradition with contemporary sensibilities, Bibb’s music reflects his thoughts on current world events and his own lived experiences, whilst remaining entertaining, uplifting, inspirational and relevant.

Bibb’s catalogue is now over 40 albums strong, with his ethos exemplified in 2023’s Grammy-nominated Ridin’, which drew inspiration from the painting A Ride for Liberty by Eastman Johnson, depicting a Black family fleeing enslavement during the Civil War. His 2024 album In The Real World, recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios, has just been released, receiving critical acclaim. Am I the change I long to see? Bibb asks through his music.

As Eric reflects on his musical journey, gratitude pervades. Evolution is evident in his voice and guitar playing, with his words providing grounding in truth and fostering a vision of unity amid a world filled with divisive rhetoric. Eric Bibb is more than a blues troubadour; he is a storyteller and philosopher. His legacy is not just in the notes he plays or the stages he graces but in the questions he poses and the hope he instills.

Antar Goodwin

An accomplished artist blending jazz, blues, and soul. Recently signed with Bigger Beast Records, Antar is following up his 2024 album “The Game” with a new single, set to release in early 2025. He’s toured internationally and collaborated with Sting, Lauryn Hill, and Wyclef Jean.

Brooks Forsyth

Hailing from the mountains of North Carolina, Brooks Forsyth is a musician of Appalachia and beyond. He began busking on street corners in his hometown of Boone, NC and has since become a Nashville recording artist. Encompassing a variety of sounds within Americana, he has a large repertoire of original songs, and a versatile guitar style consisting of both flatpicking and fingerpicking techniques.

Throughout the last seventeen years, Brooks has performed solo and with a variation of musical ensembles across the U.S.A. He has played alongside artists such as Doc Watson and Sierra Ferrell, and opened for Ryan Montbleau, Cristina Vane, Town Mountain, and Willi Carlisle. He has also worked with producer Buzz Cason, and film director Nigel Dick. Additionally, Brooks was the lead songwriter, vocalist, and guitarist for the band The Major Sevens.

Elijah Wald

Elijah Wald started playing guitar at age 7, went to New York at age 17 to study with Dave Van Ronk, and spent much of the next twenty years hitchhiking and performing all over North America and Europe, as well as much of Asia and Africa, including several months studying with the Congolese guitar masters Jean-Bosco Mwenda and Edouard Masengo. He has worked as an accompanist to Van Ronk, Eric Von Schmidt, and the African American string band master Howard Armstrong, and recorded two solo albums: Songster, Fingerpicker, Shirtmaker and Street Corner Cowboys.
In the early 1980s Elijah began writing on roots and world music for the Boston Globe, publishing over a thousand pieces before he left in 2000, and his work has appeared in numerous newspapers and magazines. His dozen previous books include Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues; How the Beatles Destroyed Rock ’n’ Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music; Narcocorrido: A Journey into the Music of Drugs, Guns, and Guerrillas; and The Mayor of MacDougal Street, a memoir with Dave Van Ronk that inspired the Coen Brothers’ movie Inside Llewyn Davis. He has won a Grammy Award for his album notes to The Arhoolie Records 40th Anniversary Box, for which he was also nominated as a producer, and his books have won many awards, including an ASCAP-Deems Taylor award and an honorable mention for the American Musicological Society’s Otto Kinkeldey award. He has an interdisciplinary PhD in ethnomusicology and sociolinguistics, and taught for several years in the musicology department at UCLA. He is currently based near Boston, writing, traveling to speaking engagements around the US and abroad, and performing in a duo with his wife, clarinetist Sandrine Sheon.

Paul Rishell & Annie Raines

For over 30 years Paul Rishell & Annie Raines have been hailed as one of the world’s best blues duos. They have recorded 6 albums together including the W.C. Handy Award-winning Moving to the Country (2000), and received numerous award nominations from the Blues Foundation. They have performed and recorded with John Sebastian, Susan Tedeschi, Pinetop Perkins and Rory Block. They have opened for Ray Charles, Dr. John, and Little Feat, and performed on international radio and TV shows including Late Night with Conan O’Brien and A Prairie Home Companion. They continue to perform American roots music and their own compositions at festivals, concert halls, and clubs all over the world. As a working team, Paul and Annie have racked up hundreds of thousands of miles on the road in the U.S. and Europe, collaborated on original songs, and released the Blues Foundation Award nominated TALKING GUITAR , I WANT YOU TO KNOW (Tone-Cool/Artemis 1996), MOVING TO THE COUNTRY(2000), the W.C. Handy Award winner for Acoustic Blues Album of the Year, and GOIN’ HOME (2004), which was nominated for two Handy Awards.

Paul Rishell and Annie Raines’s sixth project together, TALKING GUITAR was released in 2012 and received 2 Nominations for the Blues Foundation’s Blues Music Awards. It features Paul returning to the bare essence of country blues, with stunning solo performances of gems by Lead Belly, Blind Boy Fuller, Skip James and others, with Annie joining in on a few tunes. It is stark, stripped down and intimate. Their previous album, the live recording “A NIGHT IN WOODSTOCK” was released in 2008 as a CD and in 2009 as a DVD on their own Mojo Rodeo label, and distributed internationally by Burnside Distribution, each release earning multiple Blues Music Award nominations. The live concert features special guests John Sebastian, Bruce Katz, and Paul and Annie’s own backing band joining the duo for an eclectic, high-energy set of acoustic and electric originals and classic blues songs.

Paul and Annie are equally passionate about their craft and devoted to the study and performance of a wide range of blues styles, from the syncopated acoustic guitar wizardry of Blind Lemon Jefferson and Son House to Chicagoan “Little” Walter Jacob’s swinging amplified harmonica. Paul has reached what Boston Phoenix writer Ted Drozdowski called “a place deep and resonant as Robert Johnson’s crossroads, where authenticity, soul, and a sense of purpose and commitment ring out in every note he sings and plays.” Annie has added vocals, mandolin, piano, and other instruments to her musical arsenal, while being recognized by top professionals and fans worldwide as the “queen of the blues harmonica.” Says blues legend Pinetop Perkins, “She plays so good it hurts!”

Touring internationally at festivals, clubs, and concert halls, and teaching workshops and seminars, Paul Rishell & Annie Raines have earned loyal fans around the globe. Paul and Annie are featured in the new jug band music documentary, Chasin’ Gus’ Ghost, which debuted at the San Francisco Film Festival in August 2007. They have performed on diverse radio and TV shows including A Prairie Home Companion, Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and PBS’s Arthur. They have performed and recorded with Susan Tedeschi, John Sebastian, Pinetop Perkins, and Rory Block. Susan Tedeschi recorded an “unplugged” version of Paul’s Blues on a Holiday with Paul and Annie for her 2003 release, Wait For Me.

“W.C. Handy Award-winners Rishell & Raines are rousing interpreters of country blues, the original acoustic style that gave birth to electric blues, R&B, and rock. While their guitar, harmonica, and vocals are roiling, muscular, and masterful, their shows are down home-friendly and fun-loving.” –Scott Alarik, BOSTON GLOBE

Ilana Katz Katz

Ilana Katz Katz is a Blues and Appalachian fiddler, singer, songwriter, novelist, screenwriter, essayist, watercolor painter, apparel artist, longtime subway busker, and budding children’s book author who strives to bring good mojo wherever she goes.

Ilana’s humble performance beginnings on Boston’s crowded subway platforms – where she played for more than a decade – unexpectedly morphed into an expanded world of performing ‘above ground.” She’s been hailed as “a star with her own blend of Blues and old-time Appalachian fiddling,” called “brilliant and soulful” by Blues master Ronnie Earl and deemed the “special sauce” to many bands.

A chance meeting with Ronnie Earl in 2013 resulted in him offering to accompany Ilana on her 2014 debut record. He subsequently showcased her in many shows. From there, her distinguished signature Blues style soon had her performing with a “who’s who” of Blues musicians around the country. Her records on Regina Royale and Vizztone Label Group garnered Living Blues charting accolades and a flurry of invitations to perform at Blues festivals. Her growing presence as a guest instrumentalist and songwriter for other artists continues to thrive and her latest endorsement as a Fishman artist helps her bring the music into the world with the best equipment possible.

She still enjoys bringing music to people – as she did in the subway. The post-pandemic environment brings her to street performing when she isn’t touring and recording. Her own brand of Blues and versatile improvisational style continues to flourish. She’s celebrated for her solo performances, as a band leader and for lending her fiddling prowess to various music ensembles. Her talents span many genres – including jazzy scat singing in sync with her fiddle – for which she is known. She’s excited about her forthcoming 2021 release, “In My Mind.”

Tyrone Cotton

Tyrone Cotton’s earliest musical revelation was listening to the raspy, inspirational voice of his grandfather, the Reverend Cleveland Roosevelt Williams, at his childhood home in Louisville, KY. Cotton began playing guitar along to the sounds of popular rock and blues artists and draws inspiration for his debut album from influences such as Jerry Garcia, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, and Mississippi John Hurt, who intrigued Tyrone with his “finger pickin’ and soft, wispy voice.” Cotton’s debut album, Man Like Me, is the result of a lifelong journey of his nearly 30 years of performing in venues and as a beacon of the Louisville music community where he continues to reside today. The collection of songs developed over the past decade and documented on Man Like Me, is a deeply stirring reflection of Cotton’s own experiences which explores connection, loss, hope and resurrection, punctuated by a voice that is hauntingly evocative yet equally warm and alluring.

The title track is a stunner: “Man Like Me” is melancholy, dark and haunting as Cotton’s rich vocal shrouds the opening line. “I understand you’re afraid / And you don’t want to get mixed up / With a man like me / Rumors follow me wherever I go / You better watch your step / You might learn something you don’t want to know”. Producer Josh Kauffman’s production throughout is impeccable in both its restraint and expanse, which is no surprise given Kauffman’s prior production work with artists such as The National, Bob Weir, Anais Mitchell and Josh Ritter.

His own writing is deeply personal and pulls from those influences and embodies a vast landscape of soul, folk, blues, jazz, and rock n roll. “I’m working on new angles and approaches to songs. I’m intrigued by the process of having a story already in place and chiseling it into a song; looking outside but still looking in.” says Cotton.

Cotton has toured throughout the United States and overseas but it’s in his hometown where he’s played hundreds, if not thousands of shows at clubs and festivals. He also retains residencies at several senior living centers where his vast knowledge of repertoire is showcased through performance every week which span 70 years of contemporary music. Soon, Man Like Me will have its moment to join the canon of those celebrated contemporary works.

Nigel Wearne

Nigel Wearne saunters after dark in the music of the night, blending blues, jazz and Americana-noir. Hailing from Gunditjmara country in the deep south of Australia, Wearne is a guitarist and multi-instrumentalist with diverse influences such as Nick Cave, Tom Waits and Rickie Lee Jones.

Nigel has played some of the world’s most prestigious music festivals, including Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, MerleFest, Philadelphia Folk Festival, Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion, Adelaide Guitar Festival (Australia) and the Cambridge Folk Festival (UK).
His sophomore album, ‘Black Crow’ garnered wide critical acclaim including a 4-STAR review in Rolling Stone, a nomination for Best Country Album at the Music Victoria Awards and it debuted at #1 on Australia’s AMRAP Charts. His latest offering, ‘The Reckoning’ received back-to-back nominations for Best Blues Work at the 2023 & 2024 Music Victoria Awards, a 4-STAR review in The Weekend Australian and had two songs selected as finalists (top #10) in the International Songwriting Competition.
A deep thinker and truth seeker with a penchant for all things peculiar, he sings of human frailty, grace and the cosmos; songwriting that cuts to the bone. “Tailor made for fans of Tom Waits… with fire and brimstone lyrics that recall Nick Cave” – Rhythms Magazine. “Poignant and mysterious” – Maverick Magazine UK. “Vocal swagger of Van Morrison and dark spirituality and intelligence of Nick Cave” 4 STARS – The Weekend Australian.

Roman Barten-Sherman

Roman Barten-Sherman has been playing and singing the blues since the age of four. Her playing draws from the intricate guitar stylings of Blind Blake and Reverend Gary Davis, and the soulful bottleneck slide of Mississippi Fred McDowell and Charley Patton. Roman has studied with blues elders including Honeyboy Edwards, Robert Belfour, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Kenny Brown, and Corey Harris.

Roman spent much of 2020 and 2021 at the home of renowned southwest folklorist and musician Big Jim Griffith. During this time, she learned old-time banjo and facilitated the unearthing and digitization of over 60 reel-to-reel tapes of field recordings made by Griffith in the 70’s and 80’s. Additionally, Roman worked with the Field Recorders Collective to release the music of Bill Hensley, a West Virginia banjo player and ballad singer recorded by Griffith in the 70’s.

Prior to COVID-19, Roman performed regularly at prominent Tucson venues, including a six-year stint at Hotel Congress as well as supporting blues legends like The Blind Boys of Alabama, Bobby Rush, and David Bromberg at the Rialto Theatre. Additionally, Roman has performed locally and nationally at blues festivals in Bisbee, AZ, Silver City, NM, Port Townsend, WA, and Clarksdale, MS. In the Summer of 2019, Roman toured France and Belgium. In April of 2022, Roman played at MerleFest in Wilkesboro NC.