The Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College welcomes blues/soul/folk artist Eric Bibb February 10
Blues/soul/folk artist Eric Bibb will take the stage at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. Bibb is touring to promote his recently released album “Booker’s Guitar,” a work that reinterprets the original Delta blues of the early 20th century for a new era.
The Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College welcomes blues/soul/folk artist Eric Bibb February 10
Blues/soul/folk artist Eric Bibb will take the stage at the Community Concert Hall at Fort Lewis College Wednesday, Feb. 10, at 7 p.m. Bibb is touring to promote his recently released album “Booker’s Guitar,” a work that reinterprets the original Delta blues of the early 20th century for a new era.
Bibb, a native New Yorker with deep roots in the American blues and folk tradition, has enjoyed tremendous success throughout Europe – though he now is becoming a familiar face and voice on the U.S. acoustic folk-blues scene. Bibb has been described as “discreetly awesome” and “a total original,” dispelling earlier comparisons to greats Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Bibb is lauded for his ability to “use standard blues ingredients to cook up something all his own.”
Born into a musical family, Bibb received his first steel stringed guitar at age seven, and by 16 his father, Leon Bibb, had invited him to play with the house band for his television talent show “Someone New.” At 18 he played guitar for the Negro Ensemble Company at St. Mark’s Place in New York, and went on to study psychology and Russian at Columbia University – though he left early, moving to Europe to refocus on blues guitar.
Today, with more than a dozen releases under his belt, Bibb is, according to Taj Mahal, “… one of the new, young singers that has appeared on the scene that, much to my delight, has a great voice, is an excellent performer and has a great knowledge about the roots of this music.”
With his latest release “Booker’s Guitar,” Bibb has, in effect, channeled guitar master Booker White, a journey that began one night in a London hotel. Following a gig, he was approached by a fan carrying a guitar case that held a relic from the past: a 1930s vintage Resophonic National steel-body guitar that had belonged to the Delta blues legend White. Bibb found himself holding White’s guitar, and catching a brief but revealing glimpse of the stories locked within it. The encounter inspired a song, and the song became an entire album.
Stated Bibb in a press release, “Holding the guitar that Booker White had played for so many years, seeing his actual handwriting on a set list that had been taped to the side of the guitar – it all made me feel like the time was finally upon me to make a statement about my relationship with the Delta blues tradition. It was like a rite of passage, an initiation. I felt like this guitar finding its way to me was a signal that I had journeyed far enough to be able to make an honest tribute to the music of my heroes.”
Born in rural Mississippi in 1909, Booker White – an older cousin of B.B. King – was a Delta blues singer and slide guitarist who made the bulk of his recordings between 1930 and 1940. He was imprisoned in Memphis in 1937 for allegedly shooting a man, but he jumped bail and made his way to Chicago before being captured and sent to Parchman Farm, a notorious Mississippi prison. He was released two years later, but after recording a few more songs, his music career faltered. He disappeared into obscurity for the next two decades, but was rediscovered during the folk-blues revival of the early ’60s.
Bibb, a teenager when White resurfaced, had been a fan of White and tracked his career from his earliest recordings through his reemergence in the ’60s. The title track to “Booker’s Guitar” was recorded in England using White’s guitar.
“Once I had written that song, I really wanted to make a complete statement and document my connection to the Delta blues tradition,” said Bibb. “I really wanted to put myself in the position of my heroes, but in a contemporary context, and create songs that I feel could have been part of their repertoire and could have come from their own experience.”
View a video of Bibb’s performance at the 2006 Telluride Blues & Brews at http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=4527239,
Tickets for Eric Bibb – $18 for Balcony, $20 for Orchestra and $22 for Plaza – are available on line at www.durangoconcerts.com or by calling 970.247.7657 or toll free 877.282.9992. Or visit the Ticketing Services Office in Downtown Durango at 7th and Main Ave. All sales final.
Showtime is 7 p.m., with doors to the Concert Hall and concessions, serving beer, wine and non-alcoholic beverages and snacks, opening at 6 p.m.
The Community Concert Hall is located in the growing arts complex of Fort Lewis College. It operates through a partnership with the college, a state-supported, independent institution of higher education, as well as the city of Durango, and with financial and in-kind contributions from generous members of the community.
