On August 17th, master musicians will converge at the Blue Ridge Music Center to perform blues of the Piedmont and beyond at the special Sundown Blues concert.
Performers include three top bluesmen from North Carolina including: legendary 84-year-old guitarist-singer, John Dee Holeman, step-dancer extraordinaire, Williette Hinton, and ace guitarist-singer Lightnin’ Wells.
John Dee Holeman was born in rural Orange County, North Carolina in 1929. At age fourteen, he began singing the blues and picking the guitar, learning from older Piedmont blues musicians who had learned directly from master bluesman Blind Boy Fuller.
By his mid-teens, John Dee was performing for pay at house parties, community celebrations, corn shuckings and pig pickings near his home. When he moved to Durham in 1954, he began to incorporate more modern, electrified blues into his rural acoustic style.
John Dee has toured extensively in the United States and abroad, appearing at Carnegie Hall, in North Carolina’s “Black Folk Heritage Tour” and internationally with the United States Information Agency’s Arts America Program. In 1988, he received a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage fellowship, the nation’s highest honor for a traditional artist. He was also honored with a Folk Heritage award by his home state of North Carolina in 1994.
In recent years, John Dee has become a Music Maker Foundation artist, releasing three albums on its label. On his 80th birthday in 2009, his many friends presented him with a new electric guitar, which has helped his master blues stylings and expressive voice sound as fresh as ever.
“Before my back got too stiff,” John Dee Holeman would occasionally set down his guitar and show off his fantastic buckdancing skills. Buckdance is a traditional Appalachian freestyle solo dance style with roots in Africa and Europe, particularly the British Isles, which emphasizes percussive rhythms created by the heel and toe. A precursor of tap, buckdance was popularized by minstrel performers in the late 19th century. Often playfully competitive, it has long been a feature of rural dances and house parties.
Willette Hinton is a also a buckdancer, whose charisma is a match for his fancy footwork. Hinton hails from the North Carolina Piedmont and his style of buckdancing reflects his regional heritage. Willie learned to dance from his mother, Algia Mae Hinton, a great country blues musician and dancer, who, like her son, believes that music and dance are inseparable.
Lightnin’ Wells seeks to breathe new life into the vintage tunes of the 1920s and depression era America and has been performing for over thirty years at almost every festival, camp and blues venue in the country. He has a vast repertoire of songs, is an avid researcher and accomplished guitar, harmonica, uke and banjo player. With his experience, knowledge and well-honed performance skills, Lightnin’ Wells has established himself at the forefront of the traditional blues revival.
The Blue Ridge Music Center celebrates the music and musicians of the Blue Ridge. Established by the U.S. Congress in 1985, the site includes an outdoor amphitheater and indoor interpretive center used to highlight an important strand of American musical culture, which is still alive and thriving in the region.
The site is operated through a partnership between the National Park Service and the Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation. In the summer, its beautiful outdoor amphitheater comes alive through a vibrant and diverse concert series featuring artists like Cash and Leventhal, The Kruger Brothers, The Primitive Quartet, and John Dee Holeman.
Many of these concerts include activities for the whole family such as flatfoot dance lessons and instrument petting zoos. The Music Center also offers scenic trails for the novice and seasoned hiker, educational programs and the interactive Roots of American Music museum. The center and museum are open 10:00 am-5:00 pm daily May-October. Admission to Visitor’s Center and the Roots of American Music museum is free. Mid-day Mountain Music is offered free every day in the Blue Ridge Music Center breezeway from 12-4 pm. The center is located at milepost 213 on the Blue Ridge Parkway only 10 miles from Galax.
The Sundown Blues concert starts at 7 pm on Saturday, August 17th, 2013. Gates open at 5:30 pm. Tickets: $10. Children 12 and under are free. All ticket sales support the centers daily free programs and non-profit traditional music concert series.
Advance tickets are available at the Blue Ridge Music Center or online at www.BlueRidgeMusicCenter.org or by calling (276) 236-5309 x112. (Free ukulele workshop 5pm-6pm led by Lightning Wells -all levels welcome. Please call to reserve your spot.)Bring a picnic, folding chairs, your friends and the whole family. No alcohol or pets. Smokehouse BBQ available on concert nights.
