Vashon Island’s Blue Heron: Blues for Christmas
December 19, 2008 at 3:42 am Leave a comment
Carter Castle, Rick Winsor & John Browne
Friday, Dec 19, 8 pm
At: The Blue Heron
Tickets: $10 VAA members, students and seniors, $12 general
Former Islander and blues guitarist, Ricker Winsor will join Island musicians Carter Castle and John Browne for an all-blues reunion concert with a holiday flavor, 8 p.m., Friday, December 19, at Blue Heron Art Center. Each musician will play solo and they will also perform as a trio. The evening will also include a few blues-tinged holiday/solstice tunes.
In addition to the tradition of Mance Lipscomb, John Hurt, Robert Johnson, John Prine and other legendary blues players, Winsor, Browne and Castle will bring their own lifetimes of experience and expertise to the stage for this one-night only show. Each musician will play from his own repertoire solo in round-robin style and together. They also have some holiday tunes in mind for this PG-13 evening of blues.
Castle, who classifies himself more as a ‘folk-driven’ singer/songwriter, says his music definitely carries elements of blues. “Sometimes it’s about oppression and grief; other times it’s farcical. Blues was the foundation for so many other musical art forms to follow,” says Castle. “I like ‘roots’ music and blues is the ultimate roots music.”
“When I first heard John Browne play, I thought now there’s a guy who really knows how to play the blues. He’s the real thing; he and Ricker both are very expressive masters of the blues,” says Castle of his fellow players. “They are historians of this type of music and play a lot; they’re both true storytellers.
Winsor has played guitar since he was a teenager. In addition to his love of the blues, he also plays bossa nova and sings in Portuguese, Italian and French. He performs in venues near his home in Vermont and New Hampshire and has released four wonderful CD’s that belong in the collection of anyone who loves the blues. Read more at rickerwinsor.com.
Seattle native and Vashon resident for 25 years, John Browne has played guitar since his teens and picked up the harmonica in the mid-1960’s. He lived in San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury district in 1966-67, and played with a jug band called pH Factor. The group’s first paid gig was held at the Matrix where they opened for famous country blues guitarist, Lightnin’ Hopkins.
Experiencing the psychedelic moment, they toured with Big Brother and the Holding Company and opened for The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger, the Byrds, Mothers of Invention, Lenny Bruce and Jefferson Airplane. Their band, pH Factor, according to Browne, played 20’s and 30’s street music, a combination of jazz, blues and social protest songs. “It was culturally relevant and a lot of fun,” he says. Browne says they recorded an album, but before it was released, the record company was sold along with all its media property. A decade later, the album was released in England and coined as ‘an example of the San Francisco sound in the 1960’s.’ Browne has one of the few copies.
For the upcoming show, he plans to play some of the Memphis Jug Band tunes, some Gus Cannon and some original music. “I’ve written enough music to fill an evening myself,” he says. His guitar, harmonica and seasoned blues voice brings authority and generosity of spirit to every tune. Browne is a Vashon classic and rarely plays publicly these days. But he has been working on a CD and may have one available for this performance.
Don’t miss this concert and stick around for eggnog after the show!
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Entry filed under: • Vashon Events, Kids, Music. Tags: Add new tag, Blues for Christmas, Carter Castle, John Browne, Ricker Winsor, Vashon Allied Arts, vashon island events, Vashon Island Kids, Vashon Island music.
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