Guitar Legends Unite for Rockin' Blues Revue

Media Contact:

Kristen Gleason
Director for Community Relations and Education
434·979·1922 ext. 103
kristen@theparamount.net

For Immediate Release

October 26, 2005

The blues will reign supreme at The Paramount on Tuesday, November 8 when three guitar icons of the genre take the stage for a Rockin' Blues Revue. The show brings three musicians -- John Mayall, Robben Ford, and Eric Bibb -- together for the first time in an exciting evening celebrating blues music.

John Mayall, "The Godfather of British Blues," pioneered The British Blues Boom of the late '60s with his group The Bluesbreakers, and current band members Buddy Whittington, Hank Van Sickle, and Joe Yuele will appear at this concert. During his forty-plus year career, Mayall has played alongside legendary musicians including Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Red Holloway, and has recorded more than fifty albums.

Four-time Grammy® nominee Robben Ford has distinguished himself in a variety of genres, from R&B to jazz-fusion. He is the founder of the legendary group The Yellowjackets, and has toured with Joni Mitchell, Charlie Musselwhite, and George Harrison. The guitarist/singer's first love has always been the blues, an idiom he has explored at several points in his richly varied career.

Grammy-nominated artist Eric Bibb has received four W.C. Handy nominations as Best Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year. Bibb's songwriting and performance talents have caught the attention of fellow musicians and others in the music industry such as Robert Cray, the late Ray Charles, and John Mayall (who has recorded several of Bibb's compositions), and his songs have also been featured in numerous films and television shows in the United States and England.

The November 8 concert will begin at 8 pm. Seats are $39, $36, and $33. Tickets are available online or through The Paramount's Box Office at 434.979.1333. For more information on these artists, please visit www.johnmayall.com, www.robbenford.com, and www.ericbibb.com.

-- ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FOLLOWS --

JOHN MAYALL
Born in Macclesfield, Cheshire, on November 29, 1933, Mayall was the son of a semi professional guitar player and taught himself the basics of guitar and boogie-woogie piano by age 14. In 1964, after moving to London and performing in clubs, he formed the now legendary Bluesbreakers releasing his first Decca single, "Crawling Up a Hill." The following year he hired Eric Clapton and the landmark Bluesbreakers album broke into the UK charts putting John on the map in a big way. When Eric and Jack Bruce left the band to form Cream, Peter Green took over the hot spot and along with original bassist John McVie and drummer Mick Fleetwood, a new chapter emerged that would later split from the Bluesbreakers and become Fleetwood Mac in 1967.

The next major addition to the band was 18-year-old guitarist Mick Taylor; he and drummer Keef Hartley saw various changes in direction encompassing elements of jazz and blues as John added horn players before finally paring everything back and forming a drummer-less band. They cut the legendary acoustic live album The Turning Point, from which "Room to Move" was to become his traditional set closer. John then made his permanent move from England to Los Angeles and began forming bands with American musicians featuring such masters as Blue Mitchell, Red Holloway, Freddie Robinson, Larry Taylor and Sugarcane Harris, among others.

The year 1979 saw fire destroy his Laurel Canyon home, but on the brighter side also included the beginning of John's relationship with Maggie Parker, a singer/songwriter from Chicago who not only joined the band but became his wife. With worldwide interest in blues music on the wane, John reignited his career in 1982 by taking a step back and reforming the Bluesbreakers on a temporary basis with Mick Taylor and John McVie. A concert featuring guests Albert King, Etta James, Buddy Guy and Junior Wells was released on video as Blues Alive, and a new Los Angeles based set of Bluesbreakers were recruited. Guitarists Coco Montoya and Walter Trout (both of whom went on to solo success) helped kick off the next chapter which grew in stature over the next ten years. After Coco left, John discovered the remarkable Texas blues guitarist Buddy Whittington, a powerful addition to the group, featured on a string of albums including Spinning Coin, Blues for the Lost Days, Padlock on the Blues, UK Tour 2K, and Along for the Ride.

In 2001 John released his 51st album, entitled John Mayall And Friends -- Along For The Ride (Eagle Records). This 40th anniversary commemoration featured musicians who either worked with John during his long career (such as Mick Taylor, Peter Green, John McVie, Mick Fleetwood and Red Holloway) and others (including Otis Rush, Jeff Healey, Billy Gibbons, Steve Miller, Billy Preston and more). In 2002 John and the Bluesbreakers released Stories (Eagle Records) and in May of 2005, Road Dogs was released, again on Eagle Records. In 2003 a very special reunion took place. After thirty-eight years the most famous of the Bluesbreakers took to the stage once more with John. In celebration of John's 70th birthday and for the benefit of UNICEF's fight against child exploitation, Eric Clapton, Mick Taylor and British Blues pioneer Chris Barber took to the stage in Liverpool to blast through nearly two and a half hours of stunning blues.

ROBBEN FORD
Robben Ford's earliest musical steps were in the blues, playing with his brothers in the Charles Ford band and backing harmonica great Charlie Musselwhite. Robben then joined the legendary Jimmy Witherspoon. But his career took an unexpected turn in 1974, when he was discovered by saxophonist Tom Scott. He began to perform and record with Scott's jazz-fusion band, L.A. Express, and joined them in backing songwriter Joni Mitchell for two years. He played on her Court and Spark tour and double album Miles of Isles (1974), as well as contributing his guitar work to The Hissing of Summer Lawns (1975).

On the strength of his live work with Mitchell, Ford was drafted to join George Harrison on what would be the ex-Beatles only solo tour ever. In the program book for the Dark Horse tour, it is noted "Only once in a blue moon is there an artist so natural to the blues and to jazz as Robben Ford."

The year 1979 saw the release of his solo debut album, a fusion-flavored excursion called The Inside Story. Out of that recording came the legendary group Yellowjackets who would go on to record two albums for Warner Records.

In the late '70s and early '80s he worked with so many different artists that he was labeled a "fusion guitar player." Robben says "it just wasn't true. Not in my heart, anyway. And it wasn't until my second album Talk to Your Daughter in 1988 that I got to make my first blues offering." That album received a Grammy® nomination for Best Contemporary Blues Recording. The promotional tour for Talk to Your Daughter ultimately led to the formation of a full time blues-based band, Robben Ford and the Blue Line, with Roscoe Beck on bass and Tom Brechtlein on drums. The trio recorded a string of landmark albums including a self-titled debut in 1992, Mystic Mile in 1993, and 1995's Handful of Blues. The albums garnered two more Grammy® nominations for Best Contemporary Blues Recording.

By the second half of the decade, Robben was again ready for a change. After an amicable split with the Blue Line, he recorded Tiger Walk in 1997, backed by Keith Richards' rhythm section. "Tiger Walk was an instrumental rock and R&B record, which was nothing that my audience expected at the time," says Robben. "And the next record, Supernatural (1999), was an even further departure." The album Supernatural was well received, and "In the Beginning" (from Tiger Walk) was nominated for a Grammy® in the Best Instrumental Rock category.

Like many a guitar legend, Robben discovered that the blues is a mistress that doesn't like to be ignored for very long. That brought him into the studio to record Blue Moon in 2002 and Keep on Running in 2003. Keep on Running boasts a core group of heavy weight players -- bassist Jimmy Earl and drummers Toss Panos and Steve Potts. In this recording Ford tips his hat to Muscle Shoals and the MG's, offering fresh takes on soul classics in addition to serving up several glowing originals.

ERIC BIBB
Eric Bibb is busy touring the world, performing for fans and enjoying success in the Europe and the U. S. acoustic folk-blues scene. Whether performing an original composition or giving his interpretation of a classic, Bibb has been appropriately described as "discreetly awesome" and "a total original."

Born in 1951, Bibb is a native New Yorker with deep roots in American Blues and Folk traditions. He is the son of '60s folk and musical theatre singer and television personality, Leon Bibb. His uncle was world famous jazz pianist and composer John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet, and singer/actor/activist Paul Robeson was his godfather. Bibb got his first guitar when he was seven; at age 16, he was invited by his father to play guitar in the house band for Leon's television show, Someone New. In 1969, he played guitar for the Negro Ensemble Company at St. Mark's Place in New York. Eric left for Paris the following year, making his way playing in restaurants, traveling from Paris to Sweden, and settling in Sweden in the 1970s. He returned to New York for a brief five-year stay in the '80s, where he continued writing and opening for headliners such as Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Tania Maria and Etta James.

Bibb went to London in 1996 at the invitation of the London Blues Festival; that year he was named "Best Newcomer" by the British Blues Awards. Since then, he has toured the world, performing with his band at many major festivals including the Vancouver, Edmonton & Calgary Folk Festivals in Canada; Montreal Jazz Festival; Chicago World Music Festival; San Francisco Jazz Festival and numerous others. He has been featured on House of Blues Radio Hour twice, with Elwood Blues hailing him, saying "You are what the blues in the new century should be about."

He garnered W. C. Handy nominations for his albums Spirit and the Blues and Home to Me, a Best Acoustic Blues Song of the Year nomination for "Kokomo" from his 2001 Painting Signs album, and a Best Acoustic Blues Artist of the Year Handy nomination. Painting Signs was also recognized by New Age Voice as a finalist for Best Folk Album of 2001. For his collaboration with Taj Mahal and Linday Tillery & the Cultural Heritage Choir on the children's record Shakin' a Tailfeather, Bibb earned a Grammy® nomination.

Bibb's album Painting Signs charted on Gavin's AAA and Album Network's Totally Adult AAA, CMJ and Living Blues charts immediately upon its release. His new release, Natural Light, promises to please loyal fans, increase his popularity, and introduce the American radio audience to his music.

Satisfied with another excellent album, a synergistic band, an ace producer and a busy tour year ahead of him, Bibb continues to spread his message of hopeful optimism far and wide. And that, after all, is what fuels his fire!