Songwriters Les Kerr, Blue Mother Tupelo (Ricky & Micol Davis) and Mark Robinson will headline the fourth annual “Original Blues Concert,” on October 12, 2011, at the Bluebird Café, 4104 Hillsboro Pike, Nashville, Tennessee. Showtime is 9:00 p.m. and tickets (prices tba) will be available October 5, 2011 at www.bluebirdcafe.com
The Original Blues concept was devised by Kerr as a way to bring original, blues-oriented material to the Bluebird Café, Nashville’s premier songwriting venue. The artists performing also have Americana influences, but blues will be the focus of the evening’s music.
No stranger to Bluebird Café audiences, Kerr has hosted 20 annual Mardi Gras concerts there and is a periodic performer and host at the venue throughout the year. His original song Mackinac Blues was included in NPR’s All Songs Considered and Kerr recently participated in the Mississippi Songwriters Festival. He was recently in Civil War Songs and Stories, a 2011 documentary aired on WNPT, Nashville Public Television. The show will soon be offered to other PBS affiliates.
A three-time Music City Blues Society award nominee, Kerr was nominated for the organization’s Male Vocalist of the Year, Entertainer of the Year and CD of the Year awards. The Mississippi Gulf Coast native was called by OffBeat Magazine of New Orleans, “…a bluesy Johnny Cash,” in a review of his Red Blues CD.
He has recorded six CDs, including his latest, New Orleans Set. As leader of Les Kerr & The Bayou Band, Kerr has performed at Nashville’s Jefferson Street Jazz & Blues Festival, the Franklin Jazz Festival, and the official July 4 Celebration at Riverfront Park. He also tours with his band and as a solo performer. Influenced by New Orleans music, Kerr has shared billing with Crescent City blues and Zydeco favorites Marcia Ball in New Orleans and Terrence Simien in Nashville.
Blue Mother Tupelo, the husband and wife team of Ricky Davis (acoustic & electric guitars, Dobro, vocals) and Micol Davis (piano, tambourine, vocals) began performing as a duo in 1995. They have become favorite performers in the Nashville area and tour nationally, as well. Unique, passionate, and inspired, Blue Mother Tupelo is pure heart and soul. It’s been said that a BMT performance is like stepping into a “Pentecostal revival” — with Ricky and Micol’s gritty, sweet, soulful harmonies, earthy sounds of gutbucket guitar and slide, gospel piano & roadhouse pounding of tambourines.
They’ve opened shows for The Subdudes, Sonny Landreth, and Otha Turner’s Rising Star Fife and Drum Band, among other notable acts. They shared PRI’s Mountain Stage lineup with Charlie Musselwhite, Robert Lockwood, Jr. and Guster. The duo has been nominated Best Acoustic Blues Act and Micol as Female Vocalist of the Year by the Music City Blues Society.
The story of Mark Robinson is the story of his CD, QUIT YOUR JOB – PLAY GUITAR. After college, Mark moved to Chicago and had the chance to play with some American blues legends, including Lonnie Brooks, Jimmy Johnson, Koko Taylor and Son Seals. When he returned to Bloomington to take a job, he continued to perform with acclaimed Americana acts including Carrie Newcomer, Tom Roznowski, and Bob Cheevers and soul blues artist Tad Robinson.
In 2004, Mark quit his job to play guitar in Nashville. It was the right move. In Music City, Mark has played and recorded with Davis Raines, Randy Handley, Walt Wilkins & the Mystiqueros, Tricia Walker, Kent Blazy, Cory Batten, Johnny Neel, Brian Langlinais, Tom Ghent, and Joe Sun—to name a few. He’s also produced and engineered several CDs for others artists in his studio.
Living music fulltime not only allowed Mark’s playing to reach new heights, it also resulted in a songwriting explosion, singly and with acclaimed co-writers such as Davis Raines and Randy Handley. Mark wrote songs in all genres, especially Americana and blues—and he continued to stretch artistically. The songs on his first solo CD are blues/country-infused, guitar-based roots music. But though he takes his inspiration from many, Mark Robinson is not an imitator. Every song bears his highly personal musical stamp.
Originals such as “Runaway Train” and “The Fixer” are steeped in roots and blues, alt-country comes calling with the catchy “This Old Heart,” and New Orleans spices up “Backup Plan.” But Mark’s musical soul is most exposed on the Memphis soul ballad “Try One More Time” — with Johnny Neel’s haunting B-3 and the testifying background vocals of Vickie Carrico and the legendary Tracy Nelson, it’s a knock-out.
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