Blues: Walk Through the Delta with Poor Howard Stith
"Poor Howard" Stith has been performing 12-string barrelhouse blues for over forty
years. As a student of Dave "Snaker" Ray in Minneapolis, he perfected
his 12-string guitar style and showed that Delta blues could be found at
both ends of the Mississippi. This led a fellow Minneapolis performer
to tag him with the moniker “Poor Howard”, after the Leadbelly song.
Over the years, Poor Howard has performed across the U.S., Europe and
Japan, entertaining audiences in coffeehouses, bars and at festivals
with his dazzling guitar, heartfelt voice, and seemingly endless supply
of anecdotes, puns and shaggy dog stories. Poor Howard's blues style is
drawn from the tradition of Huddie Ledbetter (Leadbelly) and Blind Willy
McTell, incorporating a powerful bass line along with flashy
finger-picking. His guitar style and poignant vocals can carry the
listener into the world of rowdy barrelhouses or into the field at the
end of a long day of weeding crops. His passion and reverence for the
country blues of the 20’s and 30’s is infectious, and he instills a new
interest in this roots music where ever he performs. Howard presents a
program that is both entertaining and educational. In addition to his
unique guitar style, Poor Howard's show is punctuated with regional and
eclectic humor and puns that have caused more than one person to call
out, "That's poor, Howard!" (There are those who actually believe that's
how he picked up the name.) Recently, Howard has teamed up with
harmonica player, Mike "Bullfrog" Rogers, a forty year veteran whose
styles range from folk to blues. In the past, Mike has opened for such
performers as John Hammond, Luther "Guitar" Johnson and Emmylou Harris.
Mike also appears with the groups Salt River and Wooden Eye, and has
appeared on over thirty CDs. This program is free and open to all. Don’t
miss this one!
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
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