Cephas & Wiggins

The duo of acoustic guitarist John Cephas and harpist Phil Wiggins enjoyed a partnership spanning many decades, where time they emerged among modern music’s most noticeable exponents from the Piedmont blues tradition. Both had been given birth to in Washington, D.C., although Wiggins was 25 % century more youthful than his partner; they fulfilled in a jam program in 1977, and both performed as regular users of Wilbert “Big Main” Ellis’ Barrelhouse Rockers for a while ahead of Ellis’ loss of life. Their music, rooted within the rural African-American dance music of Virginia and NEW YORK, showed the impact of Blind Boy Fuller, Gary Davis, and Sonny Terry, with a wide repertoire comprising Piedmont blues requirements in addition to an eclectic sampling of Delta stylings, R&B, ballads, ragtime, gospel, and nation & traditional western; onward using their 1984 debut, Nice Bitter Blues, Cephas & Wiggins’ audio applied advanced traditional instrumentation and contemporary gospel-edged vocals to both traditional requirements and their very own hard-hitting compositions, supplying a soulful acoustic substitute for electric blues. A favorite festival act, in addition they released LPs including 1986’s W.C. Handy Award-winning Doggie Times of August, 1988’s Strolling Blues, 1992’s Turn, Flop and Travel, and 1996’s COOL OFF. They kept heading solid and in 1999 released their ninth record, Homemade, for the renowned Alligator label. In 2000, Bullseye Blues released From Richmond to Atlanta, a compilation of paths from Cephas & Wiggins’ three Traveling Fish albums documented between 1984 and 1992. The duo continuing to tour and enjoy festivals, assisting to keep carefully the Piedmont sound alive. In the summertime of 2002, they released Someone Told the reality, an assortment of aged and new songs that reintroduced them to another era of blues followers. Shoulder to Make made an appearance in 2006 from Alligator Information. Richmond Blues adopted in 2008 from Smithsonian Folkways.