Veteran singer Rory Block shares a lifetime of musical inspiration
Acoustic blues legend Rory Block is in concert in Eureka on April 16 at 7:30 p.m. at the Eureka Auditorium Theater.
Heralded as "a living landmark" (Berkeley Express), "a national treasure" (Guitar Extra), and "one of the greatest living acoustic blues artists" (Blues Revue), Block has committed her life and her career to preserving the Delta blues tradition and bringing it to life for 21st-century audiences around the world.
A traditionalist and an innovator at the same time, she wields a fiery and haunting guitar and vocal style that redefines the boundaries of acoustic blues and folk. The New York Times declared: "Her playing is perfect, her singing otherworldly as she wrestles with ghosts, shadows and legends."
Aurora "Rory" Block grew up in Manhattan in a family with Bohemian leanings. Her father owned a Greenwich Village sandal shop, where musicians like Bob Dylan, Maria Muldaur and John Sebastian all made occasional appearances.
Her first major recording was with the Boston-based Rounder label, which released her "High Heeled Blues" in 1981. Rolling Stone referred to the album as "some of the most singular and affecting country blues anyone - man or. woman, black or white, old or young - has cut in recent years."
She stayed with Rounder for the next two decades, making records that simultaneously indulged her affinity for traditional country blues and served as a platform for her own formidable songwriting talents.
The world started taking notice in the early 1990s, and Block scored numerous awards throughout the decade. She brought home W.C. Handy Awards four years in a row - two for Traditional Blues Female Artist of the Year, and two for Best Acoustic Blues Album of the Year. Her visibility overseas increased dramatically when the collection "Best Blues and Originals," fueled by the single "Love and Whiskey," went gold in parts of Europe.
Block joined the Telarc label with the 2003 release of "Last Fair Deal," a mix of eight original tunes and six compelling covers of early blues and gospel songs - a recording she characterized as "a total celebration of my beloved instrument and best friend, the guitar." She joined blues soulmates Maria Muldaur and Eric Bibb less than a year later for "Sisters & Brothers," a collaborative 2004 recording that captured the rootsy, gospel-flavored synergy of these three veteran performers.
Block's second solo effort on Telarc, "From the Dust," was released in February. Driven by Block's soulful and fiery guitar/vocal attack and her impeccable rhythmic sense, the new album seamlessly merges distinctive original material from her own pen with timeless classics from some of the great bluesmen of the early and mid-20th century.
General admission tickets for Rory Block are $18 and can be purchased at the Sunburst Foundation office, 100 Dewey Ave. in Eureka, or Montana Coffee Traders south of Whitefish on U.S. 93.
Sponsored by the Sunburst Community Service Foundation, the concert is a fund-raiser for local arts activities.
For more information, call the Sunburst Foundation at 297-0197.
"Rory Block has been an inspiration to me since we started out years ago. Her singing, playing and songwriting are some of the most soulful in traditional and modern blues."
BONNIE RAITT