TAB BENOIT & SPECIAL GUEST: March 9, Orpheum Theatre $44 & $29
Returning to Sioux Falls after a sellout performance last year, Tab Benoit has been a guitar player since his teenage years. He hung out at the Blues Box, a ramshackle music club and cultural center in nearby Baton Rouge run by guitarist Tabby Thomas. Playing guitar alongside Thomas, Raful Neal, Henry Gray and other high-profile regulars at the club, Benoit learned the blues first-hand from a faculty of living blues legends. He took his show on the road in the early ‘90s and hasn’t stopped since.
An environmental activist as well as a stellar blues musician, Benoit has made the preservation of the endangered delta wetlands his personal crusade. He serves as president of Voice of the Wetlands, an environmental organization he co-founded in 2003.
Tab Benoit’s high energy guitar blues will bring home the sounds of the bayou once again. And this time he’s bringing friends Michael Doucet and Chubby Carrier along with him.
An environmental activist as well as a stellar blues musician, Benoit has made the preservation of the endangered delta wetlands his personal crusade. He serves as president of Voice of the Wetlands, an environmental organization he co-founded in 2003.
His 2011 appearance in the Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues Concert Series sold out.
Michael Doucet is a Cajun fiddler, singer and songwriter who founded the Cajun band BeauSoleil from Lafayette, Louisiana.
In 2005 Doucet was one of 12 recipients of the National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts. The NEA award, which recognizes artistic excellence, cultural authenticity and an artist's contributions, is the highest honor in U.S. folk and traditional arts. Doucet received Grammy Awards in both 1998 and 2009 for work with Beausoleil.
Roy "Chubby" Carrier is a Zydeco musician and leader of Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band.
He was taught to play accordion by his father, Roy Carrier Sr., and played with his father's band at age 12, first on accordion and then on drums. He played drums with Terrance Simien from 1986 until 1989, then formed a group of his own with his brothers Troy and Kevin.
Carrier has made guest appearances on albums by Tab Benoit and Jimmy Thackery, and won a Grammy for his own 2010 release Zydeco Junkie.
“Last year we sold out the show with Tab Benoit and he was such a fan favorite I had no trouble asking him back.” Robert Joyce, Executive Director for Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues stated. “But I said to him, ‘What if we can bring along some of your friends you like to jam with and we make it a real party’ and before I could finish my sentence he was smiling and talking about Chubby and Michael.”
Joyce adds “Both Michael Doucet and Chubby Carrier are amazing musicians in their own right, but when added to Tab’s powerhouse trio, I think this will make for a night to remember.”
SMOKIN' JOE KUBEK & B'NOIS KING: April 13, Orpheum Theatre $38 & $28
For almost 20 years, the red-hot Texas rockin’ blues of Smokin’ Joe Kubek and B'nois King has been thrilling music fans all around the world. Kubek’s raucous roadhouse fretwork is expertly complimented by the equally fiery guitar and soulful vocals of B'nois King. With literally thousands of live performances under their collective belt, the two create a one-two punch of raw, tough, blues-rock filled with intensity and purpose.
Gigging with legendary musicians like Stevie Ray Vaughan, Albert King, Freddie King and B.B. King, Kubek learned first-hand how to live and play the blues and how to lead a band.
From the smallest Texas roadhouse to clubs and concert stages all over the country and around the world, Kubek and King—band mates and blood brothers—are ready to welcome everyone into their Texas blues family.
Tickets for all the shows go on sale on August 29th. Call Sioux Falls Jazz & Blues Society at 335-6101 or visit the ticket link here.
