The PIEDMONT BLUES
Piedmont Blues - also known as East Coast, or Southeastern blues - refers primarily to a guitar style that is comparable in sound to ragtime piano.
This highly syncopated style - characterized by intricate finger-picking in which the thumb alternates bass strings in a rhythmic pattern and the treble strings in a melody - connects closely with the earlier string-band traditions originating in the Piedmont region of the United States (the hilly area between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the Appalachian Mountains, from central Virginia to central Georgia).
Because it integrates rural black blues with the white string-band tradition, integrating ragtime, blues, and country dance songs, it's a style that was - and is - played by both black and white musicians, transcending racial divides.
Piedmont Blues Pioneers
The only known photo of Blind Blake
One of the earliest masters of the Piedmont style was Arthur 'Blind' Blake, known for recordings he made for Paramount Records between 1926 and 1932.
While his birthplace was purported to be Jacksonville, Florida - technically outside the generally accepted Piedmont blues borders - he may have at one time lived with relatives in Patterson, Georgia.
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Known for playing a diverse range of material, Blind Blake was best known for his distinctive guitar which was comparable in sound and style to ragtime piano.
Truly one of the most accomplished guitarists of his genre, his complex and intricate fingerpicking inspired Reverend Gary Davis, Jorma Kaukonen, Ry Cooder, Arlen Roth, John Fahey, Ralph McTell, David Bromberg, Leon Redbone and many others.
Big Bill Broonzy, hearing Blake in person in the early 1920s, said of his guitar playing,"He made it sound like every instrument in the band- saxophone, trombone, clarinets, bass fiddles, pianos - everything. I never had see''d then and I haven't to this day yet see'd no one that could take his natural fingers and pick as much guitar as Blind Blake."
Hailing from Durham, NC, the Reverend Gary Davis was a finger-picking and performing powerhouse.
After becoming blind as an young child, Davis first performed professionally in the Piedmont Blues scene of Durham, North Carolina in the 1930s. He later converted to Christianity and became a minister.
Upon moving to New York in the 1940s, Davis experienced a career rebirth as part of the American folk music revival that peaked during the 1960s. HIs most notable recordings include "Samson and Delilah" and "Death Don't Have No Mercy
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His piano-like fingerpicking guitar style influenced many artists. His students included Stefan Grossman, David Bromberg, Roy Book Binder, Dave Van Ronk, Rory Block, Ernie Hawkins, Larry Campbell,the Grateful Dead's Bob Weir, Woody Mann, and Tom Winslow.
He also notably influenced Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, Jorma Kaukonen, Keb' Mo' and John Sebastian (of the Lovin' Spoonful).
Fulton Allen - a.k.a. 'Blind Boy Fuller' - was the Piedmont blues' most popular recording artist.
Hailing from Wadesboro, NC, Fuller learned guitar as a boy. Due to eye illnesses he suffered in his mid-teens he began to lose his eyesight and became fully blind by his mid-twenties.
Like many disabled people in the days before social services, he had to make his way however he could - which for him meant busking in the streets.
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After eventually studying under Gary Davis, Fuller eventually recorded over 120 sides, released by several labels. His style of singing was rough and direct, and his lyrics were explicit and uninhibited, drawing on every aspect of his experience as an underprivileged, blind black man on the streets - pawnshops, jailhouses, sickness, death - with an honesty that lacked sentimentality. Although he was not sophisticated, his artistry as a folk singer lay in the honesty and integrity of his self-expression. His songs expressed desire, love, jealousy, disappointment, menace and humor, and his charismatic style drove record sales.
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Though derided by some as being derivative of other artists, his ability to fuse elements of traditional and contemporary songs then reformulate them in his own performances attracted a broad audience - and he became arguably the best selling artist in the Piedmont genre.
Mississippi John Hurt - who became a close friend of Archie Edwards - was a definitive Piedmont blues artist.
John Hurt's influence on the Piedmont Blues cannot be overstated.
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Raised just outside Avalon, Mississippi, he taught himself to play the guitar around age nine. Later working as a sharecropper, he began playing dances and parties, singing in a warm baritone to his melodious, fingerpicked accompaniment.
In 1928 he made several recordings for Okeh Records. Unfortunately, due to his recordings failing commercially, he returned to farming near Avalon.
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After toiling for years in obscurity, blues enthusiasts Dick Spottswood and Tom Hoskins - great fans of his rare 1928 recordings - tracked him down in 1963, able to find him only because of his song, 'Avalon Blues' gave a hint to where he might be located. Once they persuaded him to move to Washington, DC, John soon met and befriended Archie Edwards.
John was recorded by the Library of Congress in 1964 which helped further the American folk music revival - which in turn led to the rediscovery of many other bluesmen of Hurt's era like Skip James and Son House. Hurt performed on the university and coffeehouse concert circuit with other Delta blues musicians who were brought out of retirement. He also recorded several albums for Vanguard Records.
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In 1966 Hurt returned to Grenada, Mississippi where he died at the age of 73.
Elizabeth Cotten: an unconventional left -handed blues master
(years before Jimi Hendrix).
While most well-know Piedmont Blues musicians were men, Elizabeth 'Libba' Cotten (née Nevill) was a woman with a style all her own.
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A self-taught guitarist, she was a leftie who played a right-handed-strung guitar upside-down; this meant she had to play the bass lines with her fingers and the melody with her thumb.
Her signature alternating bass style has become known as "Cotten-picking".
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Her album Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar (1958), was placed into the National Recording Registry by the Library of Congress, and was deemed as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". The album included a song she wrote in her early teens, her signature recording, 'Freight Train' - which quickly became one of the Piedmont blues' most famous finger-picking songs.
In 1984, her live album 'Elizabeth Cotten Live!' won her a Grammy Award for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording,t the age of 90.
That same year, Cotten was recognized as a National Heritage Fellow by the National Endowment for the Arts.
In 2022, she was posthumously inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, as an early influence.
The Washington DC Blues Scene
Besides Archie Edwards, the Washington DC area has been home to several extraordinary blues musicians who jammed at his barbershop and who traveled nationally and internationally presenting the music of the Piedmont region.
Four Piedmont musicians from the surrounding area have since been awarded National Heritage Fellowships (the United States Government's highest honor for Folk and Traditional Arts) by the National Endowment of the Arts.
In 1986 the NEA granted its honor to Woodville, VA's blues musician and grave digger John Jackson (1924-2002).
Born into a musical family, John learned to play the guitar at an early age.
After moving to Fairfax, Virginia as an adult he became a regular at Archie's barbershop, and played as part of the Travelling Blues Workshop, which included Archie, Flora Molton, Mother Scott, and Phil Wiggins and John Cephas. He toured Europe and the US several time, usually playing folk or blues festivals.
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His first recordings were released in the early 1960s by Arhoolie Records. He later recorded for Rounder Records and Alligator Records.
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Reviewing Jackson's 1978 record 'Step It Up and Go' in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981), Robert Christgau said, "His guitar style is eclectic, as befits a man who got his best songs from Blind Boy Fuller and Blind Blake 78s but who also played in a country band in the early '40s. His voice is guttural yet well-defined. No innovator, and not as arresting through a whole side as he is at the outset, he's nevertheless responsible for the most pleasing (and well-recorded) new country blues record I've heard in years."
In 1989, Bowling Green, VA guitarist John Cephas (1930-2009) was likewise honored.
Like his partner harmonica maestro Phil Wiggins, John was born in Washington, DC - but he moved to grow up in Bowling Green, Virginia.
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After moving back to DC, John met Phil (who was twenty-four years younger) in 1976 at the Smithsonian's Festival of American Folklife. The pair began playing together as part of Wilbert "Big Chief" Ellis's band. When Ellis died, they decided to continue on as a duo.
As part of the Travelling Blues Workshop, Cephas & Wiggins often performed around Washington, DC with local artists Archie Edwards, John Jackson, Flora Molton, and Mother Scott.
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Their first U.S. album 'Dog Days of August' was issued by Flying Fish Records in 1986. After releasing two more albums on that label, they released one with the New York–based Chesky Records then four albums for Alligator Records. In 2008 they released the album 'Richmond Blues' on Folkways Records.
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Courtesy of the sponsorship of the United States Department of State, they toured across the USA, Africa, Asia, South and Central America, and the Soviet Union
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In 2009 Cephas died of pulmonary fibrosis at age 78.
In 2011 the NEA awarded its Heritage Fellowship to songster to Archie's friend and Barbershop regular Warner Williams (1930-2021).
Piedmont-style singer and guitarist Warner Williams (born 1930) grew up in a musical family in the Washington, DC suburb of Takoma Park, Maryland and began performing in public in his teens, first on the streets of DC then later at city night spots.
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Often referred to as a "songster" for his breadth of genres, his diverse repertoire displayed a diverse range of musical influences: from bluesmen like Blind Boy Fuller, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Muddy Waters to country artists such as Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, and Gene Autry - and even jazz, big band, and popular tunes.
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Until his death in 2021, Warner brought the Piedmont blues to schools, nightclubs, and folk festivals at DC's Smithsonian Institute, often playing alongside his musical partner, harmonica player Jay Summerour.
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Folklorist Nick Spitzer, referred to Williams as a musical almanac, saying, "Indeed, Warner Williams the guitar man brings consummate playing to his eclectic repertoire, complete with unexpected jazz chords, jaunty single-string work, ragtime strums, and basic Piedmont finger-picking -- all complementing his warm, gravelly voice."
Harmonica maestro and AEBHF Board Member Phil Wiggins (1954-2024) was honored in 2017.
Beyond being a harmonica player in the Piedmont blues tradition, Takoma Park, MD's Phil Wiggins - with his stylistic virtuosity, and fiery solo runs - took the instrument to new heights. Cupping both hands around the instrument, his sound was not shaped by a microphone and amplifier but instead by his complex syncopated patterns, breath control and rhythm.
In the 1970s a teenaged Phil he played the Smithsonian National Folklife Festival with DC street singer Flora Molton, sitting in with blues greats Johnny Shines, Sunnyland Slim, Sam Chatmon, Robert Belfour, and Howard Armstrong. By 1973 he was embraced by the Washington, DC blues elders: John Jackson, Archie Edwards and his future duo partner John Cephas.
Billed as 'Cephas & Wiggins' they performed internationally for 32 years, notably playing Carnegie Hall, London's Prince Albert Hall and the Sydney Opera House and recording more than a dozen critically acclaimed albums. In 1984 they won the prestigious W.C. Handy Blues Award for 'Best Traditional Album' and another in '87 as 'Entertainers of the Year'. In 1989 they performed at the White House with B.B. King.
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After John's passing Phil performed with musicians such as Nat Reese, Corey Harris, Australian guitarist Dom Turner, Ben Hunter and Joe Seamons, Sherman Holmes, George Kilby Jr., the Rev. John Wilkins, Jerron Paxton, and longtime friends Eleanor Ellis and Rick Franklin. He fronted the acoustic swing/roots/blues ensemble the Chesapeake Sheiks and was actively engaged in reuniting the Piedmont blues with its origins of African-American buck and tap dancing.
Phil taught thousands of burgeoning harmonica players. He served as the artistic director for the Augusta Heritage Center of Davis & Elkins College in West Virginia and the Port Townsend Acoustic Blues Workshop in Washington State. Phil also served on the board of directors for the National Council for Traditional Arts and, of course, our own AEBHF.
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In May, 2024 Phil died of cancer at the age of 69.
photo courtesy Bibiana Huang Matheis
Contemporary Piedmont Blues Artists
There are many touring musicians keeping the Piedmont blues tradition alive; here's a select few:
Raised in rural Georgia, Jontavious Willis discovered the blues as a boy.
Jontavious Willis is resolved in his mission: to reinvigorate today’s Blues with the spirit of the past. Inspired by a time when the Blues were plentiful and rhythm reigned supreme, Jontavious leverages his unique sound—a synthesis of his Georgia heritage and reverence for traditional Blues—to get the world dancing again. A Grammy-nominated musician and songwriter, Jontavious performs original, toe-tapping tunes in the style of Delta, Piedmont, Texas, and Gospel Blues. Dynamic vocals, technical prowess, and an abundance of Southern charm keep Jontavious sending jolts of vitality through the Blues community.
New York City's Piedmont Blūz Acoustic Duo takes their name from the style.
Husband-and-wife duo Valerie and Benedict Turner are ambassadors of Country Blues music, the Piedmont style of fingerpicking, and roots percussion. Their mission is to help bring awareness to these unique aspects of African-American culture and the contributions of early blues artists through performing and teaching.
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Valerie's fingerpicking is reminiscent of the intricate stylings of Mississippi John Hurt, Elizabeth Cotten, and Etta Baker. Although the Piedmont style is her main focus, her repertoire also includes pieces from the Delta Blues tradition. Benedict tastefully accompanies Valerie with a washboard style he developed after being inspired by Newman Taylor Baker, a classically trained drummer, and Washboard Chaz of Louisiana fame. Sometimes, he chimes in on bones or harp.
Hailing from Richmond, Virginia, Justin Golden breaths new life into the style.
With roots in the Mississippi Delta, Chicago, and the Piedmont of Virginia, Richmond-based guitarist and songwriter Justin Golden’s origins are deeply vested in the blues. First picking up the guitar at age 19, Golden did what came naturally - he let the music flow through him.
With an extremely diverse musical palette, Golden aims to bring some new ideas to traditional blues forms. In addition to his work as a recording and performing artist, Golden maintains a busy teaching schedule and works with the non-profit, 'The Rhapsody Project' to provide community enrichment through anti-racist cultural heritage programs.
Todd Albright is keeping the 12-string blues tradition alive.
Todd Albright is a country blues, twelve string guitar player and vocalist based in Detroit, Michigan. Grounded in the pre-war era of the blues tradition (1880-1939), Todd is a mindful purveyor of blues history. His repertoire upholds musical pillars such as Blind Willie McTell, George Carter, Blind Lemon Jefferson and Leadbelly. His life’s work continues the distinguished tradition of the very roots of American music as told by the African American musicians who created it.
Todd's vigorous, gritty and soulful performances are accompanied by stories of the masters and a deep intuitive sense of respect for craft, providing audiences with a meaningful experience while creating a transcendent moment. One of the top blues guitarists in the world, Todd is the only contemporary twelve string player in his genre.
Hubby Jenkins is a talented multi-instrumentalist who endeavors to share his love and knowledge of old-time American music.
Born and raised in Brooklyn he delved into his southern roots, following the thread of African American history that wove itself through America's traditional music forms. As an integral member of the Carolina Chocolate Drops and later Rhiannon Giddens band, Hubby has performed at festivals and venues around the world, earning himself both Grammy and Americana award nominations. Today he spreads his knowledge and love of old-time American music through his dynamic solo performances and engaging workshops.
Resonator guitar and ukulele player Del Rey specializes in blues and jazz from 1900 to 1950
Del Rey began playing guitar at just four years old. An avowed fan of Memphis Minnie, Del developed a Women in American Music concert/lecture series to provide an historical and cultural look at the contribution of women to music in the early 20th century. While also a ukulele master, she is recognized for her syncopated style of guitar and intricate finger picking, with Acoustic Guitar Magazine calling her, "one of the greatest modern players of the metal-bodied resonator guitar.”
Mary Flower is a premier Piedmont and Ragtime-style finger-picker.
Now based in Portland, Oregon, one of America's foremost roots performers is Midwest native Mary Flower, who continues to impress crowds and critics at folk festivals in America and abroad. She combines a deep historical knowledge with a restless creativity that - while echoing influences from Piedmont to the Mississippi Delta, with additional stops at ragtime, swing, folk, and hot jazz - keeps her music evolving into new creative territory.
If one needs proof that the fingerpicking Piedmont Blues style has transcended American borders, look no further than Italy's Alessandro Ponti.
Influenced by ragtime and the traditional Piedmont style (with a heavy dose of Big Bill Broonzy), Milan, Italy native Alessandro Ponti won the 2023 International Blues Challenge. His next stop was Memphis where he was a semifinalist.
Besides performing at the AEBHF numerous times, Ale has performed at venues around the globe. In 2020 noted blues artist Corey Harris asked Alessandro to join him in his Italian tour, just before the release of Ale's album 'Dead Railroad line Chronicles'.
Resources
Websites and Periodicals:
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The Country Blues​ - site by noted blues writer and historian Frank Matheis. A veritable treasure trove of information for country blues enthusiasts. A regular contributor to Living Blues magazine, Frank was also a close friend of harmonica master and AEBHF board member Phil Wiggins.
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Living Blues magazine - one of the few periodicals covering the blues scene.
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American Folklife Center - Library of Congress. The Center comprises an extraordinary collection of audio recordings, photographs, stories, and other materials regarding American music, providing archive collections, early field recordings, and research assistance. Most of the Center’s resources are accessible online.
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Wirz American Music - Website by Steven Wirz that includes biographies, photos, discographies and an extensive, searchable database of blues musicians.
Selected Bibliography:
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Baker, Bruce E.; Holden, Charles J. “Blues.” Encyclopedia of North Carolina. University of North Carolina Press. 2006
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Bastin, Bruce. Crying for the Carolines. London: Studio Vista. 1971
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Bastin, Bruce. Red River Blues: The Blues Tradition in the Southeast. Urbana; Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 1995
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Cohen, Andrew M. "The Hands of Blues Guitarists." In Evans, David. Ramblin' on My Mind: New Perspectives on the Blues. Urbana; Chicago: University of Illinois Press. 2008
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Harrington, Richard. “The Piedmont Style.” The Washington Post. 29 August 2003
Hedin, Benjamin. “Picking Up the Piedmont Blues.” Oxford America. Issue 95. Winter 2016
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Herzhaft, Gerard. Encyclopedia of the Blues. The University of Arkansas Press, 1992
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McCarthy, Alex. "Preserving the Piedmont Blues." Blue Ridge Outdoors, May 2021
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Pearson, Barry Lee. “Apalachian Blues from the Mountain.” Smithsonian Folkways Magazine. Summer 2010
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Pearson, Barry Lee. Virginia Piedmont Blues: The Lives and Art of Two Virginia Bluesmen. The University of Pennsylvania Press, 1990
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Puryear, Mark. "Downtown Musical Ministry of Flora Molton." Smithsonian Folkways Magazine. February, 2020
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Welker, Gayle; Lowry, Peter B. "Piedmont Blues." In Komera, Edward, Routledge. Encyclopedia of the Blues. New York: Routledge
2006
Wiggins, Phil; Matheis, Frank. Sweet Bitter Blues: Washington DC's Homemade Blues. University of Mississippi Press
Piedmont Blues: North Carolina Style. Video produced and directed by Jim Bramlett. UNC-TV. 1998
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