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| Blind Boy Paxton Announces March Shows In New Zealand Bluesman Jerron 'Blind Boy' Paxton is winging his way to New Zealand in March for a four-date tour. The 27-year-old multi-instrumentalist, who hails from Los Angeles and lost most of his eyesight by the age of 16, has carved out a firm reputation for his ability to assimilate the rawness of blues music that emerged from America during the 20s and 30s. Paxton is heading to New Zealand for his first ever shows on these shores as he prepares to play at the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Here are the details... Blind Boy Paxton Thursday 10th March, The Tuning Fork, Auckland Friday 11th March, The Naval Point Club, Lyttelton Saturday 12th March, Bodega, Wellington Sunday 13th March, Black Barn, Havelock North "Lightnin' Hopkins. Jimmy Reed. Bukka White. "I realized when I heard it, " Paxton says. "That's the sound my people make." "He's — pardon the expression — a magic negro, " says Los Angeles–based musician and performer Brad Kay, a longtime friend and mentor. "I think he could walk into a meeting of the Ku Klux Klan and have them all singing along." At sixteen he played his first official concert, a $100 solo gig at the William Grant Still Arts Center in South Central's West Adams neighbourhood. He played songs by Blind Lemon Jefferson and Lightnin' Hopkins, accompanying himself on banjo and guitar. "The most fun I'd ever had in the world, " he says, "was seeing this 90-year-old woman, just shaking her shit with her grandchildren." "Blind Boy Paxton, the world's greatest kosher blues singer!" - Wall Street Journal Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton's style draws from blues and jazz music before World War II and was influenced by Fats Waller and "Blind" Lemon Jefferson. According to Will Friedwald in the Wall Street Journal, Paxton is "virtually the only music-maker of his generation—playing guitar, banjo, piano and violin, among other implements—to fully assimilate the blues idiom of the 1920s and '30s, the blues of Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson. Born in 1989, Blind Boy Paxton hails from Los Angeles. His first visit to New Zealand and Australia will see him play four centres in New Zealand, the Byron Bays Blues Festival, and opening Australian side shows for Tedeschi Trucks. write your comments about the article :: © 2016 Jazz News :: home page |