Event

ROY BOOK BINDER AT SANDYWOODS

FRIDAY, MAY 24, 2013 - ROY BOOK BINDER

8 pm, doors open 7:30 pm
BYOB & food allowed
$18 advance, $20 at the door
ADVANCE TICKETS AT

Back in the early 60's, Roy Book Binder learned his craft from the legendary blind street singer, Reverend Gary Davis, who was thrust into the national spotlight when Peter, Paul and Mary recorded his song, "If I Had My Way."

After two years of traveling the folk-blues circuit with his mentor, Roy struck out on his own. Along the way, he befriended Pink Anderson, an old Carolina medicine show performer, and the "Pink" in Pink Floyd). Pink's stories and songs will forever be kept alive as long as Roy has a stage to perform on.

In his travels, Roy has run across quite a cast of characters, including three peg-legged dancers and a 90-year-old classic blues singer with a sparkling smile, who was known as "Diamond Teeth" Mary. All of these characters have become a part of Roy's repertoire. Aside from his accomplished fingerpicking, Roy is known for his dry wit and hilarious monologues, often about his adventures with Reverend Davis.

He has toured with Bonnie Raitt, Hot Tuna and J.J. Cale. He is a crowd favorite at many festivals, including the Philadelphia Folk Festival, the National Story Telling Festival, the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, the Chicago Blues Festival, and MerleFest, where he has hosted the acoustic blues stage for the past 14 years.

Musically, Roy is difficult to fence in or categorize. His eclectic repertoire includes blues, country tunes, bluegrass, folk, and popular songs that originated on Tin Pan Alley. He fantasizes that if he had been born 50 years earlier, he would have become a minstrel man. He is still out on the road, entertaining audiences around the world, a story-telling, fingerpicking blues legend.