Event

Jon Shain, Piedmont Blues

Over the years, Jon Shain has developed and refined his own contemporary version of the Piedmont Blues, a bouncy, energetic style that developed in Shain's adopted hometown of Durham, NC and elsewhere around the region. "I'd done several albums in a row that really sound like my live group: heavy on the harmonica, heavy on the dobro, and with a sound that is identifiably folk-blues," Shain says. "I knew I wanted to do something different this time."

Jon grew up in Haverhill, Massachusetts, a Merrimack River mill-town that had already seen its better days by the time he was a child in the 1970s. His family's business was a small textile dyeing company, and he worked in the factory during the summers throughout his teens. At the same time, Shain began to discover his love of American roots music and songwriting, specifically drawn to the narratives about regular people and themes of social justice.

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Opener Robin O'Herin is a Berkshire-based, touring blues and gospel musician, specializing in historically rich, often interactive concerts that feature original and traditional Delta blues and gospel, for small listening rooms, festivals, libraries and schools. Her instruments are bottleneck and fingerstyle guitar, ukelele and mountain dulcimer. Her concerts are warm, affirming experiences which she shares with the audience. Let her take you on a journey of musical exploration through the Delta and Piedmont regions of the South. Song selections may include Robert Johnson, Blind Willie Johnson and Robin's own original blues and fingerstyle ballads.