Blind Boy Paxton Returning To New Zealand For Two Shows In April

Bluesman Jerron 'Blind Boy' Paxton is making his way back to New Zealand soil for two shows in April. The formidable multi-instrumentalist, who hails from Los Angeles, was last in the country in early 2016 when he wowed audiences with his ability to invoke the sound from the blues masters of the 20s and 30s such as Fats Waller, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson. Here are the details for his upcoming jaunt ...

Blind Boy Paxton

Wednesday 5th April , Blue Smoke, Christchurch
Thursday 6th April, The Tuning Fork, Auckland

Tickets to the Christchurch show available HERE at UTR, and tickets to the Tuning Fork event available over at Ticketmaster

Here's Blind Boy performing 'Railroad Bill' at North Carolina's Merlefest in 2015...

PRESS RELEASE:

Blind Boy Paxton returns to NZ for two shows in April.

Blind Boy Paxton is a modern day songster, minstrel and bluesman. His name is Jerron (say Jer-Ron as in Geronimo) but you call him Blind Boy. Blind Boy Paxton is the living embodiment of the true blues in the twenty-first century, but plays it all in the true songster tradition: ragtime, hokum, old time, French reels, Appalachian mountain music, blues and lots more.

The multi faceted, physically gigantic, three hundred pound, legally blind, orthodox Jew is only in his late twenties but has earned a reputation for transporting audiences back to the 1920s and making them wish they could stay. He sings and plays the banjo, guitar, piano, fiddle, harmonica, Cajun accordion, and the bones. He has the eerie ability to transform traditional jazz, blues, folk, and country into the here and now, and make it real.

Jerron says “Believe me, the blues is not some half-dead thing hooked up to a respirator. It’s as relevant now as it ever was. Hip Hop is just a newer form of my people’s expression, and the blues is an older one. Ain’t nothing new under the sun. The roots of the tree don’t cast no shadow, but they hold up everything above.”